Poor Steve Latimer! Hey my friend, I'll bet you didn't know how much controversy Stompin' Tom could stir up!

Actually he's been pretty controversial ever since he was first noticed by the general public. Not (oddly enough) by the CONTENT of his material, but by the QUALITY of it. For many years he was angry that he never got mainstream airplay...and he blamed that on his rabid "Pro-Canadian" themes. Folks in the industry answered simply that his records were atrociously made (bad sound, tons of mistakes, and totally repetitive) and weren't even close to being playable on air.

He was at times compared to Woody Guthrie, and there are similarities, but Woody was never CLOSE to being a mainstream artist. The big difference was that, although completely rural in background, Guthrie's poetry captured the attention of intellectuals, as well as the (left leaning) working class. Stompin Tom's poetry was mostly seen as bad doggerel with Canadian place names thrown in, by ALL of the "serious" reviewers.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Tom and Woody has been financial acumen. Tom is apparently a very wealthy man from royalties and investments.

Like Bill Monroe, AFTER he had been discovered by a young college crowd, I think Tom has probably mellowed a bit, and I'm sure he enjoys the attention of the kids who'd rather drink their beer to the strains of "Gumboot Clogeroo", "Bud the Spud", and "The Hockey Song" than "Kumbaya"...or Courtney Love.

Rick