Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Mose Scarlett specialized in songs from bygone eras – jazz, blues, ragtime and swing – and always dressed the part, neatly turned out in a three-piece suit and fedora or, more informally, a waistcoat and workingman’s flat cap. Within Canadian music, he was an anachronism, a performer cheerfully out of step with the times. But that was also a big part of his charm. Blessed with a deep, resonant singing voice and a self-taught, fingerpicking guitar style often described as stride, Mr. Scarlett was similarly old-fashioned in his personal demeanour. Bruce Cockburn, who met him in 1969 when he and his then future wife, Kitty, stayed at Mr. Scarlett’s apartment in Toronto’s east end, recalls being...

For more than 25 years, Leon Redbone has been conjuring up the past with his Roaring Twenties show tunes and turn-of-the-century minstrel ditties. Wearing his trademark fedora and Groucho Marx moustache, he became a fixture on TV’s Saturday Night Live  and The Tonight Show  with Johnny Carson during the 1970s and ‘80s, when he attracted legions of fans and supporters, from Bonnie Raitt and Maria Muldaur to Tom Waits and Dr. John.  Another admirer, Bob Dylan, once told  Rolling Stone  magazine that if he ever formed his own record label, Leon Redbone would be his first signing. Now Dylan has complimented him again: several songs on Dylan’s latest album, the fine, back...

For more than 25 years, Leon Redbone has been successfully romancing the past with his Twenties show tunes and turn-of-the-century ditties. His first two albums, 1975's On the Track and 1977's Double Time, were surprise hits. Wearing his trademark fedora and Groucho Marx moustache, he became a fixture on Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson during the '70s and '80s. His fans included Bonnie Raitt, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, who once told Rolling Stone that if he ever started his own label, Redbone would be his first signing. Now, Dylan has complimented him again: several songs on his latest album, Love and Theft, pay homage to Redbone's vaude- villian charms. So why has ...