Business

Banjo, Bob Dylan, Canada, Events, Experimental, Festivals, Jazz, Metallica, Music Industry (Trade), Prince, Punk, Rock 'N Roll, Rolling Stones, Toronto November 30, 2024

He helped bring the Ramones, the Police and the B-52’s to Toronto for the first time. Nearly 50 years later, he’s being celebrated in a new book

Nearly 100 key players, including performers, scenesters and other promoters, were interviewed for “He Hijacked My Brain: Gary Topp’s Toronto.”  By Nick Krewen Special to the Star In a career that has lasted nearly five decades and involved thousands of concerts, eminent Toronto promoter Gary Topp has but a few regrets. One of his biggest involved an act he and partner Gary Cormier (known collectively as the Garys) tried to book…

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Business, Canada, Music Publishing, Record Labels, Songwriter, Technology August 17, 2024

Can Canadian songwriters survive? As their income plummets to poverty levels, many find themselves making tough choices

Can Canadian songwriters survive? As their income plummets to poverty levels, many find themselves making tough choices By Nick Krewen Special to the Star What do the Beluga whale, the wolverine and the full-time Canadian songwriter have in common? They’re all on the endangered species list. While humans may be contributing to the extinction of the first two, it appears that for the third, digital streaming is hastening the demise…

Bob Dylan, Business, Canada, Country, Country Music Hall Of Fame, Emmylou Harris, Gordon Lightfoot, In Memoriam, JUNO, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Leonard Cohen, Los Angeles, Music Industry (Trade), Music Publishing, Nashville, New York, Producer, Record Labels, Robbie Robertson, The Band, Toronto, United States July 10, 2024

Remembering the Toronto music exec who helped shape the careers of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen

Artists as diverse as Van Morrison, Thin Lizzy and the Marshall Tucker Band were touched by Mary Martin’s expertise. By Nick Krewen Special to the Star If the only thing Toronto’s Mary Martin had achieved during her extraordinary career was introducing Bob Dylan to the Hawks, it would have been enough to enshrine her place in music history. But Martin, who died July 4 in Nashville at the age of…

Canada, CCMA, Composer, Events, Keith Urban, Music Publishing, Nashville, Nashville Sound, Record Labels, Songwriter, Toronto, Uncategorized, United States July 27, 2023

Steven Lee Olsen’s Miraculous Trek To the Grand Ole Opry

The songwriter behind Keith Urban’s hit ‘Blue Ain’t Your Color’ was working at an Audi dealership in Newmarket when he got his first big break. By Nick Krewen Special to the Star This Sunday night, Scarborough-born country singer and songwriter Steven Lee Olsen will realize another lifelong dream. Olsen, 37 — and currently on Canadian country radio airwaves with his Top 10 hit “Outta Yours,” — will be making his…

Business, Led Zeppelin, Music Industry (Trade), Pink Floyd, United Kingdom June 21, 2023

Hipgnosis made indelible album art for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and many more – now it’s immortalized in a documentary

With the doc Squaring the Circle and Pink Floyd exhibit Their Mortal Remains in Toronto, founder Aubrey “Po” Powell feels Hipgnosis is getting its due. By Nick Krewen Special to the Star British progressive rock legends Pink Floyd may be known for such masterpieces as Dark Side of The Moon and The Wall, but they also were directly responsible for launching the most distinctive, popular and influential creators of memorable…