Folk

Why the Juno Awards matter to artists: Just ask William Prince, Caity Gyorgy or Loud Luxury

Being nominated, winning or just being on the televised awards show can have tangible benefits, but even off-camera moments can have an impact. By Nick Krewen Special to the Star Have you ever wondered about the impact of being nominated for – or winning – a Juno Award has on an artist’s career? Well, wonder no more: it turns out it can be quite substantial. For example, when Caity Gyorgy…


Gordon Lightfoot, 82, thrilled to be reopening Toronto’s Massey Hall

The 13-time Juno Award winner who has entertained more than 165 audiences at the venue says he would have been in the building for the reopening regardless of whether he was performing. By Nick Krewen Special to the Star Well, we almost had a Massey Hall reopening without a Gordon Lightfoot concert. Reached at home by phone on Monday, Lightfoot admits that  even though his Nov 25-27 dates to welcome patrons…


Before she went to New York and became famous, Joni Mitchell played the Half Beat in Yorkville

     Nick Krewen Special to the Star John McHugh remembers the time he accidentally became Joni Mitchell’s matchmaker. McHugh, who owned the Yorkville-era clubs The Penny Farthing and The Half Beat back in the ‘60s, recalls meeting “Joanna Anderson” when she came around to one of his venues around 1963-64. “It was at the Penny Farthing that (singer) Cathy Young brought this young lady in with her,” McHugh recalled recently…


After a divorce and depression drove her away from the music business, Kathleen Edwards is back with an album of confessional songs

Nick Krewen  Special to the Star Sometimes to move forward, you have to take a few steps back. Or stop completely. For singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards, who releases Total Freedom her first album since 2012’s Voyageur, on Friday (August 14), the latter move was her answer to a decade of the non-stop rinse-recycle-repeat music industry treadmill that took its toll. In 2011, her marriage to local producer and Blue Rodeo guitarist…


Gordon Lightfoot’s new album, like his recent biography, is a little too revealing for some

Nick Krewen Special To The Star “It ain’t gonna stop now!” a feisty Gordon Lightfoot declares at the conclusion of a 30-minute interview about the state of his six-decade-plus career. We’re sitting at a table at his record company headquarters north of the 401, and it’s obvious that at 81, the fire still rages in the Orillia-born troubadour’s belly. He’s not interested at slowing down in the slightest. Lightfoot, who resumes touring…