Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

I had the honor of introducing Feist at the Polaris Music Prize gala on Sept. 24 at Toronto's historic Masonic Temple. She won the prize, after performing "Caught a Long Wind" and "The Bad in Each Other." I was pleased, as Metals is an extraordinary album and had been my number one pick all along. Here's what I said in my introduction: After the runaway success of The Reminder, Feist needed a clean slate. She found it in Big Sur, a place of stunning vistas and quiet reflection. Working there with longtime partners Mocky and Chilly Gonzales, she discovered a new range of expression and forged an album of rare depth and beauty. Feist found inspiration in the elements and cast them into alloys ...

Billy Bryans was best known as the drummer and founding member of the Parachute Club, the Juno Award-winning political rock group famous for its anthemic hit “Rise Up.” But his credits and contributions ran much deeper and he may ultimately be remembered as a cultural bridge builder who changed the sound of Canadian music. As a musician, Bryans performed and recorded with bands across the musical spectrum, from rock and blues to punk and African styles. At the height of the new wave era, playing in several groups at once, he was often seen pushing his drum kit on a trolley from club to club along Toronto’s Queen Street. His work as a record producer was equally eclectic, working with everyon...

Few pianists swung as hard or played as fast and with as many grace notes as Canada’s Oscar Peterson. The classically trained musician could play it all, from Chopin and Liszt to blues, stride, boogie, bebop and beyond. He led his own jazz trios, performed with such legendary figures as Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong, who called him “the man with four hands,” recorded more than 200 albums and wrote such memorable works as “Hymn to Freedom” and the “Canadiana Suite.” “A virtuoso without peer,” concluded his biographer, Gene Lees, in The Will to Swing. When Peterson died this week, music lovers around the world mourned the loss of a lyrical stylist and one of...