Friday 25 March 2011
Toronto the good golly
Juno weekend is upon us, and what I’ve been enjoying most in the run-up to Sunday’s festivities is the wealth of great Canadian music content that’s been on the airwaves. I’ve been following Yonge Street – Toronto Rock & Roll Stories on Bravo for the last three nights, and have loved every minute of it.
The documentary., directed by Bruce McDonald (This Movie Is Broken, Hard Core Logo), the three-part doc features interviews with legends Robbie Robertson, Ronnie Hawkins, and Levon Helm about the early raucous days of the Yonge Street strip and its more genteel, folk counterpart in Yorkville. This film is shot through with so much great blues, R&B and good old fashion rock & roll it’s hard to keep track of all of it. I’ve been pretty ignorant about the major players in these scenes (apart from the usual names that get bandied about), so I’ve had a blast doing some online research on the names that have popped up in the last three nights.
One performer in particular stood out for me, and that’s Jackie Shane. Like many others, Shane fled the U.S. and headed to Canada in search of a more tolerant place to make his music, and he found a welcoming home in Toronto. Shane was flamboyant, talented, and way ahead of his time. He was as openly gay as one could be in that era. His song “Any Other Way” is has been on heavy rotation ’round here these last couple of days, and I’m desperately searching out more of his recordings (can anyone help a brother out?). I love the lyrics: so frank, so emotional; his performance is honest and heartfelt. A true original.
Tweet
This entry was posted on Friday, March 25th, 2011 at 8:35 am and is filed under MP3, ViDEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Cuff The Duke
