Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

My friend Peter and I missed out on Woodstock. In the summer of ʼ69, we were simply too young to make the trek. But we did get to go to an all-Canadian version of that historic festival. Held in a campground near Orangeville, Ontario, over the Labour Day weekend, the Freak Out at Rockhill Park featured no fewer than twenty-one of Canadaʼs best bands on three stages, including one on a small lake. My parents drove us up from Toronto, actually right into the campground, which proved to be both a curse and a blessing. On the one hand, as sixteen-year-olds, we were mortified that we needed a parental escort at all, when most people had driven themselves or hitchhiked. On the other, being in the ...

His father cast a long shadow. Fela Anikulapo Kuti was a musical star and political icon whose global popularity made him both a hero and an enemy of the state in his native Nigeria. But Femi Kuti has learned to live in that shadow. As the son of the inventor of the politically charged, wildly percussive music known as Afro-beat, Femi has picked up where his legendary father, who died in 1997, left off. Signed to a French record label, Femi has taken Afro-beat and fused it with elements of soul and hip-hop to create one of this spring’s most talked-about releases. Titled Shoki Shoki (Barclay/Universal), the powerful album promises to make a star of the 37-year-old singer-saxophonist, who has...

They are one of rock’s most on-again/off-again partnerships, a pair of icons whose relationship was once described as the longest running soap opera in Canadian history. Although they have much in common, such as their Winnipeg birthplace and each taking turns at different times as members of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band, myriad differences have kept Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings apart, including friction caused by Cummings buying the publishing rights to the Guess Who songs he’d co-written with Bachman. But on July 18, the two Canadian rock legends will reunite for a one-time charity fundraiser for Canada’s Walk of Fame at Toronto’s Casa Loma. Billed as “Music Under the City Stars,” the...

During the early 1970s, no musician wore his Canadian nationality more proudly on his sleeve than Blake Fordham, better known as Kelly Jay, the charismatic man mountain who fronted boogie-rockers Crowbar. At a time when many still shied away from overt flag-waving, Mr. Fordham, the singer and pianist behind the anthemic hit song “Oh What a Feeling,” unabashedly embraced a good-time nationalism in both his lyrics and clothing. “Kelly Jay and Crowbar made young Canadians feel cool about their country, about being Canadian and everything that stood for,” recalls Frank Davies, Crowbar’s original producer and publisher, who cited Mr. Fordham’s “Captain Canada” nickname, beaverskin hats, deerskin ...

There's plenty to love about Martin Scorcese's new Netflix documentary about Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour. There are some illuminating present-day interviews with cast members including the masked ringleader Dylan himself, although he claims to barely remember anything about the tour, as he wasn't "even born yet." The story itself is one of rock's great dramas. Rolling Thunder was an entirely different way of touring. It began with the idea of Dylan, his buddy Bobby Neuwirth and mentor Ramblin’ Jack Elliott playing small venues while traveling around in a station wagon. When that proved impractical, it grew into a larger, illustrious cast of characters that included Joan Baez, Roge...

It was 52 years ago today, June 18, that the Monterey International Pop Festival opened, kicking off 1967's Summer of Love with a star-studded lineup that included the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Who, the first large-scale performance by Janis Joplin and the introduction of Otis Redding to a mass American audience. Others on the bill for the groundbreaking three-day festival were San Francisco's Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, the Mamas and the Papas, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Eric Burdon & the Animals and Simon  & Garfunkel. Monterey also marked the big U.S. debut of Canada's The Paupers, a band on the cusp of greatnes...

From the exotically primitive portrait on the album’s jacket to the untamed sounds inside, Whomanfoursays is a daring album. The recording, Toronto-born Lisa Dabello’s first in three years, signals a dramatic departure from the singer’s carefree pop style. Part of the credit must go to her musical partnership with guitarist-producer Mick Ronson (David Bowie, The Payola$). But Dabello, as she now calls herself, has obviously undergone a profound personal metamorphosis as well. Insipid love songs have given way to complex, unsettling pieces about passion, domination and doubt. On the lusty “Gonna Get Close to You” she sings about stalking her romantic prey “like a hungry criminal,” while on “A...

Mouth of Steel marks the return of Canada’s legendary bluesman King Biscuit Boy to recording after an unfortunate 10-year absence. Biscuit, also known as Richard Newell, of Hamilton, Ont., apprenticed with Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins and served with the Canadian blues band Crowbar before striking out on his own. His confident comeback album ably showcases his gutsy voice and mournful harmonica style. The piano boogie of “Route 90” and the Latin-tinged instrumental “Necromonica” display his considerable talents and those of his skilful session players. The album’s real gem is “Done Everything I Can,” on which Biscuit bends harmonica notes as soulfully as he contorts his own gravelly vocals. Mouth ...

With last year’s Caribbean crossover album Killer on the Rampage, Guyana-born Eddy Grant proved he could create a successful solo album by working alone in his Barbados studio. Grant wrote, arranged and produced every song on that album, including the gritty hit single “Electric Avenue,” and played all the instruments as well. But his follow-up album, Going for Broke, suggests that he is now suffering from artistic isolation. The circus-style reggae of “Only Heaven Knows” and the somnolent ballad “Blue Wave” reveal senseless content and inexcusably sloppy technique, while an irritating, indulgent guitar solo mars the vigorously rocking “Romancing the Stone,” which he wrote for the recent fil...

CANO, the Franco-Ontarian group from Sudbury, has changed the focus of its music and language—from folk to rock and French to English—so many times that even the group’s closest fans have become bewildered. Now, CANO has issued an all-French album, Visible, but the chaos has taken its toll, and the quality of the material is uneven. “Pauline” begins as a touching ballad about two lovers separated by war, but a cheerily sung chorus soon shatters the tragic mood. The title song offers more mood shifts than most complete albums, but the track’s inventiveness strays. Still, in “Fond d’une bouteille (Bottom of the Bottle)” an alcoholic’s desperation provides some dramatic imagery, and “J’ai bien ...