In the realm of music, Gordie Tapp was the first Canadian Gordon who made it big. He was in the country field. Indeed, he was a regular on the country show, Hee Haw. He only had a couple hits because he was more of an entertainer, emcee, broadcaster and writer.
Gordon Lightfoot is the most famous Canadian Gordon musician. With mega hits like Sundown and If You Could Read My Mind, Lightfoot was known world wide and had a huge fan base. Was he folk, country, or rock? No one could really tell but he didn’t need to say, he was just a singer/songwriter that wheedled his way into the hearts and minds of many people.
Gord Deppe is the main songwriter and singer/guitarist for the Canadian rock band The Spoons. They had the hits Nova Heart, Romantic Traffic and Those Old Emotions. He’s also been known to play guitar for Flock of Seagulls.
Gord Downie was the lead singer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip. He led the band through most of their existence and even put out some of his own solo work. He died tragically in 2017 of terminal brain cancer.
Probably all you non Canadians figure that there must be a lot of Canadian Gordons since so many are successful musicians. But that’s just not true. I’ve lived my whole 57 years in Canada and have just personally known 1 Gordon. He was a teacher of mine.
So this famous Canadian musician thing that the Gordons have is a statistical anomaly.
In the very early nineties, the Canadian rock band the Bare Naked Ladies seemed to be doing everything right. Their shock name got the attention of nearly everyone, they had two lead singers and had an album’s worth of songs including 4 or 5 that were ear worms. All they needed was a good album title and perhaps they could guarantee success.
They decided to play it conservatively and went with the name Gordon, simply based on how popular Canadians named Gordon seemed to be in pop. They contrived themselves into a successful release and the rest is history for the band.
