Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

1. Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer She’s made two conceptual albums featuring her alter-ego, the time-traveling android Cindi Mayweather, and starred in two films: the Oscar-winning Moonlight and Hidden Figures. And yet a major commercial breakthrough has so far eluded her. But this could be Monáe’s moment. Working with Prince before he died in 2016, Monáe went on to create a strikingly personal album. The sensual “Make Me Feel” is a direct homage to Prince’s “Kiss,” while “Americans” resembles the free spirit of his “Let’s Go Crazy” and the finger-popping “Pynk” channels the Purple One’s sexually liberated anthems. Monáe uses her new album to explore themes of femininity, LGBTQ and blac...

Classically trained operatic tenor and pianist Jeremy Dutcher recently won the Polaris Music Prize (Canada’s equivalent of the Mercury Prize) for Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, an album of songs sung in his native Wolastoq dialect. Wolastoq is a dying language, spoken by only one hundred people within his First Nation community, but Dutcher was inspired by a “song carrier” to seek out his people’s ancient songs and breathe new life into them. The result is a post-classical recording of stunning beauty. “I was sitting around elder Maggie Paul’s kitchen table, having this discussion about the musical life of our community,” recalls Dutcher, a member of the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick wh...

It’s been a good year for the former Barenaked Ladies man. First, he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame alongside his ex-bandmates and reunited with them for the first time since parting ways with them in 2009. Now Page has Discipline: Heal Thyself, Part 2, a strong new solo album—his fifth—full of diverse sounds and thoughtful lyrics of both a personal and political nature, informed by being a Canadian citizen living in the U.S. The power-pop single “White Noise” was written in the wake of the Charlottesville white nationalist rally last August, while Latin-flavoured “Gravity” satirizes climate-change deniers. A more positive message is expressed in “Feelgood Summer” and...

Josh Groban can turn heads with his soaring voice. But the bearded and boyish 37-year-old music Grammy nominee still goes largely unnoticed in public. That is bound to change as his TV and film appearances become more frequent and higher profile. This summer, Groban hosted the Tony Awards and is currently starring in the Netflix comedy-drama series The Good Cop, in which he plays the squeaky clean son of a corrupt police officer. Recently, we sat down with the versatile L.A.-born star to talk about his thriving career, Canadian connections and Bridges, his first album of original music in five years. What is it with you and Canada? You’ve co-written with so many Canadians, from Chantal Krevi...

At 76, Sir Paul could be forgiven if he slowed down and kicked back in his slippers with a nice cuppa. But that’s not Macca’s way. In fact he’s as busy as ever, going viral with James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke and launching another world tour Sept. 17 in Quebec City. On his 17th solo studio album, McCartney sounds still in his prime—feisty, frisky and having fun. The flirtatious “Come On to Me” is a delirious rocker, while “Fuh You,” produced by hitmaker Ryan Tedder, is sexy and infectious. The rest of the album, produced by Greg Kurstin (Beck, Adele), ranges from the Latin jazz of “Back in Brazil” and the bouncy “Happy With You” (about his wife Nancy Shevell) to the cautionary political...

The High Priestess of Freak is looking suspiciously like a Volvo Driving Soccer Mom. Dressed in a denim shirt, track pants and running shoes, with only a white, fun-fur cowboy hat hinting at her outlandish style, Macy Gray arrives at a studio in Burbank, California for a rehearsal with her seven-piece band. She’s late and her group has already run through most her repertoire. But the singer doesn’t seem the least bit concerned. Instead, Gray plonks herself down on a couch, curls her long, lanky frame up at one end of it and hides beneath the wide brim of her hat, nodding occasionally along to the music. She seems bored or at least tired—which would be entirely understandable, given that she’...

He was the gentle, dreadlocked musician who gave popular Canadian blues-reggae rockers Big Sugar its distinctive bass sound. But Garry Lowe, who passed away July 7, played a far greater role, bridging the reggae and Rastafarian culture of his native Jamaica with diverse audiences wherever he went, both with Big Sugar and as a prominent member of numerous other bands. And whenever a Jamaican star visited Toronto, Lowe was almost always there onstage, laying down his deep groove. “For a while, it seemed that Garry was the only reggae bass player in the world,” recalls Big Sugar frontman Gordie Johnson, commenting on Lowe’s ubiquitous presence was on the Toronto scene. “I’m sure when Garry join...

She had a voice that perfectly blended the sacred and the secular, one that could scale gospel highs and move effortlessly from jazz and blues to r&b and pop. She also lived an extraordinary life, overcoming numerous personal challenges to become a respected figure of indomitable strength, someone who came to represent both women’s liberation and the civil rights movement. When Aretha Franklin died last week at 76, the legendary artist drew an outpouring of tributes from politicians and pop stars alike. “Let’s all take a moment to give thanks for the beautiful life of Aretha Franklin, tweeted Sir Paul McCartney, “the Queen of our souls, who inspired us all for many, many years. She will ...

From its upside down cover photo to the off-kilter music inside, Grande’s fourth album is clearly meant as the ponytailed pop singer’s Mature Artistic Statement. The quirkier tracks come courtesy of singer-rapper-producer Pharrell Williams, of “Happy” fame, while the more straightforward offerings are the work of Swedish hitmaker Max Martin. Grande makes no direct reference to the terrorist attack at her May 2017 Manchester concert that killed 23 people and injured another 500, although one bubbling, infectious Williams number has Grande half-rapping “The light is coming to give back everything the darkness stole.” She addresses her clinical anxiety on “Breathin’” and “Get Well Soon,” the la...

Mraz is unapologetically wholesome. He likens his live show to a yoga class. His albums always have at least one song with love in the title. That sunny outlook helped the talented singer-songwriter win two Grammy Awards and sell over seven million albums. But it all went sour when America’s political climate turned toxic. Despondent, Mraz wrote several protest songs that failed to connect and he briefly considered quitting. But a stint on Broadway restored his love of performing and he decided he “could be of more service as the voice of optimism.” Mraz's sixth album is just the right tonic for these dark times. “Love is Still the Answer” is a gorgeous ode to positivity, much like the regga...