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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…

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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…


Indigenous music is more visible in Canada — Digging Roots is part of the groundswell

The duo of ShoShona Kish and Raven Kanatakta Polson-Lahache are sharing their experiences and stirring things up through their music. By Nick Krewen Special to the Star Canadian contemporary Indigenous music is enjoying an all-time high in visibility and much of that has to do with the band Digging Roots. Formed in 2004 and led by the “life partner” duo of ShoShona Kish and Raven Kanatakta Polson-Lahache, the group is…


‘I just thought it was time’ — Sylvia Tyson on ‘At the End of the Day,’ her (maybe) final album

If anyone thinks Sylvia Tyson at 83 is any less authoritative an artist, hearing “At the End of the Day” will quickly quell that notion. By Nick Krewen Special to the Star Her singing voice is a little more weathered, but no less formidable; her lyrics are incisively sharp. If anyone thinks the legendary Sylvia Tyson at 83 is any less authoritative an artist, hearing her newly released 12-song album At…


Milli Vanilli’s Fab Morvan: ‘There was a human side to the story I think that was never told’ he says ahead of new documentary

Story of the scandal-plagued duo that’s not been told before gets airtime in new Paramount Plus film “Milli Vanilli” by Nick Krewen Special to the Star Thirty-three years after the revelation of one of pop music’s more explosive scandals, Fab Morvan is finally getting to speak his truth. If Morvan’s name is familiar, he was one of the two original “frontmen” — along with Rob Pilatus — of Milli Vanilli, a…