Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Blue-eyed soul was the term coined in the 1960s to describe the sound of the rhythm-and-blues stylings of excitable white boys. The most famous exponents were America’s Righteous Brothers, the Young Rascals and England’s Spencer Davis Group, with vocalist Stevie Winwood. One the world’s best blue-eyed soul singers has always been Canada’s John Finley. As a member of Toronto’s r&b heroes Jon and Lee & the Checkmates, Finley caused a sensation in the mid-’60s with gut-wrenching, sweat-soaked performances and hyper-adrenalized emotion in a voice that held audiences spellbound as he soared from hushed stage whisper to rafter-shaking scream.  With the Checkmates, Finley was a dominan...

Most drummers stick with the backbeat. With few exceptions (Levon Helm, Ringo Starr, Don Henley and Father John Misty come to mind), the dudes behind the kits rarely step forward to become solo artists in their own right. Toronto’s Martin Worthy has always been a different kind of drummer, one who could easily pick up a guitar and croon a sweet folk ballad or a wry country tune—songs he’d come up with when no one was watching. Although he started out in high school pounding the skins in various rock and soul bands, Worthy was really a singer-songwriter trapped in a drummer’s body. During the 1970s, Worthy partnered with his friend Paul Quarrington in a Seals & Croft-style folk duo called...

The illustrious history of Toronto's famous Colonial Tavern, once one of North America's top music clubs, is now etched into the sidewalk at 203 Yonge Street on a fabulous granite disc, thanks to the Downtown Yonge business association and MOD Developments. The disc, which features the names of over 130 artists who performed at the Colonial, was unveiled on Oct. 29, 2020. So many Canadian artists—of all genres— played Toronto’s storied Colonial, from Cy McLean & his Rhythm Rompers (who broke Yonge Street’s colour barrier in the late ‘40s) to The Viletones (who simply tore up the place in the ‘70s). Through the 1950s and into the '60s, the world's top jazz artists played the Colonial, inc...

Gordon Lightfoot tips his hat to his friend Jerry Jeff Walker, who sadly passed away on October 23. The "Mr. Bojangles" singer once gave Lightfoot his favourite piece of clothing: a jacket made of three kinds of leather, tie-dyed to look like autumn leaves. "I loved that jacket, and I guess that’s how much I loved Gordon," Walker told Lightfoot biographer Nicholas Jennings. Added Walker with a laugh: "I thought [Gord] needed it for his image--loosen him up a bit." Lightfoot wore the jacket on the cover of his Don Quixote album.  R.I.P. Jerry Jeff.

Someone once dubbed his singing style “country-and-Lightfoot,” and there’s certainly some truth to it. With his distinctive nasally twang, there’s always been a big streak of country running through Canada’s greatest folk singer and songwriter. Just look at Gordon Lightfoot’s history: In 1959, Lightfoot joined CBC’s Country Hoedown, as part of the cast of the Singing’ Swingin’ Eight. The show’s set was a makeshift barn, complete with wagon wheels and bales of straw. Members of the Singin’ Swingin’ Eight (four men and four women) wore yoked cowboy shirts and gingham crinoline. Can you spot Lightfoot?Lightfoot travelled to Nashville with Chateau Records’ Art Snider in 1962 and recorded hi...

She was Canada’s consummate country music queen: petite, buxom and with towering hair to match a voice that could scale heartbreaking heights. Beginning in the late 1950s and early ’60s, Lucille Starr was also a trailblazer, singing in both English and her native French while becoming the first Canadian woman to sell one million records and the first to perform at Nashville’s famous Grand Ole Opry. There were many other firsts for the feisty francophone artist, an accomplished yodeller who yodeled Cousin Pearl’s character on TV’s The Beverly Hillbillies. Signed to A&M Records in Los Angeles with Bob Regan, her partner in the Canadian Sweethearts duo, Ms. Starr was simultaneousl...

There are few personal histories as rich as Bobby Dean Blackburn’s. His musical legacy, which runs from the birth of rock ’n’ roll and rhythm & blues in Toronto through to his sons’ Juno-nominated blues band, is as long as Yonge Street itself. Bobby Dean’s ancestral story goes even deeper: his great-grandfather was a U.S. slave who found freedom in Canada on the Underground Railroad. For over half a century, he has paid tribute to that heritage with annual performances at Owen Sound’s Emancipation Festival. Now the veteran musician, who turns 80 later this year, plans to add to his lengthy list of accomplishments. Along with a double album of ballads and gospel songs on the horizon, a fo...

In 1967, Gordon Lightfoot's interest in trains led him to narrate and appear in a Canadian National Railways promotional film Movin'. It opens with Lightfoot performing his title song at Yorkville's Riverboat coffeehouse. The film and accompanying promo EP also include two other Lightfoot train songs: "Talkin' Freight" and "Steel Rail Blues." Click here to watch Lightfoot performs "Movin'

Leonard Cohen, hailed 20 years ago as Canada’s answer to Bob Dylan, had slipped into obscurity. It was the mid-1980s, and audiences seemed more interested in carefree pop music than in the modern-day troubadour’s philosophical, often bleak compositions. Then, Jennifer Warnes came along. The Los Angeles singer had begun performing Montreal-born Cohen’s material in 1969 and, later, toured with him as a backup vocalist. In 1986 she used her lush soprano voice to interpret a selection of his songs. The resulting album, Famous Blue Raincoat, sold more than 750,000 copies worldwide. And while that success brought Warnes major stardom, it has also helped rejuvenate Cohen’s musical career. With...

Toronto’s Queen Street, with its clothing jobbers, alternative art galleries and fringe music clubs, has become a major source of brave new musical talents. No group reflects that community’s diversity better than the Parachute Club, whose seven members mix radical social messages with eclectic musical styles. And lately the group’s daring formulas have reaped unexpected rewards. Its self-titled debut album has become a gold record in Canada, and its single, “Rise Up,” an infectious, carnival-style anthem of liberation, has earned the band nine awards and an international audience. This week the Parachute Club launches a second album, which promises to carry its fortunes to even greater heig...