Watch Simon & Garfunkel 25th anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert from 2009 absolutely devastate the crowd.
U2’s Bono and the Edge give surprise concert in Kyiv metro
The two U2 members performed a surprise concert in a metro station that is doubling as a bomb shelter in Kyiv.
International Indigenous Music Summit Showcase Applications Are Now Open
Showcase applications are officially open for the 2023 International Indigenous Music Summit (IIMS) – their first ever, standalone, in-person event from May 31-June 4, 2023 in Toronto, Ontario (venue to be announced soon).
The showcases will shine a spotlight on artistic excellence in the Indigenous music community. IIMS facilitates building meaningful and mutually beneficial bridges and partnerships between artists, professionals, and key players in both Indigenous and mainstream music industries. Let’s move the needle forward in terms of sustainable, long-term change in the music community!
Submissions are open to Indigenous artists from anywhere in the world and you can go here to apply!
Canadian Music Legend Ian Tyson, CM AOE, Has Died at 89
The family of the late Canadian country legend Ian Tyson, CM AOE, has confirmed the singer-songwriter died from on-going health complications on December 29th, 2022 at his ranch in southern Alberta, Canada at age 89.
Tyson was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 1989, and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, with his former wife and singing partner, Sylvia, in 1992. Tyson became a Member of the Order of Canada in 1994 and in 2003, he received a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, and inducted into the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2006.
Tyson was born to British immigrants in Victoria, and grew up in Duncan B.C. A rough stock rider in his late teens and early twenties, he took up the guitar while recovering from an injury he sustained in a bad fall in the rodeo.
Ian Tyson’s story from there is familiar to most. He upped stakes from Vancouver Island and hitchhiked to Toronto, where he met a young singer from small-town Ontario called Sylvia Fricker. As Ian & Sylvia, they were the Canadian stars of the early ’60s folk boom that gave the world Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, the Clancy Brothers, and the Kingston Trio.
Married in 1964, the pair made almost a dozen albums — and wrote some of Canada’s best-loved songs, including Ian’s “Four Strong Winds” and “Someday Soon,” and Sylvia’s “You Were on My Mind” — songs that have all been covered countless times by some of the most famous artists of our time, including Dylan, Neil Young, Judy Collins, and a young Canadian singer the couple mentored in his early days, Gordon Lightfoot.
During the British Invasion, Ian and Sylvia evolved into pioneers of country-rock. Their band, Great Speckled Bird, rivaled the Byrds and other groups which helped create modern country, a decade before the Urban Cowboy phase of contemporary “new traditionalists.”
After hosting a national Canadian television music show from 1970 to 1975, Tyson realized his dream of returning to the Canadian West. The music and marriage of Ian and Sylvia had ended. It was now or never. Disillusioned with the Canadian country music scene, Tyson decided the time had come to return to his first love – training horses in the ranch country of southern Alberta.
After three idyllic years cowboying in the Rockies at Pincher Creek, Tyson recorded the album Old Corrals & Sagebrush, consisting of cowboy songs, both traditional and new. “It was a kind of a musical Christmas card for my friends” he recalls. “We weren’t looking for a ‘hit’ or radio play or anything like that.” Unbeknownst to Tyson and his friends, the cowboy renaissance was about to find expression at the inaugural Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering in 1983; a small coterie of saddle makers, rawhide braiders, cowboy poets and pickers discovered one another in a small cow town in northern Nevada. Tyson was invited to perform his “new western music”— and he’s missed only one or two gatherings in the 30-plus years since.
Bob Dylan and the Band recorded his song “One Single River” in Woodstock, New York, in 1967. The recording can be found on the unreleased Genuine Basement Tapes, vol. 1. Judy Collins recorded a version of his song “Someday Soon” in 1968. In 1989, Tyson was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2005, CBC Radio One listeners chose his song “Four Strong Winds” as the greatest Canadian song of all time on the series 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version. He has been a strong influence on many Canadian artists, including Neil Young, who recorded “Four Strong Winds” for Comes a Time (1978). Johnny Cash would also record the same song for American V: A Hundred Highways (2006).
Life has not been without its difficulties, however. In 2006, he seriously damaged his voice after a particularly tough performance at an outdoor country music festival.
“I fought the sound system and I lost,” he said afterwards. With a virus that took months to pass, his smooth voice was now hoarse, grainy, and had lost much of its resonant bottom end. After briefly entertaining thoughts that he would never sing again, he began relearning and reworking his songs to accommodate his “new voice.” To his surprise, audiences now paid rapt attention as he half-spoke, half-sung familiar words, which seemed to reveal new depths for his listeners.
Tyson released his most recent single “You Should Have Known” in September 2017 on Stony Plain Records, the label that Tyson’s released fifteen albums with since the ‘80s. The song unapologetically celebrated the hard living, hard drinking, hard loving cowboy life and joins his favorites such as hits like “Four Strong Winds,” “Someday Soon,” “Summer Wages” and more.
The family will hold a closed service and have requested privacy at this time.
Donations in Ian’s memory can be made to The Ian Tyson Legacy Fund – https://www.westernfolklife.org/donate
My Next Read: “WBCN and the American Revolution: How a Radio Station Defined Politics, Counterculture, and Rock and Roll” by Bill Lichtenstein
While San Francisco was celebrating a psychedelic Summer of Love in 1967, Boston stayed buttoned up and battened down. But that changed the following year, when a Harvard Law School graduate student named Ray Riepen founded a radio station that played music that young people, including the hundreds of thousands at Boston-area colleges, actually wanted to hear. WBCN-FM featured album cuts by such artists as the Mothers of Invention, Aretha Franklin, and Cream, played by announcers who felt free to express their opinions on subjects that ranged from recreational drugs to the war in Vietnam. In this engaging and generously illustrated chronicle, Peabody Award–winning journalist and one-time WBCN announcer Bill Lichtenstein tells the story of how a radio station became part of a revolution in youth culture.
At WBCN, creativity and countercultural politics ruled: there were no set playlists; news segments anticipated the satire of The Daily Show; on-air interviewees ranged from John and Yoko to Noam Chomsky; a telephone “Listener Line” fielded questions on any subject, day and night. From 1968 to Watergate, Boston’s WBCN was the hub of the rock-and-roll, antiwar, psychedelic solar system. A cornucopia of images in color and black and white includes concert posters, news clippings, photographs of performers in action, and scenes of joyousness on Boston interwoven through the narrative are excerpts from interviews with WBCN pioneers, including Charles Laquidara, the “news dissector” Danny Schechter, Marsha Steinberg, and Mitchell Kertzman.
April Wine Founder And Singer Myles Goodwyn Announces Departure from Touring; Marc Parent To Replace
Singer, guitarist, writer, producer and leader of Canadian rock legends April Wine, Myles Goodwyn, has announced his departure from touring with the group. Goodwyn will continue to lead the band and he will continue to write new material for the band and produce their recordings.
Goodwyn’s last live performance with April Wine will be on March 2, 2023, in Nova Scotia where it all began.
Goodwyn was the only remaining original member since the inception of April Wine in 1969, selling over 10 million albums worldwide.
“I’ve had a long career, happy, fulfilling. I’ve seen much of the world and I’m grateful to continuing support of radio and our fans worldwide, but touring has been very difficult in recent years because of my diabetes and my health comes first, so unfortunately, my touring days are officially over,” says Goodwyn.
Replacing Goodwyn on guitar and vocals will be Marc Parent, who started classical guitar lessons in high school at the age of 14. But once he heard “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple, the sounds of the electric guitar became his calling. In his 12th grade math class Parent decided to become a professional musician. In the late 80s, at the age of 22, Parent joined the very popular Ottawa band Eight Seconds and lived the dream of being a rock star for two years. The band opened for major British stars such as David Bowie, Duran Duran, Paul Young, The Fixx and toured North America with Wang Chung.
After leaving the band in 1987, Parent moved to Montreal, finished his bachelor’s degree in music, started his band Wang Dang Doodle and travelled: first Senegal Africa in 1989 with Freddy James playing hip hop; then Tokyo in 1995 representing Canada at the Yamaha Music Quest international pop music contest with Robert and the Rainmakers; then Jakarta Indonesia to play dance music with El Chakeh.
Parent also toured extensively across Quebec as guitarist vocalist with French Canadian artists Breen Leboeuf, Luce Dufault and Marie Carmen.
“I know Marc personally, and I know he’s the only person I feel extremely confident and comfortable with continuing the music and legacy of April Wine. I can’t wait for the fans to meet him and see him in concert. And of course, Brian Greenway, Richard Lanthier and Roy Nichol, are still in the band and excited about the future and the April Wine legacy,” says Goodwyn.
Goodwyn and the other members of April Wine were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame and the Canadian Music Industry Lifetime award in 2010.
Goodwyn received the prestigious East Coast Music Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 and the SOCAN National Achievement Award in 2002. In 2016, he released his memoir Just Between You and Me, which became an instant best seller on the Globe and Mail`s Non-Fiction List. His second book, Elvis and Tiger was published in 2018.
The Myles Goodwyn and Friends Of The Blues recording released in 2018, it earned international acclaim and a JUNO Nomination for Blues Recording of the Year in 2019. The recording won the ECMA award for Blues Recording of the Year 2019. His follow up blues recording in 2019, Myles Goodwyn and Friends of the Blues 2, won the same blues category, in 2020. There will be a third blues solo released in 2023.
In 2022, Goodwyn was awarded the prestigious SIFA Award for Best Social Impact Music/Art for his song, “For Ukraine.”
CREEM’s 2nd New Issue In 33 Years Out Is Now Now
This month, the iconic and newly reborn CREEM debuts its second issue in 33 years, following the magazine’s audacious relaunch earlier this year. Inspired by the punk zines of yesteryear, CREEM’s new cover and limited edition apparel capsule are designed by visionary artist Jeremy Dean, best known for his “Wonders of Black Flag” tees mashing up Grateful Dead & Black Flag iconography, alongside working with The Rolling Stones, Circle Jerks, Ceremony & more.
The Winter 2022 issue is mailed exclusively to print subscribers and available at CREEM.com, along with the entire CREEM archive to those who subscribe or sign up for a 30-day free trial. It includes Melissa Auf der Maur’s never-before-seen Smashing Pumpkins & Hole photo diary, a Creedence Clearwater Revival CIA scandal, an insider account of the last days with David Berman, a feature by Michael Friedrich that pointedly connects the cultural dots from Henry Rollins to Joe Rogan, a feature by Sam McPheeters on billionaire CEOs like the Winklevoss twins “purchasing” rock-star status and more.
If anyone missed the window to subscribe, a limited number of individual copies of the Winter 2022 issue are available for purchase at CREEM.com.
One of the most unlikely and successful media launches of the year, CREEM debuted its first magazine issue since 1989 in September, along with the CREEM Archive featuring every issue from the magazine’s original 20 year run. Vanity Fairrevealed the first print cover for the new oversized subscription-only premium quarterly, featuring original art by the legendary Raymond Pettibon (responsible for Sonic Youth’s Goo album cover & others), along with stories on The Who, Terry Allen, Special Interest & KeiyaA, a reassessment of The Osmonds’ metal albumand revival of their Stars Cars column with Slash.
Founded in 1969 Detroit, CREEM grew from underground paper to national powerhouse – an essential source of music journalism for twenty years. It reflected and shaped the culture, cultivating some of the most legendary writing talent of the era: Lester Bangs, Cameron Crowe, Patti Smith, Robert Christgau and Jaan Uhelszki, who now returns as editor. The magazine’s original rise and fall is chronicled in the critically-acclaimed 2020 documentary CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine, which earned praise everywhere from The New York Times to CBS This Morning.
Today, CREEM Entertainment is led by former VICE publisher John Martin as CEO, alongside Chairman JJ Kramer (son of original CREEM co-founder & publisher Barry Kramer). In addition to Uhelszki, the new CREEM editorial staff includes VP of Content Fred Pessaro formerly of VICE’s Noisey, Executive Editor Dan Morrissey from Entertainment Weekly, and Senior Editor Maria Sherman, following her work at NPR, Rolling Stone, BuzzFeed, Jezebel, Netflix, ELLE and her critically acclaimed book, LARGER THAN LIFE: A History of Boy Bands. Editorial Director Dave Carnie has worked with Jackass, ESPN, Big Brother, andPenthouse. Grace Scott joins as Associate Editor after her work with VICE & The Toronto Star, and Zachary Lipez as Editor at Large, following his work with Pitchfork, The Washington Post and others. This fall, CREEM welcomed Stephanie Augello as Photo Editor. Augello is an entertainment photographer and editor who has worked with Live Nation, Shutterstock Editorial, and ABC.
Ron Carter: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
The velvety sapphire of what may be the most recognizable curtains in jazz are the backdrop for this special Tiny Desk (home) concert. Dapper and distinguished in matching ties, legendary bassist Ron Carter and the members of his trio sit comfortably on the prestigious stage of The Blue Note in Manhattan. This is jazz with a capital J, complete with cocktails and “Candlelight.” The first tune in this set romances us, inviting deep sighs as the lushness of the trio’s intricate interplay carries us away to moments spent gazing deeply into the eyes of a lover.
Little Shop of Horrors: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
Composer Alan Menken beams with pride as he introduces the Little Shop of Horrors Tiny Desk (home) concert. May 6, 2022 marks the 40th anniversary of the show’s first production. Menken is joined by the stellar cast of the current off-Broadway revival, which swept the Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Drama League Awards for Best Musical Revival. They perform a joyful medley of five earworm-filled tunes from the cult classic. Over the course of the tiny concert, Menken shares anecdotes about collaborating with the show’s late lyricist Howard Ashman. It’s obvious how much they loved working together hearing him reminisce.
Randy Begg, Founder of JUNO Award Nominee + Oshawa Music Award Hall of Fame Group Wednesday, Passes Away At 71
Randy Begg, a founding member, drummer, vocalist, and songwriter of the Canadian band Wednesday, died suddenly in Belleville on December 20 at 71.
Born in Oshawa, Ontario, Randy began his drumming career in the late 1960s. A chance meeting in Oshawa in July 1967 of Paul Andrew Smith and Randy Begg set the seed that became Wednesday. Randy and Paul spent the summer hanging out, playing impromptu concerts at local Oshawa parks and drop-in centres until meeting up with Mike O’Neil and John Dufek. John Hall formed and managed the Cellophane Spoon until 1971, when Bill Diel, a former keyboardist with Ronnie Hawkins and Fats Domino, took over the task. In 1970 the name was changed to Wednesday with the release of their first single, “Hang On Girl.”
They scored a hit single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1974 with their cover of the song “Last Kiss”, which peaked at #34. That same year, they were nominated for the JUNO Award for Most Promising Group and the following year for Best-Selling Single of the Year. The single reached #2 in Canada and #1 on the Canadian Billboard 100. A follow-up single, a remake of “Teen Angel”, was their final chart single in America. The parent album, entitled Last Kiss, was released on Ampex Records in Canada, Sussex Records in the U.S., and A&M Records throughout the rest of the world.
The group continued with success in Canada, before and after changing their name to Wenzday in 1976. They scored their second biggest hit with an Elton John cover, “Loving You Baby”. It reached #6 in Canada.
Randy’s career saw him in many bands in later years – Lockerbie, The Scott Street Band and releasing album material with The Edge and The September Skye Band. Randy’s passion for the drums kept him actively engaged as a performer for over 55 years, most recently working in a band for a Christmas stage show for the Stirling Theatre in Ontario. The band Wednesday was inducted into the Oshawa Music Hall of Fame in 2022.
Paul Andrew Smith says, “Randy’s insatiable love for music and performing was only surpassed by his infectious friendship, which touched everyone he met. He was always giving, always there when needed. He loved people, and I will miss him greatly.”