Peter Goddard - Canada's scholarly rock critic

Peter Goddard, who passed away in 2022, left a vast archive of writing about music. As Canada's first on-staff popular music newspaper critic, he charted the way for others to follow, writing intelligent reviews, profiles and feature articles about artists and trends.

He wrote constantly, yet always with great care and thoughtfulness, about his subjects, returning to the newsroom after an interview or concert and working into the wee hours to turn around a review or feature for the next day's paper. 

Goddard wasn't just tireless and prolific in his work. He was writing from a deeply informed place: he studied music history and was a musician himself. A graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music in piano, he went on to receive his Bachelor of Arts and Masters degrees in music and became a decent classical pianist who wrote often about Canada's legendary Glenn Gould, including in his 2017 book The Great Gould. 

Goddard had intended to publish a reexamination of his back pages, but could complete the mammoth undertaking before his death from glioblastoma. Now, thanks to the work of his friend, editor and author Andrew Wainwright, the world has this much-needed collection of Goddard's music writing, One Foot on the Platform: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Journey.

Along with new essays Goddard completed on Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the Who, k.d. lang, David Bowie, The Band and others, the collection complies some of his best writing that appeared in The Globe & Mail, Toronto Telegram and mainly The Toronto Star, as well as other publications.

With Goddard's knowledgable, insightful writing on a myriad of artists and topics in every genre, One Foot on the Platform is an illuminating read and serves as an important addition to the canon of Canadian music non-fiction.