Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Everything has to start somewhere. For True North Records and Bruce Cockburn, the beginning can be traced to April 7, 1970. On that spring day in Toronto, a remarkably mild and sunny one, by all accounts, True North was auspiciously born with the release of Cockburn’s first solo album. The reviews for the record were universally ecstatic. One newspaper said it deserved “nothing but praise,” while another called the album “quite simply the best thing to happen in Canadian music since Joni Mitchell.” It was the start of a long and fruitful partnership between label and artist. Over the next 50 years, True North would issue another 33 albums by the acclaimed singer-songwriter (along with hundre...

When Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan performs, people get high. They break into tears, fall into trances and feel like they’re flying. They may even see God. It’s something the Pakistani singer’s proud of—actually it’s his mission in life. Yet Khan, who performs Sunday with his seven-member “Party” at Roy Thomson Hall, has nothing to do with drug-induced states of ecstasy. As the world’s leading performer of qawwali, the devotional music of Sufi Muslims, his approach is purely spiritual. It’s a tradition that dates back to the 12th and 13th centuries. Sufi poems, praising Allah and his prophets to music, are sung in Urdu, Punjabi or the original Persian language. And a qawwali ...

The Troubadour is one of the most storied venues in popular music. Beginning in 1961, owner Doug Weston ran the club, located in West Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard, as a showcase for folk and country artists. Later, it featured rock musicians as well. The Troubadour is where Elton John made his triumphant U.S. debut, where the Byrds, who met at a Monday open mic, first performed their classic take on Dylan’s “Tambourine Man,” where Buffalo Springfield made their live debut, where the Eagles’ Don Henley and Glenn Frey met in the front bar and where Led Zeppelin famously played with Fairport Convention in a three-hour jam session. But more than anything, the Troubadour became synonymous ...

Charismatic reggae star Michael Rose’s Toronto connections run deep. Rose, Black Uhuru singer-songwriter in the group’s glory days of the early 1980s, wrote one of Uhuru’s best-loved songs, “Youth of Eglington (sic),” about a shooting incident that occurred in 1981 during one of his frequent Toronto visits. And the performer’s brother, Horace, owns Rap’s Place, a popular restaurant in the Jamaican neighbourhood around Oakwood and Eglinton. So it’s fitting that Rose, now a respected solo performer, should help launch Toronto’s newest reggae club, I-Beam (1 Robina Ave., east of Oakwood, off St. Clair) with a headline performance there Saturday. His appearance comes at a time when Black Uhuru i...

Starting in the mid-1960s, Luke & the Apostles—a quintet fronted by the Mick Jagger-like Luke Gibson—were packing Yorkville’s Purple Onion night after night. Although guys were drawn to the Apostlesʼ raw covers of songs like “Crossroads,” “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” and “You Canʼt Judge a Book,” girls were drooling over the sight of Gibson. Off-stage, Gibson was shy and quiet, but on-stage, he was transformed into a writhing, shaking, screaming package of pure sexual energy. With his curly hair and boyish good looks, Gibson was the bandʼs biggest asset. But the Apostles—guitarist Mike McKenna, keyboardist Peter Jermyn, bassist Jim Jones and drummer Rich McMurray—sounded good enough ...

Some of my favourite albums in 2020, with the notable exception of Bob Dylan’s formidable Rough and Rowdy Ways, were by Canadian artists. This is not to say that these recordings were necessarily the best of the year, because my ears were not attuned to as much new music as usual—so who am I to judge? In fact, much of my lockdown listening during this strangest of years tended toward old familiar standbys: aural comfort food for covid times. But these were the albums from the past year that I found most inspiring. U.S. Girls Heavy Light Meg Remy is an American-born artist who records under the name U.S. Girls. She moved to Toronto in 2010 after marrying the Canadian musician Maximi...

It was the summer of 1963 and Doug Chappell was riding high. His Toronto band Richie Knight & the Mid-Knights had just hit No. 1 on the charts with Charlena, bringing the group local fame and enabling members, each barely out of their teens, to buy a car. Most purchased sensible sedans. But Mr. Chappell splurged on a brand new Pontiac Parisienne convertible – and painted it an eye-popping shade of pink. Then he cooked up a bold plan: to drive his new set of wheels to Detroit, stopping at every radio station along the way to talk up the band. Mr. Chappell’s taste for crazy promotion schemes and flashy sports cars never waned. Nor did his passion for music – especially by Canadian art...

Denise Jones wore many hats: actress, dancer, artist manager, concert presenter, festival producer, event planner and mother of two. A pillar, along with her husband, Allan, of the Jamaican-Canadian community, she worked tirelessly throughout her career to promote Caribbean culture – first through plays and pantomimes and then through reggae concerts and arts festivals – to increasingly larger audiences. The multifaceted businesswoman was also a strong activist, championing diversity long before “Black Lives Matter” became a popular movement. In 1989, in the wake of the police shooting death of Mississauga Black teenager Wade Lawson, Ms. Jones spoke to a task force on race relations and crit...

When Wayne Gretzky was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame at a gala ceremony last November, only two artists were asked to perform: Stompin’ Tom Connors and Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy. For Cuddy, who plays pickup hockey throughout the winter with a group of musicians, including members of the Rheostatics and the Tragically Hip, the invitation stands as a career highlight. But the 44-year-old singer-guitarist says he’s still a bit embarrassed about how he actually got to meet the Great One. “I inflicted myself on him at the end of the night,” recalls Cuddy, still shaking his head in disgust. “Everyone was getting their picture taken with him and I just jumped right in. He was very gracious abo...

The concert began and ended badly. Minutes before the members of Blue Rodeo were due onstage at the student lounge of Erindale College in suburban Toronto, the band’s manager, John Caton, had been refused admittance. A student security guard with a penchant for protocol insisted that because Caton had no photo identification proving he was old enough to drink, the manager—who is 39—could not go in. Undeterred, Blue Rodeo gave a spirited two-hour performance. Yet some people in the audience of 300 failed to give the show their full attention: it had been exam week, and several students were more interested in consuming large quantities of beer than in listening to the band’s thoughtful brand ...