enduring musical gems as "Diana," "My Way," and "She's A Lady," legendary songwriter Paul Anka will be inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame on Saturday with the help of a powerful friend.

The Ottawa-born hitmaker, whose formidable writing talents crafted signature songs for Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, Buddy Holly and Donny Osmond, said he requested the only man he felt had the public presence captivating enough to present him with the honour - former prime minister Jean Chretien.

The two go back decades, Anka explains in a recent interview from his home in the exclusive community of Lake Sherwood, Calif., just west of Beverly Hills.

"He knew my uncle years ago in Shawinigan," says Anka, referring to Chretien's Quebec hometown. "And I knew him ... when he was with (former prime minister Pierre) Trudeau. And I like the guy. I like him a lot."

When given the opportunity to pick the person who would salute his lengthy career, the crooner says his mind searched for someone unexpected, and very Canadian.

"I said, 'I'm Canadian, and I'm proud of it. Let me get another proud Canadian,"' says Anka, who feted Chretien at a Toronto tribute when the former leader he stepped down as head of the Liberal party in 2003.

"I want someone that can talk. And he's a great speaker. I've been in his company socially and, (he's the) same as (former U.S. president Bill) Clinton, in the sense that these are two guys that you can sit with at dinner and they're just great speakers and they know their way around that arena."

The songwriters gala will feature a performance by Anka, accompanied by renowned music producer David Foster, as well as appearances by father and son jazz artists Ellis and Branford Marsalis in a salute to late pianist Oscar Peterson.

Quebec songwriter Claude Dubois will be inducted by songwriter Raymond Levesque and serenaded by Quebec singer Martine St. Clair.

Other inductees include Alex Kramer and francophone artist Andre Lejeune, with performances also coming from pop crooner Serena Ryder, jazz singer Dione Taylor, renowned pianist Oliver Jones and folk legends Anna and Kate McGarrigle.

The McGarrigles will sing Anna's song "Heart Like a Wheel" with Anna's daughter Lily Lanken and siblings Rufus and Martha Wainwright.

Anka, who's also a member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and has stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Canada's Walk of Fame, says he is especially thrilled by Canadian tributes, suggesting he felt snubbed by his homeland in the '50s and '60s as his career took off south of the border.

"I was not very comfortable with the way I was treated coming back for about 12, 15 years," says the 66-year-old former teen idol.

"I think there was always some kind of a subliminal sense of, you know, why did you leave us and go there, but I mean, it was a necessity, you couldn't really make it internationally."

South of the border, too, it was a struggle to win kudos, he says. Although young fans embraced teen idols like Anka, Frankie Avalon and Ricky Nelson, the burgeoning genre of pop music was simply not accepted by the broader industry.

"With me and a few of these other little idols that came along, we were a clergyman's answer to rock 'n' roll," says Anka.

"I think only when the Beatles hit did it really hit the forefront of Madison Avenue to being embraced by a lot of people. Up until then, other than the fans, we were totally put down and we hung together as a bunch of little pioneers doing rock 'n' roll shows."

Anka says writing was always a passion, noting he was encouraged by his father to become a journalist and spent time in his teens as a cub reporter for the Ottawa Citizen.

At 15, he wrote his first poem, about a girl named Diana. Soon after it was set to music, and "Diana" became one of his biggest signature songs, alongside such other classics as "Lonely Boy," "Put Your Head on My Shoulder," "Puppy Love" and "You're Having My Baby."

"I never lost my writing cred, which was what I was about, unlike a lot of the other kids. You know, the Frankie Avalons and those guys were dependent on an infrastructure of people around them that were writing for them."

These days, Anka says he appreciates an eclectic range of music that ranges from material by Italian composer Ennio Morricone to Elvis Costello, and even to rapper/producer Dr. Dre and the Black Eyed Peas.

"It's a good record, actually," he says of the Peas' oft-ridiculed 2005 hit, "My Humps."

"Well produced. I get it, I know what they're saying. But it's form over content, in a sense. There's an audience for that. The advent of the technology is really driving a lot of the music today so when you're kind of chained to the technology it leaves you to a certain type of record."

"I mean it's hooky, and there is a dumbing down effect for music, but, you know, in a disposable society, you can look at each decade and you can find the highlights and you can find where we've dipped under.... (These days) people don't look in terms of longevity, they look for the moment and the bottom line in an industry that's unfortunately failing."

Nevertheless, Anka says he's excited by music's future, predicting a massive shift on the horizon for how it is distributed, marketed and compensated.

Highlights of the songwriters gala will be broadcast on CBC Radio on Sunday and Monday. CBC-TV will air the gala Monday.

-

On The Net: www.cansong.ca.