Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

A man and his guitar. Canada’s iconic rocker has been proving the power of that simple combination for half a century. Young’s latest is a testament to just how much feeling, meaning and, yes, noise he can draw from his instrument. Recorded without percussion, keyboards or strings (but with plenty of sonic effects from producer and fellow Canadian Daniel Lanois), the album’s standout tracks range from the raw “Walk with Me” and the ornery “Angry World” to the gorgeous, Spanish-tinged confessional “Love and War.”

“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...