Yes; I should have been more specific than “artist.”
I can add several bands/artists to the list:
Loreena McKennitt
Arcade Fire
The Odds (who often toured with Warren Zevon)
Delirium
Kate and Anna McGarrigle
Rufus Wainwright
Martha Wainwright
Leonard Cohen
Adam Cohen (Leonard’s son. He was born in Montreal. He might have dual citizenship. I couldn’t find any info about who is mother was.)
Jesse Winchester (of the Youngbloods. He was born in Tennessee but went to Ontario to escape the Draft and got naturalized.)
Most of Tom Rush’s backup band was Canadian but Rush is from Vermont.
The Corn Sisters are half Canadian. Neko Case is from Tacoma, Wa. but Carolyn Mark is Canadian as is the band she tours with. They call themselves Carolyn Mark and Her Roommates. They really are her roommates.)
Of the names listed in o.p., I’ve heard of about 3/4 of them. I’ve never heard of Martha & The Muffins. What kind of music do they play?
By the way, I’m not Canadian. I just like music a whole bunch. I live in Seattle which is just a little too far south to pick up Vancouver’s FM stations. There used to be a pretty good station in Bellingham that played music from both sides of the border that I could pick up most nights in Seattle. My last few times through Bellingham, it had pretty much deteriorated into a pop station. They’re probably making more money but they’re just another waste of airtime now.
Dang - I was aiming for a list of Canadian artists that any non-country listening Canadian would recognize because most of them have been on pop radio playlists for decades now.
marque elf, Martha & the Muffins were fairly big in the 80’s. Most Canadians (with the exception of Bryan Eckers, maybe 
) would recognize their signature song, Echo Beach.
From what I’ve read, Blood, Sweat & Tears was an American band. They formed in New York, debuted in New York and were initially made up of New Yorkers. It wasn’t until '69–two years after they formed–that the first Canadian, David Clayton-Thomas, joined the band as the singer.
Where’s Sloan?
Anyone who watched The Virgin Suicides will have heard them. Air may have done the soundtrack, but the music they listened to was Sloan.
I know all of those people on your list, and have records by most of them. But I’m Canadian! However, it is my mission to turn Americans on to these artists whenever I can. It’s my ambition to get a radio show on the public station where I work, one of these days, to do just that. I just need to wait for the guy who does the “music of your life” program to retire from playing big bands. By that time, the artists on your list will be the music of our lives.
I’ve converted one to a Kim Mitchell / Max Webster fan. He was blown away! It’d help a lot if the radio stations down here didn’t just play three songs by The Guess Who, three songs by BTO, four songs by Rush and three songs by Bryan Adams.
And hey, you left out:
A Foot In Coldwater
Murray McLauchlan
Pat Travers
Saga
Teenage Head
Crowbar
Ian Thomas
Michel Pagliaro
Fludd
Moxy
Goddo
Downchild
Ken Tobias
Valdy
The Bells
Ronney Abramson
Edward Bear
…and those are just off the top of my head!
- I know some of their music
** I’ve heard of them
*** I know the guy who produced them. (err, knew. He’s dead at the moment)
? Honeymoon Suite was an 80’s bad yes?
These are the bands that I’ve never heard (or perhaps heard once or twice in the middle of the night) on a corporate U.S. radio station. You’re likely to hear a few of them on public radio stations, college stations, and satellite radio, but most Americans don’t listen to those, so I think that this pared-down list should give you a general idea of the bands that the average American casual music listener has never heard of.
I left in the one-U.S.-hit-wonders that never, ever get played anymore, but took out the ones that do. The exception to that is songs that don’t get played anymore, but are recent, or otherwise memorable enough to have not faded from the public consciousness.
My tastes tend to skew towards classic and modern rock stations, so I may have missed a recent pop artist or two:
54-40
A Foot In Coldwater
Aldo Nova
Amanda Marshall
Barney Bentall
Blue Rodeo
Bruce Cockburn
Burton Cummings
Chalk Circle
Chilliwack
Colin James
Dan Hill
Cowboy Junkies
David Wilcox
Doucette
Doug & The Slugs
Five Man Electrical Band
Gino Vannelli
Glass Tiger
Gordon Lightfoot
Gowan
Great Big Sea
Harlequin
Haywire
Helix
Honeymoon Suite
Jann Arden
Kim Mitchell
Klaatu
Lee Aaron
Lighthouse
Luba
Martha & The Muffins
Max Webster
Nick Gilder
The Nylons
The Original Caste
Parachute Club
Paul Janz
Payola$
Platinum Blonde
Prism
The Pursuit of Happiness
Rough Trade
Sass Jordan
The Stampeders
Toronto
Tragically Hip
Trooper
No Stompin’ Tom Connors??
By the way, my all-time favorite song is "If You Could Read My Mind’ by Lightfoot.
Geek?
I am “of a certain age.” And although I may not, at this point, be able to associate a particular song or song to some of the following names, I have most certainly heard of them all.
Alanis Morissette
Aldo Nova
April Wine
Avril Lavigne
Bachman Turner Overdrive
The Band
Barenaked Ladies
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Bruce Cockburn
Bryan Adams
Celine Dion
Chilliwack
Cowboy Junkies
Crash Test Dummies
Dan Hill
David Wilcox
Gino Vannelli
Gordon Lightfoot
Guess Who
Joni Mitchell
k. d. lang
Loverboy
Men Without Hats
Neil Young
Nick Gilder
The Nylons
Paul Anka
Rush
Sarah McLachlan
Shania Twain
Tragically Hip
Triumph
CanCon is a load of crap if most Canadians haven’t heard (or heard of) Jane Siberry and Mary Margaret O’Hara. They should be worshipped like the musical goddesses they are. They’re not only two of the most interesting and creative artists in Canada, they’re two of the most interesting and creative artists in the WORLD. I’ve said this before, and I mean every word of it. SHAME ON CANADA that these two women aren’t known to every Canadaian of sentient age, and sponsored to the hilt so they can forget about bills and do nothing but be even more creative. What good is CanCon if it doesn’t help support ongoing older artists?
Anyway, I’ve heard/heard of about 3/4 of the people on your list.
My favorite Canadian artists are:
(actually, these are two of my favorite artists from anywhere)
Jane Siberry
Mary Margaret O’Hara
(from marque elf’s list, thanks)
Loreena McKennitt
Delirium
Kate and Anna McGarrigle
Rufus Wainwright
Martha Wainwright
Leonard Cohen
(from your list)
Bruce Cockburn
Cowboy Junkies
Joni Mitchell
k. d. lang
Sarah McLachlan
(I like one-off songs by these people)
Nelly Furtado
Jann Arden
Alanis Morissette
Martha & The Muffins
Rough Trade
Sass Jordan
Not listed, but I also like (alphabetical):
Autour de Lucie
blueVenus
Meryn Cadell
Holly Cole
Dalbello
Kathleen Edwards
Emma-Lee
Feist
Figgy Duff
Gogh Van Go
Emm Gryner
Sarah Harmer
The Henrys
Veda Hille (I respect her more than I like her music)
Rebecca Jenkins
Jorane
Lily Frost
Mary Jane Lamond
Tara MacLean
Natalie MacMaster
Ashley Maher
Dayna Manning
Holly McNarland
Mecca Normal
Rose Chronicles
Sarah Slean
Kristy Thirsk
Nan Vernon
Kathleen Yearwood
And probably a lot more I’m forgetting, and many more I haven’t heard yet but I’d love if I did.
Btw, no, I’m not Canadian.
Here are the ones I would consider well known among the general American public:
Alanis Morissette
Avril Lavigne
Bachman Turner Overdrive
The Band
Bryan Adams
Celine Dion
Gordon Lightfoot
Joni Mitchell
k. d. lang
Neil Young
Rush
Sarah McLachlan
Shania Twain
A surprising number of these were “one hit wonders” over here. And some of them may have had more hits here at the time, but only one survives in regular radio rotation. Here are the ones I would put into that category, and the “hit” I would attribute to them: (YMMV, of course!)
Alannah Myles–Black Velvet
Corey Hart–Sunglasses at Night
Crash Test Dummies–Mmmm-mmm
Five Man Electrical Band–Signs
Gino Vannelli–“I never wanna let you go…”
Guess Who–American Woman
Loverboy–Everybody’s Workin for the Weekend
Men Without Hats–Safety Dance
Nick Gilder–Hot Child in the City
Red Rider–Lunatic Fringe
Tom Cochrane (Solo)–Life is a Highway
Here are the ones that I can’t definitively say I’ve ever heard of at all:
54-40
A Foot In Coldwater
Amanda Marshall
April Wine
Barney Bentall
Blue Rodeo
Bruce Cockburn
Burton Cummings
Chalk Circle
Chilliwack
Colin James
Dan Hill
David Wilcox
Doucette
Doug & The Slugs
Glass Tiger
Gowan
Great Big Sea
Harlequin
Haywire
Helix
Honeymoon Suite
Jann Arden
Kim Mitchell
Klaatu
Lee Aaron
Lighthouse
Luba
Martha & The Muffins
Max Webster
The Original Caste
Parachute Club
Paul Janz
Payola$
Platinum Blonde
Prism
The Pursuit of Happiness
Rough Trade
Sass Jordan
Snow
Spoons
The Stampeders
Toronto
Trooper
Zoinks! That’s a lot! Maybe there is something to this whole Cancon thing. Our rock radio here is so stagnant with the lack of variety. Well, maybe you have the same thing, but with a different lack of variety.
Viva la internet radio!
I love Great Big Sea, to the point of ordering their CDs from Canada so I get them sooner when they’re released since they always seem to come out here weeks later. My mom, of all people, got me into them.
Out of the 78 bands listed I recognized 37 of them, or about 47%.
Oddly enough, I recognized 37 as well. I’m a bit surprised that fewer people are identifying Triumph. I thought they made a bigger splash here than that. And Rush has been my favorite band for decades. I don’t think it’s Canadians alone that consistently make their albums gold and platinum certified.
I recognized 27 of the list, but I’m not really up on more recent acts.
Also, listing Blood Sweat and Tears as Canadian is stretching the definition. The original group didn’t have a single Canadian in its lineup: they were all born in the New York City area, other than one member from Philadelphia and anothe from Troy, NY. It wasn’t until David Clayton-Thomas joined the group that it had any Canadian members (and Clayton-Thomas wasn’t actually born in Canada, though he became a Canadian citizen at the age of four), and by that point they’d already produced their best work.
Better to list Clayton-Thomas, the the group was firmly American except for their lead singer.
Some of them–Nick Gilder, Corey Hart, Men Without Hats, Dan Hill among others–were pretty well-known 20-30 years ago for one song apiece. Are they still “ubiquitous” in Canada?
kd lang is a huge favorite of mine. I honestly think she has the greatest voice since Ella Fitzgerald.