Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

“I have wandered far and wide,” Daniel Lanois sings on the title track to his latest album, “all the way from Paris to Mexico.” The nomadic movements of Canada’s most acclaimed producer are the stuff of legend. After leaving Hamilton, Ont. in the early 1980s to work with U2 in a Dublin castle, Lanois has made a habit out of recording in unusual and far-flung settings: from a dairy barn in Somerset, England to a former porn theatre in southern California. For 10 years, he conducted much of his production work in an ancient, sprawling mansion in New Orleans. Even then, he championed the idea of portable studios and often took equipment with him on the road. Now, Lanois has returned from a year...

Mention the White Stripes and most people think of garage-rock revival groups like the Strokes and the Hives. True, the Detroit duo does owe something to the raw, three-chord tradition of 1960s’ classics like “Louie Louie” and “Wild Thing.” But the group’s tastes run much deeper, all the way back to blues artists like Son House and Blind Willie McTell, prompting some critics to describe them as a mutant blues band. Fact is, singer-guitarist Jack White and his ex-wife drummer Meg White are art-rockers—not of the King Crimson variety, but of the modernist aesthetic sort. From their name, taken from the peppermint candy and symbolizing childhood and innocence, to their use of simple musical for...

Six years is an eternity in pop music. Hits come and go. Superstars quickly fade, only to be supplanted by a new round of pop royalty. An artist who falls out of the limelight runs the risk of being quickly forgotten. Such is the transitory nature of the music world that keeping one’s hat in the ring is essential for any pop performer looking at career longevity. Sarah McLachlan needn’t worry. Although it’s been half a dozen years been since her last album, Surfacing, the Vancouver diva’s profile has remained high through remixes, charity work and her role as brainchild and den mother of the hugely successful Lilith Fair festivals. There are also good reasons why it’s taken McLachlan so long...