January 16, 2006

Posted January 16, 2006

Canadian TV viewers have something to look forward to!

Shakin' All Over -­ Canadian Pop Music in the 1960's
On CBC Television, Monday, January 30 at 8 P.M.

The flower-power decade gave the world a wealth of great music, from England's mods to America's psychedelic rockers. But the hippie era also gave us cool sounds from the Great White North. It started with the folk music of Ian & Sylvia and the rhythm 'n' blues of Ronnie Hawkins and quickly evolved into a sonic revolution, as literally hundreds of bands and singer-songwriters from coast to coast began making noise. Shakin' All Over captures all of those freewheeling sounds, from such legendary stars as Joni Mitchell, The Guess Who, Neil Young, Anne Murray and The Band to cult heroes like David Wiffen, The Collectors and Mashmakhan. The two-hour special airs on CBC Television, Monday, Jan. 30 at 8 p.m.

Shakin' All Over takes viewers on a trip back in time to Vancouver's 4th Avenue, Winnipeg's community centres, Montreal's dance halls and the clubs and coffeehouses that sprang up along Toronto's Yorkville and Yonge Street. There, in the absence of a music industry, a brave new sound began to emerge. The special is full of candid interviews with more than 60 iconic figures like Gordon Lightfoot, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Bruce Cockburn, who offer illuminating stories about each other. And, the show features an abundance of rare performance clips from the period, from Early Morning Rain to Oh What a Feeling.

But Shakin' All Over also features some of Canada's brightest younger stars, including Blue Rodeo, Barenaked Ladies and Sarah Harmer, who pay tribute to the period. Hawksley Workman tells of being inspired by Ian Tyson, who wrote his first song, Four Strong Winds, after hearing "this punk named Dylan." Matthew Good fondly remembers cranking the volume on Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride. And Sloan's Jay Ferguson draws a connection between the Canadian bands of the '60s and current garage-rock favourites. Said Ferguson: "If you listen to records by The Ugly Ducklings or The Great Scots, they could almost be a hit in this day, because it's so contemporary with the revival of that sound by The White Stripes and The Hives."

Along with vintage archival footage from a variety of sources, including the CBC, Shakin' All Over mines contemporary material to present recent covers of classic Canadian songs, including Diana Krall's spellbinding performance of Joni Mitchell's A Case of You and Margo Timmins' and Tom Cochrane's stunning rendition of The Guess Who's American Woman. This is a music lover's dream: a TV show with non-stop performances, including more than 60 classic songs.

Shakin' All Over is based on the book Before the Gold Rush - Flashbacks to the Dawn of the Canadian Sound by Nicholas Jennings. Directed by Gary McGroarty, and produced by Nick Orchard, Randolph Eustace-Walden and Pierre L. Touchette. Executive producer is Luc Châtelain. Produced by Soapbox Productions and Amérimage-Spectra.