Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Artistic genius, or howling, lost-on-the-moor madwoman? Kate Bush has always defied description—and divided audiences along the way. As British author John Mendelssohn put it, when Bush “came out of of nowhere in 1978 with her jaw-droppingly eccentric debut single ‘Wuthering Heights,’ screeching like a banshee, flapping her arms as though trying to take wing, pulling alarming faces, people either adored or loathed her.” But absence has benefitted Bush. Since dropping out of the music world to raise a family, a massive cult has grown up around the reclusive, publicity-shy singer. There are now Kate Bush fashions and fan conventions, while the truly obsessive celebrate her birthday as “Katemas...

Quique Escamilla’s music is a tantalizing blend of sweet and sour, light and dark. The talented Canadian troubador’s entrancing second album opens with the Manu Chao-like reggae vibe of the title track, a tart tale of historical corruption and exploitation in his Mexican homeland, and ends with the gorgeous “Tú Sólo Tú” (“You Only You”), a pedal-steel-drenched traditional ranchera about obsessive love, a song Tejano pop star Selena covered before her tragic death. As with his debut album, the Juno-winning 500 Years of Night, Escamilla doesn’t shy away from other hard-hitting subjects, including “Highway of Tears,” about British Columbia’s remote highway where so many Indigenous women and gir...

Canadian musicians have always flocked to New York, drawn like moths to the bright lights of the city that never sleeps. Dreams of a breakthrough in New York have inspired artists ever since Toronto vocal groups the Crew-Cuts, the Four Lads and the Diamonds all had success there, followed by Ottawa teenager Paul Anka, who ventured to the Big Apple in 1957 and scored a number one hit with "Diana," his lovestruck ode to a former babysitter. The steady stream continued during the folk boom. In November, 1965, Ian & Sylvia performed at New York's prestigious Philharmonic Hall while Gordon Lightfoot played a few days later just down Broadway Avenue at the Town Hall. Both folk acts became regu...