Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

He was one of the early architects of Jamaican music – a guitarist, bass player, songwriter, arranger and producer whose contributions to hundreds of recordings helped to shape reggae and popularize it around the world. He played with Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Johnny Nash and Toots and the Maytals, and worked for such famous studio owners as Duke Reid, Bunny Lee and Lee (Scratch) Perry, and the Trojan, Treasure Isle and Upsetter record labels. Yet the name Ronnie (Bop) Williams is barely known outside of reggae circles. Part of the reason for the near anonymity was Mr. Williams’s own modesty. A soft-spoken man, he came from extremely humble roots in rural Jamaica, teaching himself to play on ...

To walk through the middle of Toronto's Kensington Market on a Saturday in the early ’80s was to enter what locals called the “wobble zone.” There on a stretch of Kensington Avenue, between St. Andrew and Baldwin, the booming bass sounds coming from two sets of opposing speakers could throw passersby a little off balance. The duelling sound systems, like something out of The Harder They Come, belonged to a pair of Jamaican expat musicians who ran competing reggae record shops, each facing the other. Stranger Cole came first, in 1978, launching his Roots Records store – the first Caribbean business in the Market – at 58 Kensington. Four years later, Rannie “Bop” Williams opened Record Corner ...

The world has become crowded with crooners and divas, all climbing over each other to cover compositions from the American songbook. It’s well traveled ground: the same handful of songs by Cole Porter, Harold Arlen and others has long been the staple of iconic singers such as Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. Yes, classic numbers like Porter’s “Night and Day” and Arlen’s “Stormy Weather” have stood the test of time and numerous interpretations. But where are the new songs for the current wave of jazz singers and pop vocalists? Nowhere to be found. With this collection, Murray McLauchlan has helped to fill that void. After an illustrious career as an award-winning folk and country artist, po...