Folk

Hugh’s Room Live forced out at month’s end due to rent hike

Nick Krewen Special to the Star While Hugh’s Room Live is being forced to shutter its doors at the end of the month, the venue’s Board of Directors has vowed to find it a new home and continue operations. Considered by many to be Toronto’s premier music listening room, the club that has hosted such folk legends as Gordon Lightfoot, Pete Seeger, Tom Rush and Odetta will vacate its present…


12-step cured him, music kept him going: James Taylor looks back as his 19th album comes out

Nick Krewen Special to The Star Not only has he seen fire and rain: legendary singer and songwriter James Taylor has also seen more than his fair share of pain. Despite selling more than 100 million albums in a 54-year career that has earned him worldwide adulation, five Grammy Awards, inductions into the Rock and Roll and Songwriters Halls of Fame, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Kennedy Center Honors…


Singer Maggie Rogers on letting her location inspire her and getting clear of ‘money and sexism’

By Nick Krewen Special to the Star July 29, 2019 Maggie Rogers hears music in colours. As a person who was born with synesthesia – defined by Wikipedia as “a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway”  – the 25-year-old singer and songwriter from Easton, Maryland known for such hits as “Alaska,” “Light On”…


Ariana Gillis: Hamilton singer-songwriter spent years overcoming a concussion and her new album is a triumphant comeback

On the Buddy Miller-produced The Maze, her first album in six years, Ariana Gillis has finally found her sound. This may not seem like such a big deal, but for a time, there was a question whether the 28-year-old singer-songwriter from Hamilton, Ontario, would ever play any of her riveting, self-described “Canadiana Americana; edgy pop with steel guitars” again due to a debilitating accident she suffered four years ago. “We…


PledgeMusic troubles hit Canadian musicians like Dayna Manning and Amanda Rheaume

Nick Krewen Special to the Star Thursday, March 28, 2019 After singing the PledgeMusic blues, independent recording artist Dayna Manning is breathing a sigh of relief. Like too many other artists — L7, Fastball and Jesus Jones, to name a few — Manning is owed money donated by fans via the nine-year-old U.K. crowdfunding platform, which has all but suspended operations due to financial woes. Delayed payments dating back to…