Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Neko’s latest is a gem—self-produced and full of melodic charms and fairy-tale delights. “Bad Luck” is all soaring girl-group harmonies, while “Oracle of the Maritimes,” co-written with Laura Veirs, and “Gumball Blue,” one of two songs penned with New Pornographers bandmate Carl Newman, take listeners deep into the raven-haired siren’s rich, imaginative world.

Neko Case’s extraordinary journey from punk drummer and country torch singer to avant pop icon is well documented in this box set, which gathers her entire discography of eight titles on remastered vinyl and includes an 80-page book of photography. The collection features the American-born, Canadian-bred musician’s 1997 solo debut The Virginian, on vinyl for the first time, and her excellent 2004 live album The Tigers Have Spoken, recorded with Toronto’s The Sadies. There are a wealth of inspired covers, including the Everly Brothers’ “Bowling Green” and Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Soulful Shade of Blue,” and such stunning originals as “Hold On, Hold On” and “Near Midnight, Honolulu...

Dallas and Travis Good have worked with Neil Young, author Margaret Atwood, Randy Bachman, Buffy Sainte-Marie and actor Gordon Pinsent. But it was another Canadian icon—one with whom they’ve yet to collaborate—who offered some crucial wisdom. It was 1996, when their band the Sadies was getting started, and Dallas’ and Travis’ father, Bruce, of bluegrass heroes the Good Brothers, was celebrating his 50th birthday at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern. Into the club walks Gordon Lightfoot, who’d had the senior Goods open for him during the 1970s. “Afterwards,” Travis recalls, “Lightfoot turned to us and says, ‘The only advice I’ll give you is do your own songs.’ We took heed and started getting rid of...

Everything alt-country’s torchiest singer touches turns to gold, from her charming Corn Sisters duo with Carolyn Mark and her membership in power-pop’s wondrous New Pornographers to her own captivating solo albums. Although born in Virginia, Case spent her formative musical years in Vancouver, which makes her at least an honorary Canuck. And it means we can call her latest one of the best Canadian albums of the year, full of spooky ballads and beguiling waltzes sung in a voice that could melt glaciers.

The new album cover depicts her wielding a sword on the hood of a muscle car. What does it represent? Maybe Neko’s personal battle against mediocrity. The Virginian-born honorary Canadian (she cut her musical teeth in Vancouver’s indie scene) never settles for easy formulas. Here, the gifted singer delivers songs about tornadoes, birds and other wildlife. There’s even a chorus of crickets on the album’s closing track. Quirky, yes, but Neko is that rare breed of artist whose beguiling sound must be heard to be believed. February 2009