Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

In the mid-1960s, Toronto was teeming with pop groups and teenagers inspired by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. One of the city’s most popular bands, however, took its cues not from the British Invasion but from the rhythm-and-blues sound of American artists such as Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett. That band was the Mandala. With a dazzling stage show featuring choreography, strobe lights and sonic effects, the Mandala became a sudden sensation. Dressed like costumed gangsters in striped suits, black shirts and white ties, the five members took their self-styled “soul crusade” across Canada, down to New York and out to Los Angeles, earning rave reviews for fever-pitched concerts that cri...

When Jack Long opened his first musical instrument store in Toronto in 1956, he was a skilled jazz trumpeter without a clue about business. “I didn’t even know what an invoice was,” he often said. Mr. Long learned the hard way. When sales were slow, he and a drummer friend, Jack McQuade, started giving lessons in the store’s back rooms. When they discovered colleagues often wanted to borrow instruments, Mr. Long invented modest rental fees: “three dollars if it was small, four dollars if it was bigger.” Together as partners, the two Jacks grew the company until 1965, when Mr. McQuade decided to pursue drumming full-time and sold his portion of the firm to Mr. Long. Today, the family-owned Lo...