Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

A return to her jazzier side, Taming the Tiger finds Joni Mitchell, now 54, happy but hardly complacent. Featuring saxophonist Wayne Shorter (Weather Report) and drummer Brian Blade (Joshua Redman), the album includes sensuous, romantic numbers like “Love Puts On a New Face,” with its swirling keyboards and Mitchell’s pastel-shaded chords, and “The Crazy Cries of Love,” about a late-night tryst on a train bridge that she wrote with her boyfriend, Saskatoon songwriter Don Freed. But other songs, such as “Lead Balloon” and “No Apologies,” attack some of Mitchell’s favorite targets: corrupt lawyers and twofaced record executives. On the acerbic title track, she sings: “I’m a runaway from the re...

One of the world's pre-eminent record producers, Canada's Daniel Lanois stepped out from behind the controls in 1989 to release his own album. An auspicious debut, Acadie signalled the arrival of a promising new performer with a flair for moody, country-tinged rock. For the Beauty of Wynona, his follow-up album, reveals other facets of his artistry. Inspired by Winona, Ont., the town near Hamilton where Lanois grew up, the recording is full of songs that conjure up stark, sometimes haunting images. The title track, with its childhood memories of fishing and girls skipping double-dutch, and “Sleeping in the Devil's Bed,” a lazy honky-tonk number, have a shimmering, dreamlike quality. And ther...

For fans who have always known that a serious singer lurked beneath k. d. lang's tongue-in-cheek country exterior, Ingénue is thrilling confirmation. Gone are the hoedown humor and country-punk affectations that characterized--and sometimes marred--her earlier style. A moody collection of ballads, Ingénue is steeped in the torch tradition of such singers as Julie London and Patsy Cline in her pop period. And the songs, written mostly by lang and fiddler Ben Mink, reveal a surprising vulnerability. On “The Mind of Love,” a tale of tortured romance, lang asks herself, "where is your head Kathryn/where is your head." And on “Save Me,” a shimmering ballad, her voice washes over the listener like...