Stompin' Tom Connors - Stompin' Tom Connors Meets Big Joe Mufferaw (1970)

Stompin' Tom Meets Big Joe Mufferaw is one of Stompin' Tom's earliest albums that includes all of his most distinct traits. Each song sounds like it was crafted especially for campfires in Northern Ontario. Each song is ready for a sing-a-long and a Canadian geography lesson. The title track "Big Joe Mufferaw" creates a Canadian folk hero that rivals Paul Bunyan. Big Joe drinks buckets of gin and beat the "tar" out of twenty-nine men as he carved out the geographic characteristics of Eastern Canada. The most striking song on the album is "The Night I Cremated Sam McGee". Stompin' Tom discusses the night he cremated Sam McGee with a frankness that the poem never had. He speeds up the tempo and abbreviates the familiar story to give the listener an entertaining summary of the poem. Stompin' Tom Meets Big Joe Mufferaw doesn't have any of Stompin' Tom's anthems but includes a full album of songs that are distinctly Tom Connors. The stories of the poor farmer, the coal boat workers, and the Rocky Mountains show Stompin' Tom's roots in Canada and with the experience of the common man.~Matt Whalley