Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Few pop stars have been as creative—or forward-thinking. Since leaving British prog-rockers Genesis, Peter Gabriel has consistently pushed pop’s boundaries with inventive songs, groundbreaking videos and an enthusiastic embrace of world music. He has also become a social anthropologist, exploring the musical instincts of African apes, been an active campaigner for human rights and launched an international think-tank to promote peaceful solutions to global conflicts. For his various humanitarian efforts, Peter was made a Nobel Man of Peace in 2006. Now the singer, whose playfully funky song “Sledgehammer” topped the charts more than 20 years ago, has returned with a typically experimental al...

Some of Canada’s best songbirds, including Jill Barber and Sarah Harmer, put a modern twist on vintage styles. Meaghan, hailing from a musical household in London, Ont., with three sisters and a piano-teacher mother, mines similar terrain. Her debut album features parlour music (“A Piece for You”), French café sounds (“Soft Touch”) and ballroom jazz (“I Know”). The difference is Meaghan’s infectious exuberance and willingness to mix Kid Koala’s DJ scratching with cool strings on the delightfully retro “A Little Love.”

He’s small in stature, with a boyish demeanor to match, but Jamie Cullum has become a giant in the jazz-pop world. The London-born singer-pianist first made headlines in 2003, when he won the British Jazz Awards’ Rising Star prize. He’s since become Britain’s top-selling jazz artist, due as much to his flamboyant performance style (leaping onto his piano to sing, beating out a rhythm on the body of the instrument with his hands) as his inventive approach to jazz standards and pop covers.     Cullum’s Hollywood breakthrough came when he co-wrote the title song for Clint Eastwood’s film Gran Torino and earned a Golden Globe nomination. His love life also took a happy turn, when he met supermod...

This African diva has won a Grammy Award for her global sound, but her eighth album pays tribute to the music that inspired her childhood—much of it American r&b. Angélique teams up with John Legend on Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up” and with Dianne Reeves on Aretha Franklin’s “Baby, I Love You.” Whether caressing Otis Redding’s “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember” in the Nigerian language of Yoruba or belting out James Brown’s “Cold Sweat,” she proves herself one soulful, funky mama.

Not to be confused with the 1970s U.S. sitcom Sanford and Son (or its U.K. predecessor Steptoe and Son), Mumford and Sons are the latest folk-rock sensations to emerge from England. Like Noah and the Whale, Marcus Mumford and his mates specialize in uplifting acoustic music, rather than the depressing stuff of British shoe-gazer rock. Produced by Markus Drav (Arcade Fire), this strong debut features stirring songs like the banjo-driven title track and the barnstorming “Little Lion Man” that brim with passion.

Like actors who get typecast by roles, musicians can become stereotyped by songs—just ask Dan Hill. The Canadian singer shot to fame in 1977 when his composition “Sometimes When We Touch” topped the international charts and earned him a reputation as an overly sensitive artist. Although he went on to record a wide range of material, the Grammy- and Juno Award-winning musician was forever pegged as that guy whose honesty was, for a lot of people, simply too much. Undaunted, Hill continued writing hit songs—many of them for the likes of Céline Dion, Britney Spears, Michael Bolton and George Benson. His writing also took a literary turn when I Am My Father’s Son, his tell-all memoir about his c...

He’s a family man in more ways than one: a father of four with his social-worker wife and a member of the Toronto indie-rock collective Broken Social Scene (his 2005 CD, Idols of Exile, featured Feist, Emily Haines and many other BSS regulars). But Jason, a former carpenter, is also a talented solo artist who has built an impressive career to house his roots-rock songs. His fifth album is his best yet, full of Jason’s Dylanesque drawl and such bittersweet gems as the Celtic-tinged, closing-time waltz “Rave On Sad Songs.”

One of the world’s most successful acts is this virtual, animated band. The brainchild of Damon Albarn, of Britpop band Blur, and comic-book artist Jamie Hewlett, Gorillaz has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide of its first two albums, Gorillaz and Demon Days. The third Gorillaz CD offers more dub and trippy hip hop, with such eclectic guests as Mos Def, Snoop Dogg, Bobby Womack, Lou Reed, the Clash’s Mick Jones and Paul Simonon and Lebanon’s National Orchestra for Arabic Music. Delightfully surreal.

He has scored nine #1 hits, sold 50 million albums worldwide, won a pair of Grammy Awards and has even collaborated with Bob Dylan. Yet life has not always been easy for Michael Bolton. The American musician stumbled when he began his musical life as vocalist Michael Bolotin and then became lead singer for a heavy-metal band. His fortunes improved considerably when he changed his name and relaunched his career in 1983 with a succession of popular power ballads and r&b covers.     Still, the heartthrob became what Rolling Stone magazine called “one of the most reviled figures in mainstream pop” for his tendency to remake classic soul songs by beloved artists like Otis Redding and Percy Sledge...

Like Arcade Fire, the Besnard Lakes are a Montreal band with a husband and wife duo that favors epic songs. But that is where the similarity ends. While Arcade Fire delivers uplifting chamber pop, the Besnard’s Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas have mostly darker designs, contrasting sunny Beach Boy harmonies with moody progressive-rock atmospherics, especially on the shimmering “Albatross” and the apocalyptic “And This is What We Call Progress.” Still, this is an ambitious and, ultimately, engaging effort.