Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

If nationhood is a peoples’ sense of their past, then Stompin’ Tom Connors has contributed greatly to our national identity with his backward-glancing songs. Whether it’s courageous cowpunchers, ghostly shipwreck sites or bold mainland-linking bridges, Stompin’ Tom has sung about this country’s people, places and things with incomparable passion and conviction. Entertaining and instructive, he reminds us of familiar characters and events from our past while rescuing from obscurity some that never showed up on our collective radar screen in the first place. That takes genius. No wonder they gave him an honorary doctorate. Dr. Tom’s historical songs, the best of which are collected here, neatl...

Rounding out the 1970s and completing a trilogy of acoustic jazz-folk albums that included In the Falling Dark and Further Adventures Of, Bruce Cockburn’s Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws stands as both an era-ending album and a cumulative release that neatly built on the strengths of its predecessors. It also serves as a high-water mark for Cockburn in several respects. Featuring some of his finest guitar work ever, the album was voted an “essential” recording by Acoustic Guitar magazine, putting Cockburn in the prestigious company of such revered pickers as Django Reinhardt, Andrés Segovia, Bill Frisell and Mississippi John Hurt. It also provided Cockburn with a commercial breakthrough on the ...

Guitar gods are usually pretty one-dimensional: masters of fretwork, they can be counted on for outrageous riffs and awesome solos, but rarely deliver quality songwriting or strong leadership. Domenic Troiano is a major exception. The consummate musician’s musician, he has written superb songs and fronted numerous bands—all the while contributing dazzling, distinctive guitar work.

Over the course of his 40-year career, Troiano has also been highly prolific. In one seven-year period in the 1970s, he released five solo recordings and four band albums as a full-fledged member of the James Gang and the Guess Who. During this time, he also lent his unique guitar work to albums by Joe Cocker, David Clayton-Thomas, Diana Ross, Ronnie Hawkins and Donald Fagen, among others.

Such is the depth of Troiano’s musical genius that he has been able to fill the shoes of several legendary guitarists over the years, replacing Robbie Robertson in Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band and Joe Walsh in the James Gang, before helping to fill the void in the Guess Who left by Randy Bachman’s departure. In 1996, Troiano’s significant contributions were recognized when he was inducted in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

 Born in Modugno, Italy, Troiano immigrated with his family to Canada as a boy and by high school had established himself in Toronto’s burgeoning