Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

The Beatles changed the world in countless ways, but they also dramatically changed Toronto over three consecutive years of performances (1964 to 1966) at Maple Leaf Gardens. Almost overnight, the city was hit with a cultural shift of seismic proportions: Boys grew Beatle-bangs, girls pinned photos of John, Paul, George and Ringo on their walls and parents worried about the sanity of their teenaged children. Canada’s folk darlings, Ian & Sylvia, had ruled up to that point, but as the male half of that duo, Ian Tyson, remembers, “the minute the Beatles arrived, it was over – well and truly over.” The folk boom slowed, as every kid on the block rushed to form rock bands. Toronto’s music sc...

I’ve had a casual relationship with music journalist Nicholas Jennings through the years; always a fan of his writing and passion for music. We served together on a panel years back for one of those Ontario Arts giveaways and mostly saw eye to eye. We just happen to be sharing duties with a not so generous singer hell bent on not freeing any grant money to other female singers. This is why I’m not a big fan of these practices other than you do meet some lovely folks who you’d likely never spend a solid three to six hour sit down most days. We picked up on what was going down and made sure the deserving was fairly treated. I invited Nick to drop by my radio show last week and just as suspecte...

C.W. Stoneking is the best blues artist you’ve never heard, a distinctly white performer (dressed head-to-toe in white as well) from the far northern reaches of Australia, a man who inhabits the sounds and vernacular of traditional music so convincingly it’s as if he’s been mysteriously transported from the distant past and landed smack dab in the middle of the bright and shiny present. He slicks his hair down with Brylcreem, plays old-time blues, country and calypso on a 1930s Dobro or 1950s Gretsch electric, uses only vintage tube amplifiers and spouts antiquated expressions as he tells his fabulously tall tales of shipwrecks, voodoo and talking lions. He’s a cross between carnival barker,...