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The passing of Chip Taylor brought the talents of the American songwriter into focus. People have remembered him for songs like “Angel of the Morning,” a hit for Merrilee Rush, and “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder), covered by Janis Joplin.  But for me, and many other teenagers in garage bands in the 1960s, Taylor’s “Wild Thing,” as recorded by the Troggs and then Jimi Hendrix, among countless others, is the one that changed everything.  A primitive, three-chord monster, it’s rivalled for brilliant, impossible-to-resist stupidity only by “Louie Louie,” written by Richard Berry and performed by the Kingsmen. My band thrashed its way through both of those songs, along with other nugget...

He’s one of the most famous musicians of the 20th century and a rock guitarist of unparalleled talent. Although his mainstream career lasted only four years before his death on Sept. 18, 1970 of an apparent drug overdose, Jimi Hendrix shone so brightly that today his albums and concert appearances are the stuff of legend. The official Hendrix website, run by his estate, painstakingly catalogues every recording and performance he ever made under his own name. And many devoted fan sites do the same. As most fans know, the Jimi Hendrix Experience performed twice in Toronto: once at the Canadian National Exhibition on Feb. 24, 1968, on a bill with England’s Soft Machine and Toronto’s own Pa...

Ellen McIlwaine was the epitome of an adventurous spirit: fierce and independent, the flame-haired artist took her musical gifts in surprising directions, defying expectations at every turn. As a virtuoso slide guitarist with a seismic voice, she excelled in a male-dominated field, leading her bands with a bold musical style that transcended genre and culture. “There is a deep well of the music spirit that lives in me and comes out when I play,” Ms. McIlwaine told interviewer Paul Corby in 2019, when she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Toronto Blues Society. “I think a lot of people play with me and through me, and sing with me and through me. It’s really a mystical experienc...