Rock ‘N Roll Hall Of Fame

White Lace and KISS for luck

PUBLISHED IN THE GLOBE & MAIL IN 1995 FANS / Some want to being a lifetime commitment at a rock convention   BY NICK KREWEN   Toronto   Like most impressionable music-starved teenagers growing up in the mid-seventies, Harold Gagnon spent his evenings after school in his suburban Montreal home huddled in his room. Cranking up his stereo as loud as his parents would permit, he’d spend countless hours daydreaming…


Summers at Six Nations

  Where Robbie Robertson Learned To Play At The Feet Of His Mohawk Cousin   NICK KREWEN Hamilton Spectator October 6, 1994   TORONTO:  As a kid growing up in Toronto, Jamie Robbie Robertson had little interest and awareness in music. That all changed at the age of 11, when Robertson, who would later co-found The Band, started spending his summer vacations visiting relatives at the Six Nations Reserve just…


Robert Plant Gets the Led Out

  Nick Krewen Hamilton Spectator December 12, 1988 Robert Plant loves his music. Already elevated to the status of rock immortal for his contribution as vocalist for Led Zeppelin – arguably the mightiest and most influential of the crunch-chord dinosaur rockbands – Plant is enjoying an enormously successful career as a solo artist. His fourth and most recent album, Now And Zen , has gone platinum twice-over in this country,…


‘Better, not bitter’

Carlos Santana’s strategy for success has kept him on top for 20 years   Nick Krewen Hamilton Spectator Friday, July 24, 1987   It was 20 years ago today that Carlos Santana taught his band to play. The summer of love may be best remembered for The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,  but 1967 should also go down in history as the year Latin rock surfaced to the…


Surviving With Rush

PUBLISHED IN THE CANADIAN COMPOSER, APRIL 1986     SURVIVING WITH RUSH     Drummer-lyricist Neil Peart looks forward      By Nick Krewen   The mark of longevity in the music business is originality. Usually, a band that lasts in this fashionably fickle marketplace does so by leaving an indelible imprint on audiences. For the 12 years that drummer Neil Peart has been a part of Rush with guitarist…