Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

It surprised no one who knew him that Mendelson Joe would choose to die entirely on his own terms. In a Feb. 7 post on his website titled “That’s It Folks,” the prolific, self-taught musician, painter and activist who had advanced Parkinson’s disease, wrote: “I have ended my job as multi-media artist with the provision of MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying).” Unable to resist a last chance to advocate his beliefs, he added: “I see MAID as a sign of a civilized society. To be born Canadian is a great blessing. We have free speech. We have healthcare. We have MAID. Thank you, Canada.” Mr. Joe was 78. Those closest to him remember a unique man, unwavering in his views and blunt in delivering the...

There are seminal events in music history, seismic shifts that occur when forces of personality, timing and circumstance collide to create something truly monumental. Sometimes, they are individual moments, like when Chuck Berry wrote his genre-defining “Maybelline,” John Lennon met his future collaborator Paul McCartney or Bob Dylan plugged in and launched a musical revolution.  Other times, the milestone involves a gathering such as Woodstock or the Harlem Cultural Festival, known informally as the Black Woodstock, which became the subject of the recent award-winning documentary Summer of Soul. Both of those events took place in 1969, a year that saw a flurry of festivals; that s...

Geddy Lee visibly tenses up when he talks about the period when fans drove him and his family out of their east-end Toronto home. It was the late 1970s, and Lee’s band, Rush, was the undisputed champion of arena rock in Canada. He and his wife, Nancy Young, and their small son were leading a quiet life in the Beaches, a middle-class neighborhood, until Rush fans discovered where the band’s bassist-singer lived. From then on, recalls Lee, the family felt besieged as strangers peered through windows and demanded autographs, guitars and even, on occasion, money. Faced with constant intrusions, the Lees fled, settling in an affluent downtown Toronto area. And for more than a decade, the reluctan...