Music journalism, books and more

In the mid-1960s, Toronto was teeming with pop groups and teenagers inspired by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. One of the city’s most popular bands, however, took its cues not from the British Invasion but from the rhythm-and-blues sound of American artists such as Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett. That band was the Mandala. With a dazzling stage show featuring choreography, strobe lights and sonic effects, the Mandala became a sudden sensation. Dressed like costumed gangsters in striped suits, black shirts and white ties, the five members took their self-styled “soul crusade” across Canada, down to New York and out to Los Angeles, earning rave reviews for fever-pitched concerts that cri...

Paul McCartney performed outside on a rooftop of sorts to the delight of fans below.  It wasn’t the Apple Corps building on London’s Saville Row, made famous by the Beatles fabled appearance there in 1969, but New York’s Ed Sullivan Theater, at 53rd Street and Broadway, where McCartney was appearing on the Dave Letterman show.  It was July 15, 2009 and Sir Paul McCartney was marking the 45th anniversary of the Beatles' triumphant appearance on Ed Sullivan. For the occasion, he and his band played “Get Back” and “Sing the Changes,” taped for the Late Show broadcast, but then thundered through a mini-set that included through “Coming Up,” “Band On the Run,” “Let Me Roll It,” “Helter ...

Peter Goddard, who passed away in 2022, left a vast archive of writing about music. As Canada's first on-staff popular music newspaper critic, he charted the way for others to follow, writing intelligent reviews, profiles and feature articles about artists and trends. He wrote constantly, yet always with great care and thoughtfulness, about his subjects, returning to the newsroom after an interview or concert and working into the wee hours to turn around a review or feature for the next day's paper.  Goddard wasn't just tireless and prolific in his work. He was writing from a deeply informed place: he studied music history and was a musician himself. A graduate of the Royal Conservatory...

I collect hats. That's what you do when you're bald.                                                                                                                             So spoketh Sweet Baby James Taylor. Gordon Lightfoot was never bald and, therefore, not much inclined to collect hats. But he did once own a distinctive Homburg. Not the formal, stately kind made famous by Wi...

On the night of January 9, 1974, my buddy Bill Gardner and I joined the flood of people pouring out of Maple Leaf Gardens, babbling with excitement over what we’d just witnessed: a two-hour-plus concert by Bob Dylan and The Band who’d stoned us with the raucous opener “Rainy Day Women” and dressed us so fine with the euphoric penultimate “Like a Rolling Stone, asking us how we felt. As if we needed to be asked. The elation carried us along Carlton Street, undimmed despite nostril-freezing temperatures and a sudden snow squall. “Wanna go for drinks?” asked Bill. “Ronnie’s playing down at the Nick.” The thought of seeing Ronnie Hawkins on the same night and in the same building where Dylan had...

Peter Yarrow, of bestselling folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary, passed away on January 7, 2025. Yarrow spoke to me in 2016 for the Gordon Lightfoot biography, explaining his interest in Lightfoot’s songwriting and particularly his songs “Early Morning Rain” and “For Lovin’ Me,” both of which Peter, Paul & Mary covered. His was one of the most thoughtful interviews given to me for the book. I first asked Yarrow about “For Lovin’ Me,” which beccame a huge hit for the trio in 1965. Here’s what he said: I was singing lead on that song and I know what was in my heart when I was singing. I was feeling and identifying with what I felt were Gordon’s intentions… there’s a sadness there. There was ...

As troubadours, Toronto’s Mose Scarlett and Leon Redbone were cut from the same vintage cloth. Both came up through the Yorkville scene of the late 1960s, performing songs from bygone eras–jazz, blues, ragtime and swing–and always dressed for the part: Scarlett neatly turned out in a three-piece suit and fedora or, more informally, a waistcoat and workingman’s flat cap; Redbone immaculate in a dark suit, a bow or string tie, topped by a fedora, straw boater, a Panama hat or even, occasionally, a pith helmet. They could have been arch rivals, instead they were good friends. When Mose and Leon died on the same day—May 30, 2019—many who knew the pair felt the coincidence as fitting as...

East Indian singer Sheila Chandra was a pop phenomenon before the term "world music" as even invented. At 16, as a member of the group Monsoon, the English-born performer had a Top 10 hit with "Ever So Lonely," a clever synthesis of Indian melody over a Western dance beat. And in 1982, when she sang the song on Britain's Top of the Pops TV show, Chandra wore a sari, the traditional dress of Indian women. Today, although she's only 26, Chandra finds herself the veteran in a growing field of Asian artists--one whose influence is increasingly being felt in the mainstream. In fact, East Indian culture is a cornerstone of this year's WOMAD festival at Toronto's Harbourfront. And Chandra...

When Jack Long opened his first musical instrument store in Toronto in 1956, he was a skilled jazz trumpeter without a clue about business. “I didn’t even know what an invoice was,” he often said. Mr. Long learned the hard way. When sales were slow, he and a drummer friend, Jack McQuade, started giving lessons in the store’s back rooms. When they discovered colleagues often wanted to borrow instruments, Mr. Long invented modest rental fees: “three dollars if it was small, four dollars if it was bigger.” Together as partners, the two Jacks grew the company until 1965, when Mr. McQuade decided to pursue drumming full-time and sold his portion of the firm to Mr. Long. Today, the family-owned Lo...

The Bergen International Jazz Festival, or Nattjazz as it’s now called, takes place in USF Verftet, a converted sardine factory on the shores of Norway’s beautiful west coast city. There, on Saturday night, I saw the Valkyrien Allstars, an experimental folk rock band and one of Norway's best live acts. Consisting of Tuva Syvertsen on vocals, keyboards and hardanger fiddle, guitarist-fiddler Erik Sollid, bassist Magnus Larsen Jr. and drummer-banjoist Martin Langlie, all exceptional musicians, the group performed to a sold-out crowd with many in the audience, both young and old, singing along. Although steeped in traditional Norwegian folk music, the Allstars are every bit a modern ensemb...