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Canada’s musical landscape in the early 1960s was dotted with smoky coffeehouses with folky minstrels inside, singing their hearts out to audiences hungry for emotional authenticity. This was the fertile ground from which sprang future icons such as Ian & Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot and, later, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. One of the brightest stars to emerge from that scene was David Wiffen. A dashing British émigré, Wiffen possessed all the qualities needed for fame and fortune. Tall, handsome, nattily attired and blessed with a captivating stage presence and a deep, stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks voice, he also had the songs — rich, blues-based confessionals about loss and ...

The story of folk icon Neil Young and funk master Rick James were once being in a Yorkville band together has become the stuff of rock 'n' roll legend. They were unknowns at the time and the Mynah Birds just happened to be where their paths converged, along with those of Goldy McJohn and Nick St. Nicholas, future members of Steppenwolf, and Bruce Palmer, who ultimately wound up with his buddy Neil in Buffalo Springfield. The following story, largely excerpted from Nicholas Jennings’ Before the Gold Rush: Flashbacks to the Dawn of the Canadian Sound, published by Penguin Books in 1997, is one of the earliest accounts of the now storied Mynah Birds band. It draws on an extensive interview...