In the early 1980s, Manitoba-born Loreena McKennitt was busking in Toronto in order to finance her first album, Elemental. It led to a career in performing Celtic music that would sell 14 million records worldwide over the course of her career. She was awarded the Order of Canada in 2004. That was a few years after my favourite album of hers, The Book of Secrets, was released.
By the time she received the Order of Canada in 1998, Celine Dion was considered by most music critics and industry insiders as being one of the most influential voices of music of that decade, ranking with Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. Influential in the sense that her voice helped to shape how power pop ballads were sung, as well as influencing the “adult contemporary” genre of that time.
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