Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Toronto’s Queen Street, with its clothing jobbers, alternative art galleries and fringe music clubs, has become a major source of brave new musical talents. No group reflects that community’s diversity better than the Parachute Club, whose seven members mix radical social messages with eclectic musical styles. And lately the group’s daring formulas have reaped unexpected rewards. Its self-titled debut album has become a gold record in Canada, and its single, “Rise Up,” an infectious, carnival-style anthem of liberation, has earned the band nine awards and an international audience. This week the Parachute Club launches a second album, which promises to carry its fortunes to even greater heig...

A battle of the bands is usually won by the group with the best guitar pyrotechnics and drum solos. But last year at an indoor rink in Toronto’s west end, some of Canada’s best-known musicians settled the score with slapshots, glove saves—and punches. The Black Stokes were facing their archrivals, the Morningstars, in the playoff semi-final of a recreational hockey league. Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy, Cowboy Junkies’ Peter Timmins and Skydiggers’ Andy Maize were all playing for the Black Stokes, while Rheostatics’ Dave Bidini and members of such bands as Lowest of the Low and the Morganfields were among the Morningstars. In a previous game between the two teams, a bitterly fought contest won by t...

Is storytelling the art of words or the alchemy of sound? For Paul Simon, master songwriter, it all begins with a beat. “You have to catch the right rhythm to get people’s attention,” he told Maclean’s recently. “If you get it wrong, people don’t hear you.” Sitting backstage last month at Toronto’s Massey Hall, prior to one of two sold-out concerts, Simon explained the genesis of his latest album, You’re the One, an exquisite collection of warm, gentle songs about fate and mortality. Rhythm and rhyme have been the cornerstones of Simon’s celebrated career, as far back as the mid-1960s when he and partner Art Garfunkel first gained prominence as America’s top folksinging duo. T...