Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Creative versatility came naturally to Don Cullen. Writer, actor, comedian, producer and impresario, he could apparently do it all. His talents first surfaced at high school, where Mr. Cullen’s flexible physical features and talent for vocal impersonations made him popular with his classmates. “I became the funny kid,” he once recalled, “by capitalizing on the angularity of my frame and the rubbery quality of my face.”  Mr. Cullen took those attributes onto the stage and across the airwaves, voicing more than 1,500 radio programs and appearing in nearly as many theatrical reviews and television shows. He starred in a production of Beyond the Fringe which was performed more tha...

He was such a good ol’ boy, a teller of such tall tales and the master of so many self-deprecating one-liners it was often easy not to take Ronnie Hawkins too seriously. “I’m a legend in my spare time,” he liked to quip. Calling himself the “Geritol Gypsy,” he claimed to have been playing rockabilly “since the Dead Sea was only sick.” But when the veteran singer-bandleader – for whom the “big time” was always “just around the corner” – died on Sunday, the entertainment world mourned the loss of a bona fide legend whose greatest legacy was his mentoring of some of Canada’s finest musical stars. Mr. Hawkins was born in Huntsville, Ark., on Jan. 10, 1935 and studied physical education at the st...

Roxy Music’s elegant clotheshorse has always had his nostalgic side, tripping down Tin Pan Alley to tackle Gershwin and others on 1999’s As Time Goes By. Ferry’s also done Dylan before, but goes hog wild here with an entire album of Bobsongs. Some are bad choices, including the overdone “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and Ferry’s rocking rendition of “The Times They Are A-Changin.’” But “Positively 4th Street” gets some cool string embellishments and Brian Eno works his sonic magic on “If Not for You.”    

Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot have long been mutual admirers. The legendary singer-songwriters began moving in the same circles in 1964, after Lightfoot was signed to Groscourt Productions by Dylan's manager Albert Grossman. It wasn't long before Lightfoot, at Grossman's suggestion, recorded Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues." Although it would be several years before Dylan returned the favour and cut his own version of "Early Morning Rain," the "Blowin' in the Wind" singer had already expressed his fondness for Lightfoot's "I'm Not Sayin'" and several of his other tunes.  In the summer of '65, Lightfoot and Dylan crossed paths at Grossman's house in Woodstock, New York (Lightfoot e...

He’s unrivalled as a songwriter, but often derided as a singer—which makes this album so curious: the legend lending his craggy pipes to songs associated with Frank Sinatra, one of the greatest vocalists ever. Yet the results are surprisingly affecting, especially on his moving renditions of “What’ll I Do” and “Full Moon and Empty Arms.”