PAUL ANKA
There's no telling how many budding entertainers have crossed Canada's southern border seeking fame and fortune beyond their native land, though the rate of acceptance was limited in the first seven or eight decades of the 20th century. Guy Lombardo fared best in the U.S. starting in the mid-1920s; he and his Royal Canadians had several dozen top-selling hits in the 1940s alone. One very young singer named Paul Anka was by far the most successful Canadian music artist of the '50s and '60s rock and roll era, his only serious competition coming from Toronto's Four Lads and Crew-Cuts, and then only for a couple of years. Anka was extremely ambitious; he performed in public in his home town, Ottawa, Ontario (where his father ... MORE ››
