Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

One of the world’s legendary music clubs, the Troubadour in West Hollywood served as the unofficial home to some of the top artists of the 1970s, including the Eagles, Elton John, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt and Joni Mitchell. It was also the first venue where in 1970 Carole King and James Taylor—two of the era’s defining musicians—played together. When the pair returned there the following year, James’ “Fire and Rain” was a number one hit and Carole’s Tapestry was on its way to becoming one of the top-selling albums of all time.     Live at the Troubadour, a special two-disc CD-DVD, captures the excitement when Carole and James performed at the intimate venue for a three-n...

Like a hot house for talent, BSS has given rise to acts like Stars, Metric, Jason Collett and, most famously, Feist. But the indie-rock collective has been quiet of late, as frontmen Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning released solo projects. Now the sprawling, family-like band is back with a tighter unit, a cool horn section and a wealth of catchy tunes, including the cinematic “Chase Scene,” the funky “Highway Slipper Jam” and the sweet ’n’ dreamy “Sentimental X’s,” featuring Feist, Emily Haines and Amy Milan.

Vancouver’s New Pornographers are one of indie-rock’s most revered bands—with good reason: gifted singer Neko Case and talented songwriters AC “Carl” Newman and Dan Bejar give the group an irresistible power-pop attack. The Pornos’ fifth album offers an embarrassment of riches, from the opener “The Moves” to the closing “We End Up Together,” both falsetto-laced, Beach Boys-inspired gems. In between, Neko’s siren voice sends shivers, while Carl and Dan keep the infectious melodies cranked up full.

When Crash Test Dummies exploded in the early 1990s, there wasn’t a precedent for their brand of quirky, ironic pop—not in Canadian music. The Dummies, led by Brad Roberts—the guy with the impossibly deep voice—dealt cheerfully with matters of growing old, getting sick and dying. Oh, and God too. “I don’t think I’m a hypochondriac,” said Brad, who graduated from the University of Winnipeg with an honors degree in English and philosophy. “I just find illness and subjects like God and death fertile ground for songwriting. ”     After topping the charts at home with “Superman’s Song,” a folky ballad about the death of a socially committed superhero, the Dummies experienced an international brea...

In music, success often leads to a plethora of copycats. Canada already has plenty of Avril and Feist soundalikes, so thankfully this Vancouver singer-songwriter has got her own thing going on. Steeped in edgy new wave and dancepop with attitude, Hannah’s debut album scores big points for lyrical wit, catchy beats and a refreshing lack of predictability. One minute she’s getting “down and dirty” on the provocative “Dancefloor,” the next she’s turning torchy on the retro jazz of “Something for You.”   

It’s no surprise that Justin Rutledge has become one of Canada’s most literate singer-songwriters. A former English major, Rutledge named his third album, Man Descending, after a short-story collection by Guy Vanderhaeghe. His excellent fourth album features 10 songs that are as rich as short stories themselves, including “Jack of Diamonds” and “Mrs. Montgomery.” The best is the gospel-drenched “Be a Man,” about one man’s desperate search for courage, co-written with no less a literary icon than Michael Ondaatje.

Nikki Yanofsky and Justin Bieber have much in common: both are 16-year-old Canadian singing sensations who share the same record label and currently have the music world abuzz. But that is where the similarities end. Stratford, Ont.’s Justin is a pop singer with bubblegum appeal, while the Montreal’s Nikki is a jazz vocalist who transcends demographics. Blessed with a multi-octave range, perfect pitch and surprising maturity, she’s has already been hailed as a “young Ella Fitzgerald.”     According to her father, Nikki was singing Britney Spears songs at four, Beatles songs at five and was hooked on jazz by the age of eight. At 14, she made her debut at the Montreal International Jazz Festiv...

The former 10,000 Maniacs frontwoman has been quiet since 2003, when she gave birth to a daughter. Now Natalie is back with a CD that began as a lullaby record and became an album about childhood, with the singer setting Ogden Nash’s “Adventures of Isabel” to stirring Cajun music and Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Land of Nod” to dreamy classical sounds. In Natalie’s hands, Edward Lear’s “Calico Pie” is a bluegrass romp, while Mother Goose’s “The Man in the Wilderness” becomes a beguiling gypsy waltz.

From the title, you might expect that the latest album from these Montreal indie-rockers was inspired by Los Angeles glitz. And, with songs like “Tom Cruz” and “Game Shows,” you could be right. The group even names one number, the sexy, swaying “Kon Tiki,” after a California hotel where singer Warren Spicer and his bandmates “listen to the Gipsy Kings and watch the sun go down.” But then Warren offers up his vocal “la la la’s” on the infectious, sax-driven “American Idol” and the title’s real meaning becomes clear.

For several years in the 1960s, North America really did seem to be under attack.  English musicians began storming our shores in early 1964 with a revolutionary sound that was, ironically, American in origin. It began with the Beatles and continued with the Rolling Stones, the Kinks and the Who. But the British Invasion included many other influential acts who sold more than $76 million worth of records that year in the United States alone.     A new DVD box set, British Invasion, documents four lesser-known English artists who changed pop’s look and sound. Each DVD includes interviews and full-length performances of rare and classic songs. Taken as a whole, the collection restores some muc...