A look back at the Canadian musicians who made repeat visits to ‘SNL’

From the very beginning, “Saturday Night Live” celebrated Canada’s musical talent.

With Canucks Howard Shore and Paul Shaffer shepherding the show’s crack house band from the start, the first season featured performances by Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfoot — although one of his three songs was interrupted by John Belushi’s samurai character.

Michael Buble, Alanis Morissette, Sum 41 and Robbie Robertson also made more than one appearance.

With the venerable show celebrating its 40th anniversary with a star-studded special this Sunday, The Canadian Press looked back at five Canadian musicians who made a special impression on the Studio 8H stage.

Anne Murray

The “Snowbird” singer performed in the ninth-ever episode of “Saturday Night Live” back in 1976, providing a soft-pop counterpart to such edgier inaugural-season performers as Gil Scott-Heron and Patti Smith. She returned for another performance in April 1980. Years later, she was depicted in a sketch by Melanie Hutsell, during which “Murray” sang “O Canada” at a Toronto Blue Jays game while the Philadelphia Phillies bench gradually covered her in chewing tobacco. That sketch aired Oct. 23, 1993 — the very same day Joe Carter’s walk-off home run gave the Jays their second consecutive World Series.

Neil Young

Young didn’t appear for the first time on “SNL” until the Season 15 premiere in 1989, when — with torn jeans, a leather jacket and an impassioned sneer — he raged through a famously incendiary “Rockin’ in the Free World” as well as two other songs. He’s returned several times since, most recently in 2005 when he participated in a sketch as a drugged-out hillbilly — Slurpee in hand — who asks Amy Poehler to “score me some of those prescription pads.”

Avril Lavigne

The style trend-setter managed three “Saturday Night Live” appearances in a little over four years, between 2003 and ’07. She holds the distinction of both impersonating another celebrity in a sketch — as Elle Fanning in “The Dakota Fanning Show” — and being impersonated herself, with a slumping Amy Poehler loosely strapping on a red tie and interrupting Weekend Update to yell: “I’m a punk rocker! I’m wearing a boy tank top! Look at my mad face!”

Arcade Fire

The critically cherished Montreal band has been treated uncommonly well by Lorne Michaels’ comedy institution. Singer Win Butler smashed his guitar in their first appearance in 2007, they appeared in a “Digital Short” during their 2010 appearance and in the 2013 season premiere they were the subject of a sketch in which host Tina Fey had to differentiate between the band’s members and the show’s just-hired new cast. They were then granted a rare post-“SNL” timeslot to play a long set featuring new music from their about-to-be-released “Reflektor.” Oh, and in 2012, they backed Mick Jagger on “The Last Time.” No big deal, right?

Drake

Along with Justin Bieber, the innovative Toronto rapper earned the rare honour of acting as both “SNL” musical guest and host. He impersonated both Jay Z and Lil Wayne during his hosting stint, but the highlight was an original song performed during a bar mitzvah sketch that underscored the Grammy winner’s dual heritage: “Please don’t forget I’m black, please don’t forget I’m Jewish/ I play ball like LeBron and I know what a W-2 is.”

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