Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Tim Baker has a problem. As frontman for Newfoundland’s Hey Rosetta!, one of Canada’s fastest-rising, hardest-working bands, he is touring for nine months of the year, performing concerts on three continents. Trouble is, Baker is also the group’s chief songwriter and he has yet to master the knack of writing songs on the road. “When I finally get home, it’s difficult for me to set time aside because there’s so much else to do,” admits Baker. “Your house is falling apart, you haven’t seen your friends forever and you have to design the band’s next T-shirt. All this stuff creeps in and the writing gets pushed out.” Despite those obstacles, Baker has been able to write songs for all three of th...

1. The Last Waltz The Band’s elegant swansong is the ultimate rock concert movie. Director Martin Scorcese’s discreet camerawork and superb sound captures inspired performances from Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and others. Scorcese keeps his focus almost exclusively on the stage. Beneath three massive chandeliers, the Band pays tribute to its influences with such friends as Muddy Water (an explosive “Mannish Boy”), Neil Young (a wistful “Helpless”) and Bob Dylan (a stirring group finale on “I Shall Be Released”). But the highlight is “The Weight,” performed with gospel’s Staples family, which ranks among the most exquisite music sequences ever committed to film.     2....

A lot can change in four years—especially in the music world. In 2008, when Kathleen Edwards released her album Asking for Flowers, the Ottawa native was known primarily for story songs about other characters, some drawn from real-life headlines, and an alt-country sound she shaped with her husband, guitarist Colin Cripps. Fast forward to 2012: Edwards has a brave new album, Voyageur, made up almost entirely of first-person narratives and an engaging sound steeped in multi-textured pop that owes a good deal to its U.S. producer, Justin Vernon, also known as ethereal electronic folk star Bon Iver, who just happens to be her new boyfriend. Sitting on a park bench overlooking the Toronto skylin...

Nathan Ferraro doesn’t seem the least bit bitter—which is surprising, given everything he’s been through. In fact, the affable, afro-haired frontman exudes all the serenity of a Buddhist monk, as he sits in a Toronto café and calmly recounts the rise, fall and rise again of his band, the Midway State. Ferraro and his bandmates were teenagers from Collingwood, Ontario, a small ski town two hours north of Toronto, when they became the subject of an intense bidding war from 13 record labels. After being flown around the world and getting wined and dined by industry executives, including legendary figures like Clive Davis and Jimmy Iovine, they eventually signed a deal with Iovine’s Interscope l...

It’s mid-morning in a quiet hotel restaurant and Diana Krall is having a love affair with an artichoke. One by one, she peels off the leaves and dips them into a small bowl of balsamic vinegar before gently lifting them to her mouth and slowly pulling the tender flesh off with her teeth. It’s a ritual she clearly relishes, washing down each morsel with a sip of chardonnay. But for Krall, this is also lunch. Having already done a photo shoot, and with an in-store appearance scheduled for noon, the Canadian jazz star is taking her meal while she can—even if it means being interviewed at the same time. Briefly distracted as she finally reaches the artichoke’s prized heart (“Pardon me,” she says...

Oscar Peterson peers up through the glass ceiling of his sunroom and apologizes for the faint noise coming from a distant jet passing overhead. “We’re right in their flight path,” explains Peterson, whose split-level house in Mississauga, Ont., sits due west of Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Happily, the spacious home he shares with his fourth wife, Kelly, and their seven-year-old daughter, Celine, is also smack in the middle of the flight path of many migrating birds. Peterson loves birds. His sunroom is filled with artists’ renderings of them—some cast in bronze, others shaped in shards of brightly coloured glass. “My favourite is the loon,” says Peterson. “I've always loved its ...

A few days on the concert circuit with the Canadian band Sloan defy just about all the usual rock ‘n’ roll expectations. Excessive drugs and boozing? Try ginger ale and early-ish to bed. Dalliances with groupies? Try looking for a phone to call the steady girlfriend. A whole lot of egotism and attitude? Try nice, earnest, uncompetitive. The alternative-pop quartet, which put Halifax on the music map in the early 1990s, has added a decidedly grounded element to grunge--in fact, Sloan soon abandoned that bristly style for more melodic, even retro, sounds. Perhaps the only rock indulgence the four musicians allow themselves is basking in the adulation of fans.  “We’re not getting drunk or ...

As a teenager growing up in the housing projects of north Toronto, Darrin O’Brien did not seem to have much of a future. An indifferent student from a working-class family, he spent much of his time drinking, fighting and getting caught on the wrong side of the law. His police record includes several convictions—for mischief, causing a disturbance and assault. Aside from his skill as a street fighter, O’Brien's only talent was mimicking the thick Jamaican dialect that he heard on reggae records and in his predominantly West Indian neighborhood. Then, in 1989, when he was 19, a brawl involving butcher knives sent him to jail on charges of attempted murder. But prison proved to be a turning po...

With his oversized Afro and razored sideburns, Alex Cuba cuts a cool figure, a cross between ’70s soul man and stylish rocker. It’s a look that has been attracting attention ever since the musician, born Alexis Puentes in Artemisa, an hour west of Havana, first moved to Canada. But while Cuba’s appearance has turned heads—especially in the small, northern British Columbia town of Smithers where he settled with his Canadian wife, Sarah Goodacre—his music, an infectious blend of rock, reggae, soul, funk and traditional Cuban music, has been grabbing ears and winning awards. Cuba’s first two Spanish albums, Humo de Tabaco and Agua del Pozo, won Juno Awards for World Music Album of the Year. His...

It's Juno week again. And once more, those vying for awards in Canadian music's biggest lovefest run the gamut from artistic to plastic-from the always compelling Leonard Cohen to the prefabricated pop quartet Sugar Jones. The Junos, Canada's answer to the Grammys, have always been rife with eccentricities, as Cohen noted in 1993 while accepting an award. "It's only in a country like this," mused the man with the infamous monotone, "that I could get Male Vocalist of the Year." Cohen's competition that year included Neil Young, who is also not known for his dulcet tones. Young won the award two years later. After that, the category name was changed to Best Male Artist to prevent more bad joke...