Music of Canada's Prairie Provinces

The city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, is the musical centre of the Canadian Prairie Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, having produced artists like Neil Young, The Guess Who, Bachman–Turner Overdrive, Crash Test Dummies, Fresh City, and many others. Country music continues to be popular in all three provinces. The Western Canadian Music Awards have been created to showcase artists from these provinces.

The Rough Guide to World Music notes that in the Prairie Provinces, "no Ukrainian wedding band is complete without a tsymbaly, and a small local recording industry there continues to produce cassettes of hybrid troista-country bands" (emphasis in original). Ukrainian influences on the music can be seen in modern English-language polka numbers like Giants of the Prairies by the Kubasonics.

Popular music

Main articles: Music of Alberta, Music of Manitoba, and Music of Saskatchewan

Rock bands include The Weakerthans, The Guess Who, Tom Cochrane, The Watchmen, Wide Mouth Mason, Nickelback, The Rural Alberta Advantage and Chantal Kreviazuk.

Aside from country, pop and rock performers, the Prairie Provinces have produced singer-songwriters such as Buffy Sainte-Marie, Jann Arden, Neil Young, Eamon McGrath, Burton Cummings, Connie Kaldor, Carolyn Dawn Johnson, Feist, Tegan and Sara, k.d. lang, Sierra Noble, Ian Tyson and Joni Mitchell, as well as folk acts such as Andrea Menard, Don Freed and Hart-Rouge.

References

Kochan, Alexis and Julian Kytasty. "The Bandura Played On". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), The Rough Guide to World Music, Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1858286360