Superstar Canadians: The Singers Quiz

Answer: Leonard Cohen

The young woman in the song was 'Suzanne' (and, yes, she really did exist, and she really did serve tea and oranges to her guests at her place by the river). Cohen was born September 21, 1934 in Montreal. After he found himself in financial straits because his former manager Kelley Lynch siphoned off his assets/money into a corporation in her name and left him with only $150,000 to his name, he took to the tour circuit again in 2006.

He was awarded a $9 million settlement against Lynch.

Answer: Diana Krall

Born November 16, 1964, Diana Krall's love of jazz is inherited from her father, Jim. When she was still in high school, Krall joined a jazz combo and began playing regularly in local restaurants. When she was 17 she won a Vancouver International Jazz Festival scholarship to study in Boston and later moved to Los Angeles to continue studying piano with Jimmy Rowles, who also launched her into singing. One of Krall's mentors was Rosemary Clooney.

In 1990 she moved to New York where she met and later married (2003) rock star Elvis Costello.

The couple has twin sons Dexter and Frank, born in 2006. Krall's warm contralto has won her a slew of awards, including Junos and Grammys, and her melted-chocolate voice is admirably suited to the smooth ballads she sings. One of my favourites is a cover she did of Billy Joel's 'Just the Way You Are'.

Answer: kd lang

Born Kathryn Dawn Lang in Edmonton on November 2, 1961 and raised in Consort, Alberta in the heart of beef-raising country, kd lang found herself in a bit of a stew with the folks at home when she promoted the vegetarian lifestyle in a TV commercial in which she proclaimed that "meat stinks!" (Any plans she may have had for running for mayor of Consort can safely be said to be shelved.) In 1983, shortly after graduating from Red River College, kd launched her professional singing career and her own band, the Reclines (named in honour of her idol Patsy Cline). She came to the attention of US audiences when Roy Orbison hired her as one of his back-up singers and chose her to do a duet with him on his re-release of 'Crying'.

Now the proud possessor of countless Junos and Grammys, kd has created a niche for herself in not only the country and western genre but in rock and pop as well. My favourite kd lang recordings are her rendition of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' and her own 'Constant Cravings'.

Answer: Paul Anka

Paul Anka was born July 30, 1941 in Canada's capital city, Ottawa. He began singing as a choirboy at St. Elijah's Syrian Orthodox Church and burst onto the pop music scene when he was 15 with 'Diana'. For years it was thought that 'Diana' was a paean of praise to a former babysitter, but in a National Public Radio interview a few years ago, Paul set the record straight when he said that the song was really about a girl who attended the same church he did.

Paul Anka is as well-known as a composer as he is as a singer and has written several of the most memorable signature songs for other singers - for instance, Tom Jones' 'She's a Lady' and Frank Sinatra's 'My Way'.

In 1963, Anka married Anne de Zogheb, the daughter of a Lebanese diplomat, and the couple has five daughters Amelia, Anthea, Alicia, Amanda - who is married to Justin Bateman - and Alexandra. Paul and Anne were divorced in 2000. In 2008 Anka married Anna Yeager, mother of his son Ethan who was born in 2005.

Answer: Bryan Adams

Bryan Adams was born in Kingston, Ontario and spent his childhood in various places around the world, owing to his father's career as a Canadian diplomat. When Bryan was 14 the Adams family (please stop snapping your fingers!) returned to Canada and settled in Vancouver at first before moving to Ottawa. When Bryan was 15 he quit school to pursue his dream of a career as a singer/songwriter and it would be an understatement to say that he made it! As a singer he has garnered several shelvesful of Juno and Grammy awards, along with MTV, ASCAP, Ivor Novello and American Music awards. He's been nominated for several Golden Globes and is a three-time Academy nominee for Best Songwriter in film. In 2006, he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and is a member of both the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia for his contributions to music and his philanthropic work carried out through his own foundation which he established to improve the education opportunities for people all over the world (especially in the developing companies). He has also received accolades for his photography and has had several exhibitions of his photographs.

In addition to writing songs for himself, Bryan and his songwriting partner Jim Vallance have written winners for Joe Cocker, Neil Diamond, Kiss, Loverboy, Prism, Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon, and Rod Stewart, among many others.

Answer: Neil Young

Even though he and his family have lived on a ranch in Northern California since the 1970s, Neil Young remains a Canadian citizen. He is proud to be a member of both the Order of Manitoba and the Order of Canada. He received these honours for his contributions to music and also for his work with The Bridge School, of which he is a co-founder. The Bridge School works with children who deal with severe physical and speech difficulties.

His pseudonyms - Dr. Shakes and Bernard Shakey - refer to the fact that he has epilepsy.

Answer: Celine Dion

Celine Dion was born March 30, 1968 in Charlemagne, P.Q., one of of 13 children in a poor but happy family and music has always been a part of her life. She started singing professionally in her teens, under the guidance of impresario Rene Angelil (whom she married in 1994, causing a big scandal in Canada). I tend to agree with Keith Harris of 'Rolling Stone' who wrote of Dion "...(her) sentimentality is bombastic and defiant rather than demure and retiring...(she) stands at the end of the chain of drastic devolution that goes Aretha-Whitney-Mariah. Far from being an aberration, Dion actually stands as a symbol of a certain kind of pop sensibility - bigger is better, too much is never enough, and the riper the emotion the more true."

Her career has made her fabulously wealthy and she probably has a room in at least one of her many mansions just to store her awards!

Answer: Anne Murray

Anne Murray was born on June 20, 1945 in the Nova Scotia mining town of Springhill where her father was the town doctor. She began singing when she was very young, but she did not have formal voice training until she was 15. In 1965, when she was working toward her degree in physical education at the University of New Brunswick she sang two songs on a record produced by the university and friends urged her to audition for the popular CBC-TV program 'Singalong Jubilee', which was produced in Halifax. She was turned down at that time because the show was fully cast. However, in 1967 she received a call from the show's producer and co-host Bill Langstroth, inviting her to join the show. She spent the summer of 1967 working on 'Singalong Jubilee' and then taught physical education for a year at Summerside High School in Prince Edward Island. However, in 1968 she abandoned her teaching career for a singing career. Her first major hit was 'Snowbird' which was #1 in Canada and hit #8 on the Billboard charts in the US in 1970, and the rest is history.

Murray married Bill Langstroth in 1975, and the couple has two children - William, a computer programmer for the Ontario government and singer-songwriter Dawn Langstroth. Bill and Anne were divorced in 1998.

Answer: Michael Buble

Michael Buble is a singer/songwriter who has earned a clutch of Grammy and Juno awards since he hit the international big time in 2005 with his hit album 'It's Time'. His 2007 album 'Call Me Irresponsible' made number one in Canada, the US, Australia and Europe.

The boy (well, not so much anymore perhaps, since he was born in 1975!) is a serious talent and a gem among the crown jewels of Canadian music. Since 2005, Buble has sold more than 25 million albums worldwide, and that definitely puts him in superstar country.

Answer: The Guess Who

The Guess Who grew out of a local band called Chad Allan and the Expressions (originally Al and the Silvertones) which formed in the early 1960s and played local clubs, high school dances and the like. In 1965, the group (which did not yet include Burton Cummings) had a hit record - a cover of Johnny Kidd and The Pirates' 'Shakin' All Over'.

Not long after this initial success, Burton joined the band, Chad left the band, and the band changed its name to The Guess Who? (the question mark was dropped in 1968).

The band, now comprised of Burton Cummings (lead singer/keyboards), Randy Bachman (lead guitar), Jim Kale (bass) and Garry Peterson (drums) went from strength to strength with such songs as 'These Eyes', 'American Woman' and 'Share the Land'. Randy Bachman left the band in 1970 and later formed Brave Belt which morphed into Bachman-Turner Overdrive ('Takin' Care of Business') and the band finally broke up in 1975 . Cummings went on to a sucessful solo career.

The band reunited briefly in 1983, and then, again, went their separate ways.

In 1997 the Red River overflowed its banks, inundating most of southern Manitoba. The Guess Who reunited once again to play a benefit concert in aid of flood victims. and in 1999, the Premier of Manitoba successfully persuaded the Guess Who to perform at the closing events for the Pan-American Games taking place in Winnipeg. Jon Bon Jovi maintains that Cummings and Bachman are Canadian rock and roll royalty. Since 2005, Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman have been touring together as Bachman-Cummings and continue to be a major force on the Canadian and international music scene. The Guess Who was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1987.