Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

East Indian singer Sheila Chandra was a pop phenomenon before the term "world music" as even invented. At 16, as a member of the group Monsoon, the English-born performer had a Top 10 hit with "Ever So Lonely," a clever synthesis of Indian melody over a Western dance beat. And in 1982, when she sang the song on Britain's Top of the Pops TV show, Chandra wore a sari, the traditional dress of Indian women. Today, although she's only 26, Chandra finds herself the veteran in a growing field of Asian artists--one whose influence is increasingly being felt in the mainstream. In fact, East Indian culture is a cornerstone of this year's WOMAD festival at Toronto's Harbourfront. And Chandra...

When Jack Long opened his first musical instrument store in Toronto in 1956, he was a skilled jazz trumpeter without a clue about business. “I didn’t even know what an invoice was,” he often said. Mr. Long learned the hard way. When sales were slow, he and a drummer friend, Jack McQuade, started giving lessons in the store’s back rooms. When they discovered colleagues often wanted to borrow instruments, Mr. Long invented modest rental fees: “three dollars if it was small, four dollars if it was bigger.” Together as partners, the two Jacks grew the company until 1965, when Mr. McQuade decided to pursue drumming full-time and sold his portion of the firm to Mr. Long. Today, the family-owned Lo...

The Bergen International Jazz Festival, or Nattjazz as it’s now called, takes place in USF Verftet, a converted sardine factory on the shores of Norway’s beautiful west coast city. There, on Saturday night, I saw the Valkyrien Allstars, an experimental folk rock band and one of Norway's best live acts. Consisting of Tuva Syvertsen on vocals, keyboards and hardanger fiddle, guitarist-fiddler Erik Sollid, bassist Magnus Larsen Jr. and drummer-banjoist Martin Langlie, all exceptional musicians, the group performed to a sold-out crowd with many in the audience, both young and old, singing along. Although steeped in traditional Norwegian folk music, the Allstars are every bit a modern ensemb...

A fabulous new documentary on Jackie Shane, Any Other Way, unspools at Toronto's Hot Docs Festival on April 27th. It's a brilliant portrait of the late transgendered soul singer, who took Toronto by storm in the 1960s. The film matches extensive recordings of Jackie conversing and singing with recreations of a younger Jackie (played by Makayla Walker) and an older Jackie (Sandra Caldwell). Ingeniously, the production team took live-action footage of the performances and gave them a unique, AI-assisted rotoscope technique that animates them in a vivid, painterly way. The recreations elevate the documentary into a visceral, kinetic experience that really helps to bring Jackie to life. The film...

Despite approaching it with some trepidation, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie Bob Marley: One Love in the end. Kingsley Ben-Adir, who looks nothing like Marley, seemed awkward in the role at first and his dreadlock wig was not at all convincing. But the English actor seemed to grow into the part as the film progressed, even his dreads became more natural, and he wound up capturing well the spirit, struggle and message of the man.  The filmmakers chose to frame the story between Marley getting shot 1976 and 1978’s One Love Peace Concert, when he brought political enemies Michael Manley and Edward Seaga together onstage. And there are some wonderful flashbacks, including the youn...

From her birth as a daughter of Black settlers in the early 20th century to recognition as Vancouver’s first lady of jazz, Eleanor Collins was a trailblazer in music and African-Canadian history. Her role in breaking new ground for women and Black performers earned her membership in the Order of Canada in 2014. Then, in 2022, Canada Post featured Ms. Collins on a stamp, honouring her as the first Black Canadian entertainer – and first female Canadian singer – to star in her own nationally broadcast TV series, The Eleanor Show. Acknowledging the honour, Ms. Collins said she had no sense of her pioneering role back then. “We each did what we felt we were called to do – live in the present...

The legacy of Gordon Lightfoot's music is in good hands, thanks to his longtime backing group of Rick Haynes, Barry Keane, Mike Heffernan and Carter Lancaster. Those veteran musicians are committed to keeping the master's songs alive. Last Saturday (Jan. 27), the Lightfoot Band made its debut at Toronto's El Mocambo with its newest member Andy Mauck on vocals and rhythm guitar. Anyone worried about how the American-born singer might sound delivering those classic songs can rest assured: Mauck, vocally, is a dead ringer for 1970s and '80s-era Lightfoot. Plus, he's humble as hell, repeatedly saying what an honour it was to be asked to join the band and sing the songs of his hero. "Gord was a s...

The Trans-Canada Highwaymen is a supergroup made up of members of Barenaked Ladies (Steven Page), The Odds (Craig Northey), Sloan (Chris Murphy) and The Pursuit of Happiness (Moe Berg), singing classic Canadian songs by the likes of Pagliaro, Lighthouse, Andy Kim, April Wine and The Guess Who. They’ve already released Explosive Hits Vol. 1, their recordings of 14 of those chart-toppers. But the beauty of the TCH concept when performed live is that it adds a whole other dimension of Canadiana with the biggest hits by the members’ own bands.  So, last night at Toronto’s venerable Horseshoe Tavern, the four horsemen of the K-Tel generation, treated the sold-out crowd to note-perfect c...

A two-hour documentary that aired on television in 2009 and was released on DVD  that same year. Looks at the digital age of Canadian music in the 1980s, a visual era of big hair and shoulder pads, when music videos helped homegrown artists to take off internationally.The documentary is split into nine segments: - Video Rock - Reggae / New Wave - Quebec Pop - Art, Pop & Politics - Alt-Country - Heartland Rock - Roots / Hip Hop - Blues Rock - Divas & Icons Songs featured in concert footage and videos (in alphabetical order): "A Criminal Mind" – Gowan "Ain't No Room For Cheatin' – Handsome Ned "Black Velvet"&nbs...

A two-hour documentary that aired on television in 2009 and was released on DVD  that same year. This Beat Goes On tells the story of Canadian music in the 1970s, a ground-breaking era of great sounds, from glam and progressive rock to punk and reggae.  Mixing archival footage with candid interviews, the documentary features proven hitmakers as well as a wealth of new folksingers, blues artists and mullet-rockers. Solo artists and progressive rockers still rule, but it’s also a time of shaved heads and skinny ties, as punk and new wave artists push their way into the spotlight. By the end of the decade, the Can-rock revolution has arrived. This Beat Goes On presents ...