Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Like a ballroom orchestra high on amphetamines, the Los Angeles-based Chicano band Los Lobos conjures up contradictory, even comic, images when it is performing its frantic norteño music--an infectious hybrid of Mexican dance and German polka styles. How Will the Wolf Survive?, the quintet's refreshing debut album, opens with blistering rockabilly, and Cesar Rosas' gravelly vocals on "Don't Worry, Baby," and switches to a sweet country ballad in "A Matter of Time." On the carnival romp of "Corrida #1," David Hidalgo's speedy manipulation of his button accordion produces a euphoric, yodelling effect. Add some full-blooded rock 'n' roll in the style of Bo Diddley, one traditional Mexican ...

The music of Talking Heads has always been on the fringe of pop. True eccentrics, the members of the group have created songs on such unlikely topics as buildings, civil servants and mental health set to music ranging from American new wave to African tribal rhythms. Their new album, Little Creatures, continues to examine everyday thoughts and things--from television to babies and domestic bliss--and, because the group has now dropped African rhythms in favor of simple pop tunes, the album's music is easier to understand. On "Creatures of Love," an amiable country-and-western tune about human reproduction, David Byrne sings with childlike amazement about how "little creatures come out" after...

Artistic genius, or howling, lost-on-the-moor madwoman? Kate Bush has always defied description—and divided audiences along the way. As British author John Mendelssohn put it, when Bush “came out of of nowhere in 1978 with her jaw-droppingly eccentric debut single ‘Wuthering Heights,’ screeching like a banshee, flapping her arms as though trying to take wing, pulling alarming faces, people either adored or loathed her.” But absence has benefitted Bush. Since dropping out of the music world to raise a family, a massive cult has grown up around the reclusive, publicity-shy singer. There are now Kate Bush fashions and fan conventions, while the truly obsessive celebrate her birthday as “Katemas...