Media

Luminato's music program to include Cockburn, Bela Fleck, John Malkovich

TORONTO — Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn says he isn't one to dwell on the past, but he was hit with a wave of nostalgia when he recently realized he's now into his 40th year in the music business.

"It did seem like a milestone," the Ottawa-born folk-rock legend said Tuesday after it was revealed he'll be feted in a June concert as part of Toronto's Luminato arts festival.

"It's like: 'Yeah, 40 years is something. At 30 years I didn't even notice, but 40 years does feel like something ... I'm not given to retrospection normally. I don't listen to the old albums unless I have to relearn a song or something.

"But once in a while I'm somewhere and somebody puts something on and I hear it and think, 'Ah, that's interesting.' Some stuff you cringe at, some stuff is better than I remembered it."

Cockburn's June 16 concert, called "The Canadian Songbook," will see him performing his catalogue of songs with musicians including Hawksley Workman and Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies.

The show is one of several just added to the fourth edition of the annual multi-disciplinary Luminato festival, running June 11-20.

Two-time Academy Award nominee John Malkovich will star in the North American premiere of "The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer," about Austrian author and murderer Jack Unterweger. The piece, set for June 11, features monologues and operatic arias to the music of the Vienna Academy Orchestra.

Bela Fleck, an American banjo luminary who has won 13 Grammys, will join several artists - including Montreal's Karim Saada - June 12 at the free "Global Music: Rock The Casbah & An African Prom."

And Canadian singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, who recently added his opera, "Prima Donna," to the festival, has also decided to play a concert at Luminato to kick off his North American tour.

Cockburn's showcase will also feature singer-songwriter Michel Rivard and guitarists Michael Occhipinti and Colin Linden.

All will perform their interpretations of Cockburn's hits, which include "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" and "If I Had a Rocket Launcher."

"I feel like pretty much the same person as I did 40 years ago, although I feel like I know a lot more and I think I'm nicer," said Cockburn, 64, who released his self-titled debut solo album in 1970.

Cockburn's music has been covered by many artists, including Jimmy Buffett, Jerry Garcia, k.d. lang, Anne Murray and the Barenaked Ladies.

At first it was "weird" hearing different versions of his tunes, "but you get used to it and then you can start appreciating what people do," he said.

Cockburn, who lives in Kingston, Ont., isn't sure what he'll play at the show, but he does have some favourites.

"Just the other day I was in a car with a couple of people and somebody put on 'Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu,' and I hadn't listened to that in a long time and I was like, 'This is a good album!"'

Then there are the songs that are "not much fun to relive" because they're inspired by tragic experiences, he said.

Performing the 1984 single "If I Had a Rocket Launcher," for instance, is tough for him because it's like reliving his trip to Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico, which were attacked by military helicopters.

"I don't particularly like singing that song because I have to go where I was when I wrote it and it wasn't a good place," he said. "It was a painful thing to be around. Not for my own pain - my pain was second-hand - it was from being next to the people that were suffering the stuff that the song talks about."

Earth Day Canada is pleased to honour Bruce Cockburn with this year’s Outstanding Commitment to the Environment Award. For three decades, Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn has been an outspoken voice on issues relating to the environment. He has performed benefit concerts in support of the Haida Nation and the Stein River Valley and their fights against logging; spoke out against the destruction of tropical rain forests and the Exxon oil spill off the Alaskan coast; narrated a television documentary on the Mali desert; acted as honorary chairperson of Friends of the Earth; and of course wrote the anthemic “If A Tree Falls.”

“The whole point of writing songs is to share experiences with people,” says Bruce, looking back on a career that includes 26 albums, numerous international awards, including the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Tenco Award for Lifetime Achievement in Italy, 20 gold and platinum records in Canada, and countless concert performances since he released his first solo work in 1970.

Born in Ottawa in 1945, Bruce set his sights on a career in music after growing up listening to Elvis records. He landed at Berklee College of Music in Boston in the early ’60s before moving back to Ottawa in 1965 to play in a series of rock bands. He eventually found his voice as a songwriter and developed a highly personal finger-picking guitar style that merged Mississippi John Hurt blues with modal jazz harmony, melodic lyricism and cycling rhythms.

Bruce was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1982 and was promoted to Officer in 2002. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) inducted him into the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame. He has also received numerous honorary doctorates for his contributions to music, culture and social activism.

Email from Bernie Finkelstein
February 12, 2010

Bruce is doing a TV show there [in Winnipeg] with one of Quebec's greatest stars, Michel Rivard. You might remember many years ago Bruce performed with Michel during a benefit concert in Montreal which also featured Crosby, Stills and Nash.

The TV show is being taped February 17 during the Festival you're referring to [Festival du Voyageur]. I don't have much more detail for you other than it's for the French CBC in Quebec and the French national network in english Canada. I don't have the air date.

Bruce will most likely do three of his songs with Michel (expected to be Pacing The Cage, Lovers In A Dangerous Time and Homme Brulant) and then do three French songs of Michel's. All six songs will be done with Michel in some form or another. This will all be worked out in rehearsal in Winnipeg.

From Bruce's management...

Finkelstein Management is running a contest to launch the Official Bruce Cockburn Facebook Fan Page, just launched today.

Everyone who joins the official Bruce Cockburn Facebook fan page between now and March 14, 2010 at 11:59pm EST will be entered into a draw. On March 15, 2010 we will give away three Bruce Cockburn prizes:

1st Prize: 1 signed Poster & 2 signed CDs
2nd Prize: 1 signed Poster & 1 signed CD
3rd Prize: 1 signed CD

MP3s for a Cause: Paste Mag Launches ‘Songs for Haiti’
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Steve Smith of minonline.com

(Note from Keebler: Bruce has donated "Waiting for a Miracle" from Anything Anytime Anywhere. Go here.)

When you have the ears and the hearts of some of the leading musicians in the world, that is what you use to get people to give. Paste magazine today launched its creative response to the tragedy in Haiti with a “Songs for Haiti” Web site that offers access to MP3 tracks to those who donate. Tracks come from artists like Ludacris, Of Montreal, Andrew Bird, Hanson and Bruce Cockburn among 200 artists who contributed their work to the effort. Visitors can donate to the charities with whom Paste is partnered - Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross and Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund - or they can declare where else they have donated in order to access the Paste vault of 250 songs. It is on the honor system, the company says. As of this morning, the site reported over $45,000 in donations.

Paste says it is passing 100% of donations to the partnered organizations. Artists are being asked by the magazine to contribute songs to be held in the vault.

“We obviously don’t think people would need incentive to donate in this effort, but perhaps the campaign will inspire more music fans to get involved, or to encourage people who have already donated, to donate again,” said Josh Jackson, Paste magazine editor-in-chief in a statement. “Music has always been a force that brings people together, and to have so many fantastic artists drop everything to contribute to this effort was very touching.”

The site is also making the banners and badges advertising “Songs for Haiti” available for reporting.

WHAT STEVE DAWSON SAYS:

I released a few records with a group called Zubot and Dawson a few years ago, and we were signed to True North Records, home of Bruce Cockburn. I asked Bernie Finkelstein, Bruce's manager, about contributing and he seemed interested. Bruce was into the idea, so we discussed some song choices. We got it down to two, and finally picked this song. I think Bruce really wanted to find something he could dig into, but really make it his own.

This song was the last in an epic day of recording in Seattle. We ran through the tune a couple of times and laid it down fairly easily - I think we did about three takes. This was the second take, I believe.

We did go back in to work on Bruce's solo part a little bit, and got some great results. After we were done, Bruce said "this would sound cool with a room full of drunks singing on the last verse". So we did... sing that is... and had a few beers to celebrate. Luckily there's lots of photos of that session. It was a fun one!

I added the trombone later on as an overdub. Everything else is done live.

WHAT MIKE SAYS:

Fine work, Steve and Bruce. When this song gets stuck in my head (which is fairly regularly), it's the "room full of drunks" and the trombone that do it.

Cockburn is one of those artists, much like Richard Thompson or his friend T-Bone Burnett, who have had a considerable impact on popular music while remaining largely anonymous themselves (at least in the United Stats, anyway). It's strange how some people can shift the mainstream toward them (as opposed to shifting toward the mainstream) and still go unnoticed.