Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

In July 2005, I spoke with Sinéad O'Connor about her reggae album, Throw Down Your Arms, that she’d recorded in Jamaica with Sly and Robbie. There was a lot going on in the world at the time. Live 8, the series of anti-poverty benefit concerts organized by Bob Geldof on the 20th anniversary of Live Aid, had just taken place. The news cycle was filled with horrific stories about the suicide attacks by Islamic terrorists that killed 56 early-morning commuters on the London Tube. We talked about those events, as well as ganga, God and her decision never to revisit her pop past again.  But Sinéad was musically motivated—Throw Down Your Arms was her first recording since her t...

More than any other singer-songwriter, Gordon Lightfoot personified Canada. His robust songs about winter nights, morning rain, being bound for Alberta and sailing on Ontario’s Georgian Bay came closest to expressing for many Canadians the essence of life in the Great White North. Historical epics stood alongside romantic ballads. Author Pierre Berton once said that Lightfoot’s “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” conveyed as much about the building of the national railway as his own best-selling book on the subject. When Lightfoot died Monday evening at the age of 84, leaving a vast legacy of more than 500 songs, Canada lost a masterful composer, a distinctive vocalist and one of its ...

The talented troubadour's fifth album, and first since 2018's Starter Home, offers no big surprises—just more first-rate folk and country songs, many of which sound like they're destined to join such other Paisley classics as “Drinking With a Friend” or "No One But You." But consistency is a virtue worth celebrating. And Paisley's intimate songwriting, warm voice and crisp guitar work is never anything less than exceptional. He's like a modern-day Kristofferson or Lightfoot who keeps hitting it out of the park.  This time around, Paisley works with Afie Jurvanen (Bahamas), who produces and provides additional guitar, as well as sterling side players including drummer Don Kerr, guit...