Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Now open: a brand new exhibit at the Friar’s Music Museum, devoted to the deep, rich history of Caribbean music in Toronto. Among the Rhythms and Resistance exhibition’s many rare and wide-ranging artefacts are hundreds of photographs, posters, handbills, recordings, videos, instruments, costumes, clothing and assorted ephemera related to calypso, reggae, soul, funk and hip-hop musicians in Toronto, dating back to the first arrival of Caribbean immigrants in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. Artists featured in this exhibition include Bob Marley, Lillian Allen, Jackie Mittoo, Louise Bennett, the Mighty Sparrow, JoJo Bennett, Leroy Sibbles, Michie Mee, Jay Douglas and many more. Proud to ha...

He was an unlikely pop star of the post-Woodstock era. Clean-shaven and pipe-smoking, with short, clipped hair and a preference for cardigans and safari jackets, he looked more advertising executive than hip musician. But Canada’s R. Dean Taylor was always determined to make it in the entertainment world. Venturing to Detroit in the early 1960s, he landed himself a job at Motown and became an anomaly – a white songwriter at a black rhythm-and-blues record label. Like many session singers and musicians, it seemed Mr. Taylor was forever destined to be just another background player, standing in the shadows of Motown. That changed when his song “Indiana Wants Me” catapulted him to stardom. Afte...

Here, in alphabetical order, are the artists who made some of my favourite music of 2021. These are the albums that excited me most and that I turned to again and again throughout the year. Some, like Adele, Rhiannon Giddens and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, are international musicians I’ve been following from the start of their careers. Others, like Arooj Aftab and Mdou Moctar, are more recent global discoveries. The rest all come from closer to home and stand alongside the best I’ve heard in the past 12 months. Adele - 30  England’s Adele has a habit of naming albums after her age. She also has a tendency to belt out ballads, the kind that huge numbers of people respond to, s...