Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Everyone knows that SARSStock, featuring the Rolling Stones, AC-DC, Rush and others, took place in Downsview. But few are aware that Downsview is also notable for once having Canada’s largest nightclub and an auditorium featuring Toronto’s biggest bands. In fact, Downsview at one time was a go-to destination for music lovers, who ventured uptown and “out west” to attend weekly dances in the neighbourhood’s community halls, church basements, and YMCAs. Country music and rock ’n’ roll were the early draws. But, later, the area also became a major breeding ground for hip-hop and R&B. A deeper dive into this history reveals how live music in Downsview began in the late 1950s with countr...

Zal Yanovsky may be the unlikeliest candidate for success ever to emerge from Toronto’s music scene. Before he joined Denny Doherty in the Halifax Three and headed south to serious Sixties fame in the Lovin’ Spoonful, Yanovsky was broke and scuffling around Yorkville and the Annex, learning to play guitar and stealing milk off front porches so he could collect the deposit from the bottles. Unable to afford rent anywhere, Yanovsky took to sleeping in a laundry dryer at 163 Dupont, right next door to the Gate of Cleve, where he perhaps dreamed he might one day perform.  In a poster designed by future realist painter Ken Danby, the Gate of Cleve coffeehouse advertised “folksongs and folk m...

Canadian music passes a milestone this year as the Juno Awards turn 25. To celebrate the occasion, this year's event (CBC TV, Sunday, March 10) features the induction of five rock legends into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Zal Yanovsky (The Lovin' Spoonful), Denny Doherty (The Mamas and the Papas), John Kay (Steppenwolf), David Clayton-Thomas (Blood, Sweat & Tears) and Domenic Troiano (Mandala, James Gang) all started their careers in Canada and pursued them south of the border. Yanovsky, Doherty and Troiano have since moved back, and Kay and Clayton-Thomas still have close ties to the country where they first got the beat. ZAL YANOVSKYThere is not a trace of The Lovin' Spoonful ...