Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

It has been 24 years since Joni Mitchell left Saskatoon and eventually arrived on the coffeehouse circuit in Toronto’s Yorkville district. And although she has returned occasionally from her home in Los Angeles to visit her parents, last week was different. Under the glare of the media spotlight, Mitchell was back in Saskatoon for a triumphant homecoming. And the veteran singer-songwriter chose the Bessborough Hotel—where she often attended high-school dances—to meet the press on the western leg of a publicity tour to promote Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm, her best album in years. Donning a school beanie presented by three students at her old school, Aden Bowman Collegiate Institute, the 4...

Neil wears many hats–including that of filmmaker. His latest project, a western, sees the 72-year-old Canadian rocker join forces with his romantic partner Daryl Hannah (Splash, Kill Bill), who wrote and directed the movie. Available on Netflix and centred around a group of outlaws hiding out in the mountains, Paradox stars Neil, fellow music legend Willie Nelson, and Willie’s sons, Lukas and Micah, who are members of Neil’s backing band Promise of the Real. The movie’s soundtrack features Neil’s solo score together with solo and band performances. There are campfire-style renditions of blues songs like Jimmy Reed’s “Baby What You Want Me to Do” and Lead Belly’s “How Long...

To mark his 80th birthday, the country music legend revisits old favorites that he and his sister, Bobbie, sang during their childhoods and throughout their careers. Along with the Irving Berlin title track, Nelson lends his dry drawl to Carl Perkins’ “Matchbox” and the Platters’ doo-wop classic “Twilight Time,” accompanied by Bobbie on piano.

Chicago is the cradle of modern blues, the place where Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf urbanized and electrified the music of the Mississippi Delta. But, during the ’70s, the windy city also gave rise to two of the finest singer-songwriters that America has ever produced: John Prine and Steve Goodman. Like bookends in a vast library of American roots music, Prine and Goodman shared stages and a gift for wry, witty and often poignant compositions. Between them, they wrote hundreds of country, bluegrass, folk and rock ’n’ roll songs, many of which are now considered standards and covered by others: Jimmy Buffett recorded Goodman’s politically incisive “Banana Republics” and Willie Nelson made Go...