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Last summer, Canada tuned in to watch the Tragically Hip’s last concert and bid adieu to its charismatic poetic frontman. Now Gord says goodbye with this poignant collection of 23 deeply personal songs. Like David Bowie’s and Leonard Cohen’s final recordings, the album is almost unbearably sad and made more powerful because the artist knew the end was coming. “Each song is about a person,” Gord explained before his death from brain cancer on Oct. 17. Some numbers are love letters to childhood buddies, former girlfriends and his bandmates in the Hip. “Bedtime,” a tender piano lullaby, describes the nightly ritual of putting one of his four children to sleep. “You and Me and the B’s,” with per...

Gordon Lightfoot first came to prominence during the folk boom of the 1960s. On a tip from his friends Ian & Sylvia, Lightfoot was signed by their manager Albert Grossman, the Greenwich Village impresario who also handled the careers of Odetta and Bob Dylan. Right away, Lightfoot found his songs covered and turned into hits by the likes of Peter, Paul & Mary and Marty Robbins. From then on, Lightfoot’s compositions appeared on hundreds of albums by other artists, including Dylan, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Nico, Fairport Convention, the Grateful Dead and, later, the Replacements, Paul Weller, Mary Margaret O’Hara, the Dandy Warhols, Billy Bragg and Neil Young. Travelling the folk cl...

Before he became the quintessential troubadour and one of the world’s greatest singer-songwriters, composer of such classics as “Early Morning Rain,” “If You Could Read My Mind, “Sundown” and “Carefree Highway,” Gordon Lightfoot sang in a fledgling pop duo called the Two Tones. Together with Terry Whelan, a high school classmate from Orillia, Lightfoot started out first in a 1950s barbershop quartet called the Teen Timers. When the quartet broke up, he and Whelan formed a teenage duo that they initially called the Two Timers, a roguish variation on the former group’s name. Dressed in suits with slicked-back hair, the Two Timers fancied themselves an Everly Brothers-style act. With Lightfoot ...

Today is the day. Many years in the works. Months of digging in newspaper and magazine archives. Countless hours interviewing, even more transcribing. Endless scanning of photographs and documents. And then the writing and rewriting, trying to make sense of the material and shape it into a readable story that hopefully does justice to a complicated man, his extraordinary life and rich body of work. It's been daunting, but I'm thrilled that my biography of Gordon Lightfoot is now out in the world, available wherever good books are sold as they say. Ultimately, I'm proud to be associated with a great artist whose music I've known and loved since childhood.

Gordon Lightfoot is notoriously shy. The man who wrote such classic songs as “Sundown, “Early Morning Rain” and most famously “If You Could Read My Mind” has always kept his personal life private, preferring to let his music speak for him. Now, for the first time in his long and celebrated career, the legendary artist has allowed a comprehensive biography to be published that takes readers deep inside his world, into his fascinating back story and the influences and relationships that inspired and shaped his most popular songs. Lightfoot granted Nicholas Jennings unprecedented access to him through long and extensive interviews. It was a trust earned over many years. Besides interviews, he s...

The march by Nazis, white supremacists, Ku Klux Klansmen and garden-variety racists in Charlottesville, Virginia last Saturday and the resulting violence that left one counter-protester dead is a deeply disturbing sign of just how much fascists in America have felt empowered by Donald Trump. As Globe and Mail columnist John Ibittson wrote: “[Trump] is the man who launched his campaign for president by accusing Mexican immigrants of ‘bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.’ This is the man who wanted to ban all Muslims from entering the country. This is the man who wants to build a wall. And this is the man who, on Saturday, refused to condemn white supremacists, blaming inst...

May 9, 2017. Toronto, Canada  Penguin Canada Publisher Nicole Winstanley and Publishing Director Diane Turbide are proud to announce the forthcoming publication of LIGHTFOOT by Nicholas Jennings. The book will be published under the Viking Canada imprint on September 26, 2017; the deal was negotiated by agent Jackie Kaiser of Westwood Creative Artists. "We're thrilled to be publishing what will be the definitive biography of one of Canada's best singer-songwriters," says Turbide. "Nick Jennings has had a long-standing relationship with Gordon Lightfoot, and his book enlarges our understanding of how an inspired songwriter works. I think it's going to d...

From Amazon: Lightfoot by Nicholas Jennings - Published by Penguin Random House Canada. The definitive biography of Canada's most beloved singer-songwriter, a legendary musician who helped define the folk-pop era.      From the tender ballad of "Beautiful" to the historical lament of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" to the plaintive political plea of "Black Day in July," Gordon Lightfoot's songs have inspired and enchanted fans for more than fifty years. Beloved by a devoted Canadian audience, Lightfoot's work has been performed and admired by musicians from around the world, including Joni Mitchell, Nico, Ronnie Hawkins and Robbie Robertson. Nobel Prize-winner Bob Dy...

The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul has always mined personal issues for her best work. This is the r&b diva known for such deeply confessional numbers as “Not Gon’ Cry” and “No More Drama.” For her 13th studio album, Blige had the biggest real-life drama to draw from: divorce from her longtime manager-husband Martin “Kendu” Isaacs. She doesn’t pull her punches, attacking him for his infidelity in the scathing “Set Me Free.” “How could you believe I wouldn’t fight back,” she tells him on “Telling the Truth,” a club number produced by Canada’s Kaytranada. But most of the album is more positive, with warm numbers like “Indestructible” and “Survivor.” “I’ve been broken for a long time,” she sings on ...

It’s been nearly a quarter of a century since Sheryl Crow launched her career with Tuesday Night Music, a rock-pop album that included such infectious songs as “All I Wanna Do.” She went on to record another seven albums, which cumulatively sold over 35 million copies worldwide. Now Crow has reunited with Jeff Trott, who co-wrote early hits “If It Makes You Happy” and “My Favorite Mistake.” The reunion pays dividends, returning the “Everyday is a Winding Road” singer to her ’90s rock-queen glory. Songs like “Roller Skate,” “Rest of Me” and exuberant title track are all instantly likeable. There’s also a darker edge to some material, reflecting Crow’s concern with the state of the world. “Hal...