Guitar

Alberta, Arranger, Art Rock, Canada, Canadian Music Hall Of Fame, Experimental, Folk, Fusion, Grammy, Guitar, Herbie Hancock, Jazz, Joni Mitchell, JUNO, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Pop, Producer, Rock, Rock 'N Roll Hall Of Fame, Songwriter, Taylor Swift, Voice October 18, 2020

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…

Alt. Rock, Americana, Americana, Business, Canada, Culinary, Flute, Folk, Guitar, JUNO, Kathleen Edwards, Pop, Rock, Songwriter, Toronto, Voice August 13, 2020

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…

Alt. Rock, Canada, Composer, Education, Guitar, Hamilton, JUNO, Perspective, Songwriter, The Tragically Hip, Voice March 25, 2020

Sarah Harmer and friends won a long environmental fight. Now she has to do it again

Nick Krewen Special to the Star Sarah Harmer is about to go back to the drawing board, and she’s not happy about it. The Burlington, Ontario born singer, songwriter and activist is currently promoting Are You Gone, her first album in 10 years. Looming on her mind, however, is a fight she’s about to take up with a community that she’s already won once. Despite the Ontario Municipal Board denying…

Arranger, Bob Dylan, Canada, Canadian Country Music Hall Of Fame, Canadian Music Hall Of Fame, Composer, Country, Folk, Gordon Lightfoot, Guitar, JUNO, Songwriter, Toronto, Voice March 20, 2020

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…

Arranger, Boston, Folk, Grammy, Guitar, Pop, Rock 'N Roll Hall Of Fame, Therapeutic, United States, Voice February 21, 2020

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…