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David Bowie 8 January 1947 - 10 January 2016 I interviewed Bowie on the morning of March 17, 1987, in a Toronto hotel room. He was the most extraordinarily controlled and self-contained subject I'd ever faced, immaculately dressed and absolutely oozing confidence. I remember wondering if he was really that self-assured or simply an extremely good actor (which of course he was). He later performed at a mid-afternoon press conference at the oldDiamond Club on Sherbourne Street, which I was lucky enough to attend, with a five-piece band that included Peter Frampton (see photo above). In looking back at my transcript, Bowie's intelligence and self-awareness leaps off the page. When I asked if he...

Rock’s most famous chameleon has changed personas countless times during his career, from Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke. With each mask comes a new sound. For his 25th album, Blackstar (stylized as a symbol), the icon threw out the rulebook. His longtime producer, Tony Visconti, says the goal was to avoid rock ’n’ roll and create a new fusion sound. Released to coincide with the singer-actor’s 69th birthday, the seven-song album includes the unsettling title track, a shape-shifting, apocalyptic torch song that runs nearly 10 minutes, and “Lazarus,” the horn-drenched title number from Bowie's current off-Broadway musical, based on The Man Who Fell to Earth (he starred in the...

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, better known as Taj Mahal, is an American music treasure. A self-taught singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Mahal has done more to stretch and redefine blues music than any other artist past or present. Over the course of his over 50 year career, he has taken the blues and fused it with the sounds of the Caribbean, Africa, the South Pacific and beyond. This diverse, melting-pot approach has puzzled some listeners while making Mahal a hero to lovers of eclectic roots music. “Here’s the thing, plain and simple,” music blogger Miles Mellough once wrote about the man, “Taj Mahal has always been a conundrum; a man who is capable of mirroring many t...

They’ve never looked so fab. The Beatles were early adopters of film technology. But now it’s possible to see the group as never before. This DVD/Blu-ray collection offers 50 enhanced promotional films and videos, along with a book and the band’s 27 chart-topping singles, which will amaze even diehard fans. The material ranges from the Beatles performing “She Loves You” before a spellbound Stockholm audience in 1963 to a bittersweet London rooftop performance in 1969 of “Don’t Let Me Down” for what would be their last public performance. Among the many highlights are seeing the eye-popping primary colors in “Hello Goodbye” and the infectious ad-libbing between John Lennon and Paul McCartney ...

Seal has made a name for himself by baring his heart in song. The English-born singer topped the charts in 1995 with “Kiss From a Rose,” which earned him three Grammys. Since then, Seal has sold over 30 million albums, recorded with artists like Joni Mitchell and appeared as a coach on TV’s The Voice. Now the “Love’s Divine” singer has a new album, 7, that reflects the different dynamics of romance. One of its most soulful songs, “The Big Love Has Died,” appears to be about the breakdown of his marriage to Heidi Klum, with whom he shares four children. We spoke with Seal about the complexities of love and the challenges of parenthood. How autobiographical is your new album? There’s a li...

Allen Toussaint (January 14, 1938 – November 10, 2015) touched so much of my favorite music. He wrote Aaron Neville’s “Tell It Like It Is,” Ernie K-Doe's “Mother-in-Law,” Irma Thomas” “Ruler of My Heart,” Chris Kenner’s “I Like It Like That,” Lee Dorsey’s “Holy Cow” and Solomon Burke’s “Get Out of My Life Woman.” He also penned two famous instrumentals: Al Hirt’s “Java” and Herb Alpert’s “Whipped Cream.” Beyond songwriting, Toussaint groomed one of the best bands of all time, the Meters, and produced artists like the Neville Brothers, Paul McCartney, Dr. John, Paul Simon, Joe Cocker, Glen Campbell, Labelle and Robert Palmer. Everything he DID was funky. To hear the late great pianist capture...

Oscar Peterson is remembered as a gifted pianist who could play it all, from Chopin and Liszt to blues, stride, boogie and beyond. Peterson led his own jazz trios, performed with such legendary figures as Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong, who dubbed him “the man with four hands,” won eight Grammy Awards and Canada’s prestigious Glenn Gould Prize. Called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, he released over 200 recordings before his death in 2007, including his 1956 Stratford Festival recording, 1958’s On the Town, recorded at Toronto’s Town Tavern, and 1962’s Night Train, which featured a number of Ellington pieces a...

JUNOS SPECIAL Canadian music’s big night takes place this year in Hamilton, Ont., airing on CTV Mar. 15th. It’s the first time since 2001 that the city southwest of Toronto—affectionately known as the Hammer—has hosted the awards and it’s pulling out all the stops for the occasion. The Juno show always makes for great entertainment and this year’s, the 44th edition of the awards, promises to no exception.   MUSIC This year’s show offers live music from the likes of Magic!, Kiesza, Hedley and the Hammer’s own Arkells. One of the night’s most anticipated performances will be from the Weeknd (aka 25-year-old Abel Tesfaye), who takes to the stage to deliver his hit single “Earned It” from t...

It opened with Australia’s AC/DC devilishly stomping their way through “Rock or Bust” and “Highway to Hell” and ended with America’s Beyoncé, John Legend and Common taking us to church with hopeful hymns about emancipation and salvation. In other words, the 57th annual Grammys, hosted once again by the affable LL Cool J, ran the gamut from rock to gospel and heaven to hell. Another distinguishing feature of the show, which boasted a whopping 23 performances and only 10 onscreen awards, was the producers’ penchant for pairing legends with rising stars. While obviously an attempt to bridge the demographic divide, it made for some damn good duets. The young-meets-old collaborations included Ed ...

Toronto City Council votes to preserve historic music venue The Silver Dollar is one of Toronto’s most historically significant music venues. Along with its important role as a blues bar for 16 years (1994-2010), it provided a regular showcase room for rock, jazz and bluegrass music.  The earliest known band to play there was Tommy Danton & the Echoes, a gold-lame-suited group fronted by a Sinatra-style crooner that performed a popular mix of jazz and rhythm 'n' blues. Danton and the Echoes (pictured below at right) had a long residency at the club, after it opened in 1958. In the ’70s, when the Dollar was a strip club, the house band included notable jazz players John T. Davis (B3 ...