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October 26, 2026
BigTakeover.com

Bruce Cockburn, Livingston Taylor at The Town Hall, NYC, 10/24/26
by Steve Holtje

Canadian singer/songwriter/guitarist Bruce Cockburn, 81 years old with a solo recording career that started in 1970 with his eponymous debut album, brought his tour with opener Livingston Taylor to New York City for a concert at The Town Hall on Saturday, October 24.

The mostly acoustic and introspective folkie style of Cockburn’s early work gradually morphed into more of a rock style in the ’80s. His trio at this show, with Jeff Pevar on bass and Inger Nova on percussion and both adding occasional backing vocals, leaned toward intimacy but at times beefed up its sound for the more rockfish tracks, though never with the density of his mid-‘80s work.

His set kicked off with “Last Night of the World,” from 1999. Fears that age might have diminished his voice were immediately banished (his new album, a collection of covers, including many old blues songs, had some rough singing, but now I assume that was a stylistic choice to match the material). “Night Train” (1996) followed; Nova provided appropriately train-like rhythm, and she and Pevar chipped in backing vocals. Cockburn scatted one verse, even holding a high falsetto note, demonstrating his continued vocal agility.

Cockburn moved into more recent material with “On a Roll” (from his most recent album before the new one, 2023’s O Sun O Moon), boldly proclaiming, “Time takes its toll/But in my soul/I’m on a roll,” and followed it with “King of the Bolero” (a tribute to an unnamed guitarist stumbled on in a bar) from the same LP.

Then we were treated to one of his older classics, the beautiful “All the Diamonds” (1974). Here, there was a tiny sign of vocal aging—some of the high notes were ever so slightly below pitch in a song from when his upper range was perhaps more effortless. Still, I’m just being picky; he put the song across with no trouble.

Finally we got a song from his new album, The Blood of Others: “As Time Goes By,” Herman Hupfeld’s classic from the movie Casablanca (1942). Cockburn warned in advance that the less familiar part of the song before the chorus, contained “archaic references” he’d updated, and his rewrite brought chuckles. In the meat of the song, his sensitive phrasing made for a fine interpretation of this chestnut, and he also dazzled with his guitar skills.

Surprisingly, that was the only song we heard that night from the new album, which is well worth picking up for its look at his early influences and its fond delivery of the beloved material. When he switched to a National Steel guitar for the next song, I’d expected one of the new album’s blues songs, but instead (he said something along the lines of “I’m confusing you”) he played a gospel blues from his 1991 album, Nothing But a Burning Light: Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Soul of a Man”—which contains the album title. It was one of the most impassioned performances of the night.

After that, Cockburn switched to electric guitar for the first time for “The Whole Night Sky” (another from 1996—his album The Charity of Night was dipped into three times) with Pevar also on guitar and also taking a solo. Noting that it was another night-sky song, Cockburn next played “Lily of the Midnight Sky” (1986), switching to an instrument new to me, a 12-string charango (like a ukelele on steroids). It was one of several songs where he talks through verses rather than singing, as though discussing something with friends.

There was an abrupt change of mood with the most viciously impassioned political song of the night, “Call It Democracy” (the second in a row from World of Wonders), a fervid indictment of the International Monetary Fund that includes such lines as “IMF dirty MF,” “You don’t really give a flying fuck about the people in misery,” and “Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt.” He didn’t play his righteously angry mid-‘80s hit “If I Had a Rocket Launcher,” but this got the same sort of message across—Cockburn, dare I say, is the Canadian Phil Ochs.

The flip side of that, I suppose, came next: “Orders” (2023), a lengthy list of despicable characters, but as Cockburn points out, “A challenge great; as I recall, our orders said to love them all,” because his righteousness comes from his Christian faith, the kind diametrically opposed to Christian Nationalism.

“States I’m In” (2017), another nocturnal song, featured some of his most intricate guitar work. Then came a fan favorite from his brilliant 1984 album Stealing Fire, “Lovers in a Dangerous Time,” which even made an impression on U2: Bono in “God Part II” (Rattle and Hum) sings, “heard a singer on the radio late last night says he’s gonna kick the darkness till it bleeds daylight,” which is a paraphrase from “Lovers in a Dangerous Time.” Cockburn’s song—inspired, one imagines, by his early ’80s time in Nicaragua, is sort of a musical parallel to the ’80s movies Salvador and Under Fire—balances the anxiety and excitement of powering through challenges together. This was one of Cockburn’s best vocal performances of the evening.

Between songs, Cockburn mentioned that he has osteopenia (low bone mineral density), which explained why he walked hunched over and using a cane. Perhaps it wasn’t coincidental that came just before “Pacing the Cage (another song from The Charity of Night), which includes the line “Sometimes you feel like you live too long.” Or maybe it was a random juxtaposition. We’d have to ask Bruce. But I doubt anyone was pondering that once he kicked off his biggest hit of the evening, “Wondering Where the Lions Are,” his 1980 breakthrough into the U.S. market. He invited us to sing along with the response line in the chorus, and many of us gleefully took him up on that.

Things got political again with “If a Tree Falls,” a protest song about irresponsible logging (“parasitic greedhead scam”), which closed the main set. Then it was on to the encores. “Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long” (1973), another fave, featured Nova taking a verse and sounding like the young Bonnie Raitt. Cockburn’s perfect bluesy guitar solo made it even more celebratory, and Pevar’s hollow-body electric bass solo also shone. Then, closing out the evening, came the tender benediction of “Us All” (the fourth song in the show from O Sun O Moon), which in our current situation deserves to be quoted in full:

Here we are, faced with choice
Shutters and walls or open embrace
Like it or not, the human race
Is us all

History is what it is
Scars we inflict on each other don’t die
But slowly soak into the DNA
Of us all
Us all

I pray we not fear to love
I pray we be free of judgment and shame
Open the vein, let kindness rain/reign
O’er us all
Us all
Us all

The evening had opened with a set by the youngster on the bill, 75-year-old Livingston Taylor (brother of James), another excellent finger-picking guitarist. His polished mix of comic banter, original songs, and well-chosen covers was charming, a light touch before the heavy topics of Cockburn.

“I Belong” kicked off the evening, a pleasant ditty from his 1996 album Bicycle. Then came the one hit of his set. Taylor noted that he penned “Carolina Day” when he was sixteen years old. Appearing on his 1970 debut album, it made the Billboard singles chart at #93. He had later hits that charted higher, but none of them were played this evening.

Next, he vamped for a while on what he called “an easy shuffle” before turning it into “If I Only Had a Brain” (from The Wizard of Oz, of course) and then segueing into his own self-deprecatory “I Must Be Doing Something Right.” He continued the covers-of-classics theme with “Getting to Know You” from the musical The King and I (Rodgers & Hammerstein) included a sing-along. “Start All Over Again” by Jerome Kern & Dorothy Fields continued the Broadway musical theme, transitioned into a snippet of the guitar part of Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird,” and then slid into Livingston’s “Look Up and There I’ll Be,” which he said had been inspired by the first song of the medley.

The highlight of his set in a way was a long comic routine imagining that the Olympics included a guitar competition, with him representing the U.S.: as he played a shuffle in A, he provided a sportscaster’s commentary on the performance, a perfect parody of a gymnastics broadcast.

Mentioning that he’d been the voice actor of Winnie the Pooh in a new (post-copyright-expiration) version set up not only jokes about not wearing pants and eating too many sweets, but also a cover of Kenny Loggins’s “House at Pooh Corner.” He closed his set with a delightfully goofy folk song parody about “Railroad Bill” wherein the titular character objected to doing the things the writer was saying he did, only for the singer to write Bill’s grisly death into the end of the ditty.

All I knew about Livingston Taylor’s career when I walked into The Town Hall was “Carolina Day,” but this set made me a fan.

October 26, 2026
BluesRockReview.com

Bruce Cockburn: The Blood of Others Review
by Bob Gersztyn

At this point in Bruce Cockburn’s discography, spanning over half a century of performing and recording, he has released over forty albums, including live recordings and compilations. The Blood of Others is his first studio album since the 2023 release O Sun O Moon and comprises fifteen covers of songs that Cockburn has carried in his memory since his earliest recollections of music. It was the music of his childhood and adolescence that influenced his musical direction once he decided to embark on a music career.

The album’s title was taken from a novel written by French author Simone de Beauvoir during the Nazi occupation of France during WWII. Bruce felt that borrowing the book’s title for his album made sense to him: “it seems perfect for an album of songs I didn’t write.” At 81 years of age, he felt that interpreting the songs that influenced him would be an important addition to his musical legacy. The album was produced by Colin Linden, who has collaborated with Cockburn for decades, and released through Sunset Boulevard Records.

The first cut is “I Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down,” a gospel blues song originally recorded by Rev. Robert Wilkins, who learned the song in 1911 when he was just 9 years old. Cockburn first heard the song in the 1970s on a compilation album that Wilkins recorded in 1965 during the 1960s folk revival, when he was rediscovered. “As Time Goes By” was written by Herman Hupfeld in 1931 and recorded by Rudy Vallee. The song was sung by Dooley Wilson in the 1942 film Casablanca and reached #2 on the Billboard chart. Cockburn’s version is accompanied by sparse acoustic guitar work rather than piano or a big band.

“Buddy Bolden’s Blues” was written by Jelly Roll Morton about the pioneer of New Orleans ragtime jazz. It’s a bright, happy tune that has Cockburn’s fingers dancing on the strings. “You Belong to Me” was a childhood memory for Bruce that he first heard in the early 1950s. The tune was a popular ballad that became a radio hit and was beautifully sung by Jo Stafford. Classic lyrics like “See the pyramids along the Nile” grab you with his raspy interpretation and multiple-guitar accompaniment. “That’s All Right” was originally written and recorded by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup in 1946. Elvis Presley made the song famous when he recorded and released his version in 1954 as his debut commercial single. Scotty Moore’s guitar work on the recording prompted Bruce to use his resonator guitar to help drive the track.

“Four Strong Winds” was a folk song written by Ian Tyson in 1961 and recorded with his wife, Sylvia. Bruce played at Le Hibou, the same coffeehouse in Ottawa where the duo performed and where he first heard the song. His reflective version explores the geography of Canada with an updated tempo. “God Bless the Child” is a song written by Billie Holiday and her writing partner, Arthur Herzog, that was recorded and released on Okeh Records in 1942. The song was precipitated by an argument that Holiday had with her mother over money. Cockburn first heard a jazz version of the song by Harry Belafonte on a bootleg album he purchased in the early 1960s and was later impressed by Holiday’s original version.

“Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child that’s got his own”

“Louis Collins” is a ballad about a murder by Mississippi John Hurt and is one of his most iconic songs. Bruce first heard the song in 1963 while listening to music at a friend’s house. He was impressed “by the sweetness, the idiosyncratic phrasing and the way he put voice and finger-picked guitar together.” “Yellow Dog Blues” was written by W.C. Handy in 1914 while he was living in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and was later recorded by Bessie Smith. Cockburn heard Smith’s recording around 1962 and immediately “fell in love with the lyrics.”

“Yes, see him here and he was on the hog
I said easy riders gotta stay away”

“Fare Thee Well” was recorded and released by American folk singer Fred Neil on his eponymous album in 1966. It’s an adaptation of a traditional American folk song called “Dink’s Song” and was first recorded by John Lomax. Bruce enjoyed Neil’s version and even “got to perform it with the McGarrigle sisters at Pete Seeger’s ninetieth birthday event in NYC.”

“I’ll Be Seeing You” was popularized by Bing Crosby and was used in a Broadway show and a movie that shared its title and included the song on the soundtrack. Bruce had heard it as a child, but it impacted him in the 1990s when he applied it to what he called “The aftermath of a brief but heart-opening relationship.”

“Laplegged Drunk Again” was written and recorded by Lonnie Johnson in 1938. Cockburn first heard the song when he purchased it on a 45 rpm record at a record store while in Europe in 1964. In 1969, he got to see Lonnie Johnson at a supper club in Ottawa, but Johnson declined to play the song because he said it wasn’t appropriate for the venue.

“Love will make a many man drink and gamble
Stay out all night long
Love will take you into many places, sometimes where you don’t belong”

“One for My Baby” was written in 1943 by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen and originally sung by Fred Astaire in a film, but Bruce’s favorite rendition is Frank Sinatra’s 1958 recording. Bruce’s jazzy guitar licks sandwich his laid-back vocal delivery as he declares, “One for my baby and one more for the road.”

Anyone familiar with Bruce Cockburn’s early discography knows that he often included songs with French lyrics, honoring Canada’s French legacy. Such is the case with “Les Feuilles Mortes,” translated as “The Dead Leaves,” which combines Joseph Kosma’s music and Jacques Prévert’s poetry.

The final cut on The Blood of Others is “Peace in the Valley,” a gospel tune written by gospel legend Thomas A. Dorsey (Georgia Tom in his unsaved days) for Mahalia Jackson. It was another song that Lonnie Johnson recorded and that Cockburn first heard on the 45 rpm record he purchased in 1964.

The Blood of Others is reminiscent of Bruce Cockburn’s acoustic folk period during the 1970s. It’s the music that was personal to him during his formative years and helped define who he would become musically. Colin Linden provided amazing production that allowed every nuanced guitar phrase and weathered vocal inflection to breathe. At 81 years of age, Cockburn could retire from performing and touring, but somehow he continues to deliver both in person and on this heartfelt addition to his amazing discography.

October 19, 2026
AmericanaHighways.org

REVIEW: Bruce Cockburn “The Blood of Others”
by John Apice

This is a beautiful album. Especially from a singer whose been around for years & is known for his own songwriting. Here, Bruce Cockburn honors the tunes that shaped the road toward his own success. 5-decades into that career he is Canada’s other epic singer-songwriter/guitarist (the other 3 are Joni, Neil & Gordon). It’s a brave attempt when a singer who has made his signature sound through his own work risks not always coming across when out of his comfort zone.

Artists like Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Johnny Mathis & Billie Holiday, among others, built their careers singing other people’s songs. They had the expertise of interpretation. Not easy. Mr. Cockburn (guitars/vocals) starts excellently with an acoustic guitar cruise through an old gospel tune “Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down” but the classic “Casablanca” tune “As Time Goes By” & the gospel song “Peace In the Valley” may be out of Bruce’s range. But the sincere effort is still commendable. Both remain touching ballads with all the nostalgia to keep it flavorful & not soupy.

Whereas the 3rd & 9th track sound like Bruce pulls some sips of gin from the Tom Waits catalog. Nice growly voiced “Buddy Bolden’s Blues” & again with the Bessie Smith oldie “Yellow Dog Blues” addresses them vividly, with grit & charm. There are 15 choice cuts on the appropriately titled The Blood of Others (Dropped Oct 16/Sunset Boulevard Records/59:10), a title lifted from a Simone de Beauvoir novel. The LP was produced with skill by Colin Linden (electric & acoustic guitars/dobro) & recorded in Nashville, TN.

The surprise? A cover of the early Elvis Presley rocker “That’s All Right Mama,” recorded also by its writer Big Boy Arthur Crudup. Bruce gives it an edge while many others who cover it just sing it. His version is closer to Crudup, & I hear that possibility. Elvis added the rockabilly style.

There isn’t a weak song here. Bruce simply does some better than others. Billie Holiday’s 1939 classic “God Bless' the Child” works serenely as an acoustic guitar ballad with Bruce’s warm take. Yes, it’s an updated version that purists won’t embrace, but he doesn’t push it out of bounds. He keeps it middle-of-the-road-easy; it’s never a lounge-singer piece. That’s the trick.

This isn’t the Bruce of “Tokyo,” “Fascist Architecture” & “Lovers In a Dangerous Time.” This is the seasoned & marinated Cockburn. They don’t call singer/songwriter’s like Bruce Cockburn an artist for nothing. This is a brave undertaking. If music has color — Bruce covers the musical canvas with bold strokes.

Highlights – “Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down,” “Buddy Bolden’s Blues,” “That’s All Right Mama,” “God Bless' the Child,” “Louis Collins” & “Fare Thee Well.”

Musicians – Viktor Krauss (upright bass) & Janice Powers (B3).

The CD package is a die-cut 8-panel fold-out. Both photos: courtesy of Daniel Keebler. 

ConcertAddicts.com
October 18, 2026

Bruce Cockburn Turns Montreal’s Gesu Theatre Into Something Special
by Sam Duchoeny

Some concerts are over the moment you leave the room. Others stay with you long after the lights come up. Bruce Cockburn’s two-set, 120-minute performance at Montreal’s intimate Gesu Theatre was definitely the latter.

At 81, Cockburn doesn’t need bells and whistles to hold an audience. Give him a guitar, a few stories and a stage, and he’s got you. His dry humour had the crowd smiling, but it was the music that really pulled everyone in. More than five decades into his career, he still plays with the curiosity and conviction of someone who has plenty left to say.

Joined by multi-instrumentalist Jeff Pevar and vocalist and percussionist Inger Nova, Cockburn delivered a show that felt less like a greatest-hits package and more like being invited into his musical world. Pevar added layers of color to the arrangements, while Nova’s voice and percussion brought warmth and depth. Their harmonies were a real treat, particularly in a venue where you could catch every little detail.

Opening with “Last Night of the World,” Cockburn eased the audience into the evening before shifting gears with “Night Train” and “On a Roll.” From there, the music travelled wherever it pleased. Folk, blues, jazz and rock blended together, sometimes within a single song. Nothing felt forced, and the musicians played off one another with the ease of people who genuinely enjoy making music together.

Naturally, the familiar favourites landed beautifully. “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” struck a chord, while “Wondering Where the Lions Are” brought a welcome rush of nostalgia. But Cockburn wasn’t interested in simply revisiting old glories. Songs such as “King of the Bolero,” “Push Comes to Shove” and “Orders,” from 2023’s O Sun O Moon, showed just how much ground his songwriting continues to cover.

Then came “If a Tree Falls.” Its warning about deforestation, first heard in 1989, still hits hard. In the close quarters of the Gesu, the song felt less like a trip down memory lane and more like a message we haven’t finished hearing.

There was plenty to watch, too. Cockburn moved between acoustic guitars, including his distinctive green Manzer and brought out a small green 12 string charango. Each instrument changed the mood, reminding us that his musicianship is every bit as compelling as his songwriting.

For the encore, “Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long” sent things out on a loose, grooving high. It was the perfect finish: relaxed, playful and full of life.

Walking out, it was hard not to feel grateful for the chance to witness an artist still exploring, still connecting and still making these songs matter. At the Gesu, Cockburn didn’t just revisit a lifetime of music. He made it feel alive, right there in the room.

October 16, 2026

Bruce Cockburn: Discover and Experience a Musical Secret
by Francois Mulder

The inspiring Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist and poet Bruce Cockburn has, over several decades, become part of Francois Mulder’s journey of faith, theological formation and understanding of music as a vehicle for the Good News.

Bruce Douglas Cockburn (pronounced Coburn) was born in Ottawa, Canada, on 27 May 1945. He released his debut album in 1970 — one year after I was born, and the year Bryan Adams would nostalgically look back on decades later in “Summer of ’69”.

Shortly after U2 released The Joshua Tree, the soundtrack to my life, in 1987, Bono sang these words in “God Part II” on the follow-up album Rattle and Hum:

“Heard a singer on the radio / Late last night / Says he’s gonna kick the darkness / Till it bleeds daylight. I, I believe in Love.”

This is, of course, a reference to Bruce Cockburn’s song “Lovers in a Dangerous Time”, from his 1984 album Stealing Fire. And that is how Bono introduced me, then a first-year theology student at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, to Canada’s best-kept musical secret.

My undergraduate thesis in 1994, supervised by Professor Piet Meiring in what was then the Department of Missiology, explored “Rock Music and Christian Witness”, with a particular focus on U2 and Bruce Cockburn. Their artistic struggles with faith and their activism, shaped by a James 1:27 kind of spirituality, inspired me to make the arts a lifelong part of my life, preaching and evangelism.

Orientation, Disorientation and Reorientation

Cockburn expressed his conversion in 1973 in the moving song “All the Diamonds”. Until the release of Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws in 1979, he celebrated his faith in a number of songs. Two highlights from this period are his 1976 song “Lord of the Starfields” and “Festival of Friends”, from 1975, in which he sings:

“Like an imitation of a good thing past / These days of darkness surely will not last / Jesus was here and He’s coming again / To lead us to His festival of friends.”

For decades afterwards, particularly disillusioned by the American church’s flirtation with political power, he became a sharply critical musical voice addressing the church. In his 1981 song “Justice”, he asks: “What’s been done in the name of Jesus?” The chorus delivers a hard-hitting truth: “Everybody loves to see justice done on somebody else.” In 1987, he challenged a faith trapped in ideology in “Gospel of Bondage”, asking: “When do we hear about forgiveness and love?” During this period, Cockburn’s relationship with the church was decidedly uncomfortable and strained.

His “return” to church is expressed in the 2017 song “Forty Years in the Wilderness”, from the album Bone on Bone. In an interview, he explained: “I’d started to identify myself as a Christian in the 1970s, and here I was, 40 years later, back in church.”

At a time of global polarisation, his 2020 song “Orders” becomes a rallying cry for believers to live out the command to love all people — including their “enemies” and those with whom they disagree politically or otherwise:

“The list is long — as I recall — our orders said to love them all.”

Cockburn, Cohen and Dylan

Over the years, Cockburn has become legendary for his eclectic blending of musical styles, including folk, jazz, reggae, blues, gospel, rock and world music. His political, spiritual and environmentally conscious lyrics make him a unique and unpredictable artist.

Cockburn is often mentioned in the same breath as fellow Canadian Leonard Cohen and American folk music icon Bob Dylan. These three troubadours represent three distinct ways in which the Bible, faith, doubt, justice and poetry find expression in popular music.

In 2025, I wrote about the Leonard Cohen conference at the Andrew Murray Centre for Spirituality (AMCS) in South Africa. Cohen was described there as a kind of modern-day psalmist. Next week — 20–21 October — it will be Dylan’s (and Taylor Swift’s) turn at the “Slow Train Coming” conference at the AMCS. Dylan will undoubtedly also be described as a kind of modern-day prophet. And Cockburn? Both, surely: a psalmist and a prophet!

Cohen and Cockburn share a remarkable affinity in their spiritual depth, Canadian identity, longevity and literary quality. Cockburn’s spiritual journey, however, is distinct. His music has been shaped much more explicitly by his Christian faith, as well as by social justice, war, poverty, human rights and creation care. Canada’s Governor General aptly described him as a contemporary wandering troubadour whose songs reflect the discontents of modern society, while revealing a deeply rooted Christian faith.

Where Cohen often asks, “Where is God in the darkness?”, Cockburn asks, “What are God’s people doing about the darkness?”

Commercially, Cockburn’s album sales probably pale in comparison with those of Cohen and Dylan, although some nine million albums over a career would make any sales representative smile! His influence, particularly in Canada and among fellow artists around the world, cannot, however, be measured in sales figures. Thirteen Juno Awards (Canada’s equivalent of the Grammy Awards), nine honorary doctorates and his induction into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2017 testify to an extraordinary career. He was also appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 1983 and promoted to Officer in 2003.

The Blood of Others

And now, in 2026, at the age of 81 and 56 years after his debut album, Cockburn is releasing his 39th album, featuring 15 tracks, to the world. It is further evidence of his sustained and extraordinary creative productivity.

Titled The Blood of Others, the album is Cockburn’s first to consist entirely of interpretations of songs by other artists. It is a musical map of the landscape from which his own work emerged: the gospel and blues records he listened to as a child in Ottawa, the folk clubs and coffeehouses where he began finding his own voice, and the people and encounters that shaped his musical imagination.

The Blood of Others opens with “Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down”, a gospel song by Robert Wilkins that Cockburn first heard on a compilation album in the early 1970s. “Wilkins’s powerful bottleneck guitar playing and passionate singing made this conversation with God immediately unforgettable,” he says.

Next comes “As Time Goes By”, the song written by Herman Hupfeld and forever associated with the film Casablanca. Cockburn decided to include the original preamble but felt it needed a contemporary update. So he wrote new lyrics for it:

“This day and age we are living in, gives cause for apprehension. With infinite dimensions and robot interventions. But we’ve grown a little weary with AI and quantum theory. We must get down to earth again, relax, relieve the tension. No matter what the progress or what may yet be proved. The basic facts of life are such they cannot be removed.”

Elvis Presley’s influence is also strongly present on The Blood of Others, particularly in “That’s Alright”.

“Elvis Presley hit the radio in Ottawa just as I was reaching adolescence,” Cockburn says. “He was, of course, incredibly charismatic, but it was particularly Scotty Moore’s guitar playing on those records — sometimes wild and sometimes tender — that ignited in me a burning desire to play the instrument.”

The emotional heart of the album runs through several songs connected to formative personal memories. “God Bless the Child”, the well-known song by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog, dates back to Cockburn’s teenage years, when he bought the record with his pocket money.

“A few years later, I heard Billie Holiday’s original version,” he says. “Theologically a little off the mark, but a deeply moving expression of disappointment in the human species.”

“Fare Thee Well” has its own story, one that brings the circle to a close by connecting Cockburn’s earliest musical memories with a career highlight decades later.

“It came back to me when I had the opportunity to perform it with the McGarrigle sisters at Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday celebration in New York,” he says.

Discover the Secret

If this article has piqued your interest in listening to this remarkable artist and learning more about him, here is a good place to start: get hold of his 2014 autobiography, Rumours of Glory, and begin listening to his Greatest Hits (1970–2020) album, available on streaming services.

His songs — particularly “Lovers in a Dangerous Time”, “Wondering Where the Lions Are”, “If I Had a Rocket Launcher”, “Pacing the Cage” and “Last Night of the World” — remain important landmarks in Canadian songwriting. His songs have been recorded or performed by a diverse range of artists, including Barenaked Ladies, Jimmy Buffett, Jerry Garcia, Anne Murray, Dan Fogelberg, Bonnie Raitt, k.d. lang and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

His creative legacy continued to grow with his previous studio album, O Sun O Moon, recorded in Nashville with his longtime producer, Colin Linden. “Time takes its toll, but in my soul I’m on a roll,” Cockburn sings on the album’s opening track — a line that could just as easily describe the restless curiosity behind The Blood of Others.

Francois Mulder has been a minister for 32 years, including 20 years at Blancogemeente, a Dutch Reformed congregation in George, South Africa.

October 15, 2026
theartsstl

Bruce Cockburn | The Blood of Others (Sunset Boulevard Records)
by Courtney Dowdall
Photo of Bruce Cockburn by Daniel Keebler

Imagine a late summer day after the merciless sun has finally set. Dinner plates have been cleared from the table, and you hear voices in the street as neighbors venture outside to relish the trace of a breeze stirring the willows. The outdoors are cooling faster than the indoors as shadows start to stretch from the doorway to the street, but the humidity is still casting its drowsy spell. You slouch into an empty chair on the front porch, your head bobbing at random intervals as you struggle to keep your eyes open. Your uncle relishes those precious evening hours and sets his guitar on his lap. He strolls leisurely through his mental catalog of songs, feeling out the mood of the evening. He finds a promising thread, winds around the chords a few times, tugs at the melody bit-by-bit with a hum and an affirming grunt, and your head snaps to attention as a neatly wound ball of musical yarn comes tumbling out across the hot, shady lawn in the form of a beloved and aptly chosen song.

This is the scene I like to set for myself as I listen to Bruce Cockburn play a selection of fifteen songs embedded in his psyche, a psyche that has shared with the world a collection of 39 albums, including this latest addition, The Blood of Others.

The mood on the porch on this particular evening feels wistful and reflective. It resonates with memories so distant that the details are fuzzy but the feelings they evoke are still vivid. It’s curious with the knowledge that departures are inevitable and still infinitely disarming.

Bruce Cockburn is first of all a guitarist, and a singer-songwriter by immutable talent. His catalog runs deep, and his inspiration is built on a foundation of guitar legends. The selection he presents on The Blood of Others takes us on a tour of lyrically lean but powerful and melodically haunting songs, most originating in the first half of the 20th century, many made famous in the ’50s and ’60s by such names as Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, and Elvis. These songs are sourced from the roots of blues music and formed the core of Cockburn’s style. Many of these songs have likely been played on many a languid front porch.

The album opens with “Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down,” a song written in the 1920s by Reverend Robert Wilkins, recorded in 1956 along with the Georgia Sea Island Singers, and resurfaced popularly by R.L. Burnside in 2000. It anticipates mortality, considers the relief it must bring, and still doesn’t sound fully resigned to the transition. Neither is Cockburn ready to retire his craft.

Is there a song that conveys ‘departure’ more famously than “As Time Goes By” by Dooley Wilson sitting at the piano in Casablanca? The timeless film came out around the time Cockburn was born and translates well into an acoustic guitar composition with his emotional voice.

Driving home that front porch feeling is “Buddy Bolden’s Blues,” dating back to 1939 and known by a number of other names, all deriving from audiences singing along while Buddy Bolden, and eventually Jelly Roll Morton, would strum it out. As the blues go, this one could churn along on repeat, building on a story with a new installment with each pass. Cockburn gives it a charmingly gruff couple of lines and a jaunty strum that I could listen to for hours.

One of the teariest and most delicate selections is Cockburn’s treatment of “You Belong to Me,” first recorded by Joni James in 1952. This stripped-down version gives “Somewhere Out There” vibes and could be a lullaby, if the child is young enough to miss the sadness in the lyrics.

One of the best-known selections is “That’s All Right,” made famous by Elvis in 1956. True to his roots influences, Cockburn’s version here leans more classic as the song was originally written and performed by Arthur Crudup in 1946. “Four Strong Winds” was unfamiliar to me, but it is apparently canon in Cockburn’s native Canada. It was famously recorded by Ian Tyson of Ian & Sylvia fame and was voted by CBC Radio One listeners as the greatest Canadian song of all time. Cockburn’s voice sounds emotionally exhausted here, appropriately, as he channels the tiresome struggle to stay warm and positive in the face of cold, driving winter.

The collection includes two songs made famous by Billie Holiday, the first being “God Bless the Child.” The patina on Cockburn’s voice serves him well to lend some Holiday swagger, with a gentle vibrato and a touch of husky texture.

I had the good fortune of interviewing Bruce Cockburn in 2024, and he mentioned Mississippi John Hurt as one of his earliest influences. I love hearing him play Hurt’s 1928 tune “Louis Collins” and imagining the budding guitarist stage of his life. https://theartsstl.com/waiting-for-that-gift-a-conversation-on-inspiration-with-singer-songwriter-bruce-cockburn/

WC Handy’s “Yellow Dog Blues” digs even deeper into musical history—written in 1914—and summons a little soulful growl from Cockburn.

While “Fare Thee Well” predates both Hurt and Handy, first recorded in 1908, it has been performed by many of Cockburn’s heroes and peers, including Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger. It comes across as second nature, something Cockburn’s fingers are compelled to play in idle moments, and it sees a hint of flourish in its treatment compared with other selections.

“I’ll Be Seeing You” is another selection probably best known in its Billie Holiday version, and with two opportunities now I sense a trace of Holiday’s melancholy in Cockburn’s voice, beyond their shared need to speak out against injustice. This is one of the few tracks with additional instrumentation, and the whisper of accompanying organ enhances the sentimentality.

I was surprised by the selection of Lonnie Johnson’s “Laplegged Drunk Again.” The love of the bottle is not a common theme in Cockburn’s music, but the blues picking is, and his reverence for the bluesman helps him find his way to the feeling. Follow this with another drinking song—“One for My Baby”—and it seems the loneliness of closing time and an emptying room that perhaps draws Cockburn into those drunken shoes.

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard Cockburn’s French voice before this album. What a delight. I don’t know if it’s the song itself—“Les Feuilles Mortes” a.k.a. “The Dead Leaves”—or the language or the chords or the make this feel so heartbreakingly resigned, but this made my eyes a little foggy.

Contrast that with the closer, “Peace in the Valley,” which sounds weary but strong, and it seems this collection has been the perfect tour through the life of a wizened human who excels in getting people to walk in others’ shoes. 

Honestly, I would’ve been happy with a playlist of influential songs curated by Cockburn. But to hear his voice render so many emotions through his own playing and singing of pieces that meant so much to him is another gift he has given us. And this collection gives us more than the sum of its parts—it gives us imagination, pondering how Cockburn personally connects with each piece, the impression that each selection has left on his sound and style, and the motivation for each choice of just fifteen songs from a lifetime of inspiration. For someone who agonizes over writing a Top Ten of anything, this seems a Herculean task. By that token, I would gladly welcome another of these albums. Sing us another song, Uncle Bruce! | Courtney Dowdall

Bruce Cockburn’s The Blood of Others will be available on CD, double-LP, and streaming beginning Friday, October 16.

October 15, 2026
The 13th Floor

Bruce Cockburn – The Blood Of Others (Sunset Boulevard Records)
13th Floor Album Review
by Robin Kearns

There’s a moment in the guitar picking that opens the first track on Bruce Cockburn’s The Blood of Others that sounds almost like the beginning of Wondering Where the Lions Are, his career launching song released 47 years ago. With this engaging collection there’s no wondering about Bruce’s early influences. 

In the years since that breakout album Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws Bruce has been a standard bearer for Canadian music: an observant lyricist and a guitarist as well as staunch advocate for indigenous rights and global justice issues. He began as the Ottawa valley folkie singing of quiet earthy aspirations as in songs like Gavin’s Woodpile and Goin’ to the Country. 

Then in the ‘80s he summoned a band and a bolder muse, sharpened the blade of political critique and released hard-hitting albums like The Trouble With Normal (1983) and Stealing Fire (1984). (His song from that era, Call it Democracy, is worth a listen for its prescience today). Yet if anger found a way into his oeuvre, it’s always been countered by a mysticism, an understated non-preachy Christianity, evident in album titles like World of Wonders (1986) and O Sun O Moon (2023).

And now we have The Blood of Others, a generous 15-track not-quite covers album, whose title references a Simone de Beauvoir novel dealing with freedom and responsibility as war approaches. The songs seem not-quite covers because while none of this collection is penned by Cockburn the songs are reworked and reinterpreted. Lyrics are even updated: in Time Goes By he sings of robot interventions and we’ve grown a bit weary with AI and quantum theory (whimsy has always been a Cockburn hallmark; in the 90s he often ended live shows with Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life)

The songs are delivered in the measured voice of his advanced years and carried along by his brilliant guitar picking. In the artist’s words, it’s a collection of material, written by others, that I found sticking to the edges of my musical landscape. And it sure is varied. Billie Holliday, Elvis Presley, Mississippi John Hurt.  His take on Ian Tyson’s Four Strong Winds is a standout. There’s a boldness in taking on such a well-known song. Whereas Neil Young’s version was light and breezy, Cockburn’s is slow and deliberate, reflective of the vantage point of a man in his 80s rather than the carefree spirit of Young who released his version in his 30s.

The bluesy Buddy Bolden’s Blues has Bruce offering a lilting guitar melody and a raspy vocalisation that could be encountered under a veranda in New Orleans (fellow Canadian Michael Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter makes good complementary reading).  

Another great track, God Bless the Child, is beautifully and plaintively delivered. A song Bruce tells us he first encountered on a Harry Belafonte album bought at the age of 15. 

A scrapbook of memories and significances. These are standout songs given a fresh take by a master of the guitar and vocal subtlety. A man into his ninth decade sharing songs that are worthy of not only remembrance but a reworking.   

The cover: a lone chair and acoustic guitar. A stripped back image that speaks to these carefully chosen and delivered tracks from the elder statesman of Canadian music.

The Blood of Others is due out Oct 16th on Sunset Boulevard Records.

October 14, 2026
Americana UK

Bruce Cockburn "The Blood of Others"
by Fred Arnold

An homage to the songs that shaped his long life, award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter and acoustic guitar maestro releases his 39th album.

If you were asked to vote in a poll of the most activist artists in modern popular music or were minded to vote in a poll of the best singer-songwriters or greatest guitarists, it is most likely that you would leave off the name Bruce Cockburn, the Canadian from Ottawa who has flown largely under the radar, despite having possibly been the most awarded singer in Canadian music; many Juno awards for his albums, honorary doctorates from several universities, lifetime achievement awards and a member of the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. As an acoustic fingerpicking guitarist, he is almost without peer, as anyone who has listened to his instrumental albums Speechless in 2005 and Crowing Ignites in 2019, or who has seen him perform live, can attest. His albums are full of literary lyricism, and although many of his songs are known only to aficionados, a number of them have been recorded by other artists. His most famous songs are Lovers in a Dangerous Time, about hanging on to hope in a time of global tensions – his famous line from that song, “got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight”, became the title of a tribute album as long ago as 1991 (Kick at the Darkness). If I Had a Rocket Launcher was probably his most famous protest song, written after a visit to the Guatemalan refugee camps. They both appear on what is probably his most well-known album, Stealing Fire from 1984. Or maybe it was If a Tree Falls, from Big Circumstance in 1988, a critique of environmental destruction. Until now, he has released 38 albums, with subject matter covering soul-searching and spiritualism, political observation, and environmental issues. He has written about love and loss and fear and faith, and produced one of the very best and most original Christmas albums, Christmas, in 1993. He has made albums of gentler folk stylings as well as more rock-inspired albums and has tinkered with many different styles of production; jazz, blues, reggae, and so on, each one featuring to a greater or lesser degree his unique guitar playing.

And now, in 2026, he has come to produce his first album of covers, songs that have influenced or inspired him over his musical life, which largely started at the esteemed Berklee School of Music in Boston in the mid-60s when he was 20 years old. Some of the choices are sentimental favourites; others are interesting vehicles for exploring the fingerboard style of guitar-playing. All of them connect to times and places that remain shadings on the map of a life, as he describes the song choices.

Blood of Others is almost exclusively just Cockburn on acoustic guitars, which he plays beautifully in service to the songs, which cover gospel, blues, ballads, folk, and jazz genres. Cockburn has explained that certain songs have been drifting around in his mind for many years, and some have been chosen as they work very well as exercises in his fingerstyle. The title comes from a book by Simone de Beauvoir written during the wartime Nazi occupation of France and deals specifically with personal responsibility in the face of oppression, a concept he felt appropriate when recording songs that he did not write.

Now in his 80s, his voice is not quite as powerful as it once was, but the empathy and emotion that he has always demonstrated still remain, and that almost seems to be more appropriate to the songs he has chosen. The guitars he plays are entirely suited to the style of the song; take, for example, the classical style he plays on the French chanson classic Les Feuilles Mortes (known in English as Autumn Leaves), which he sings entirely in French, with its original semi-spoken introduction. The solo on this track is mesmerising. He semi-speaks again on As Time Goes By, an intro rarely used to preface the song, but it gives extra weight to it, especially as he changes the words “Yet we get a trifle weary / With Mr Einstein’s theory”, to “Yet we get a trifle weary / with AI and Quantum Theory”. These last are two of five songs, effectively from The Great American Songbook. Johnny Mercer wrote the English lyrics to Autumn Leaves and co-wrote One for My Baby (made famous by Frank Sinatra); the others are You Belong to Me with lovely bass lines courtesy of superstar bassist Viktor Krauss, who also appears on the desperately slow and intensely moving I’ll Be Seeing You (recorded in memory of a brief heart-breaking relationship), with a stunningly fine acoustic guitar solo and soft organ swirls towards the end from regular Cockburn contributor Janice Powers.

On only a few tracks is there any additional instrumentation; Colin Linden adds some fine acoustic guitar on Arthur Crudup’s That’s All Right, Mama (made famous by Elvis but slowed right down here), with Scotty Moore’s guitar being the influence on Cockburn on this track. Lonnie Johnson’s Laplegged Drunk Again is one of a number of outright blues songs, which again displays Cockburn’s outstanding fingerpicking style. Yellow Dog Blues and the brilliant Buddy Bolden’s Blues, with its growly vocal and jazzy roots, are others.

All of the songs have relevance to Cockburn’s life, marking memories of when he first heard them or the influence they had on his musical life; such as hearing a certain guitar style that he wanted to explore on the album (eg Mississippi John Hurt’s fingerpicking style on his blues Louis Collins, a sad murder ballad). There are a couple of gospel-infused songs, the better one being Robert Wilkins’ Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down, a conversation with God, with Cockburn in fine voice. He also delves into folk music with a lovely rendition of fellow Canadian Ian Tyson’s Four Strong Winds, with a perfect intro of the tune on guitar and later followed by another amazing solo, as Linden adds a little dobro for effect. And also in a folksy mode is Fare Thee Well, which he sang with The McGarrigle Sisters at Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday bash. We should also mention the longest track on this 60-minute album, which is Billie Holiday’s God Bless the Child, with yet another exquisite solo as the tune takes on a bluesy feel with a jazzy influence.

Cockburn has probably flown under most people’s radar, but just put this album on, retire under some decent headphones and wallow for an hour in this brilliant album, an outlier in Cockburn’s huge catalogue, and come out mesmerised by his interpretive ability and his guitar mastery.

October 14, 2026
Glide Magazine
Album Reviews

Bruce Cockburn Traces a Lifetime of Musical Influences on ‘The Blood of Others’ (ALBUM REVIEW)
by Christopher Raley

About halfway through Bruce Cockburn’s new album, The Blood of Others, he plays “Louis Collins,” written by folk-blues legend Mississippi John Hurt. Cockburn captures Hurt’s fingerpicking in drop-D tuning but uses the guitar to harmonize with his voice (something Hurt doesn’t do on his 1928 recording). It’s an example of Cockburn’s ability to honor the original (or the version of the song that means the most to him) while staying true to his own approach.

In the liner notes, Cockburn connects “Louis Collins” to the first time he heard it in 1963, but longtime listeners may also hear a symbolic connection to his career. Hurt likely wrote the song about a real event, bringing compassion, a documentarian’s eye for detail, and a songwriter’s acumen to the material, all things Cockburn is known for. His visit to a refugee camp in Southern Mexico in the aftermath of a helicopter attack, for example, led to one of his most popular songs, “If I Had A Rocket Launcher.” 

The Blood of Others provides a unique context for Cockburn’s career. Since his 1970 eponymous debut, Cockburn has stubbornly followed his own path. His songs have chronicled love, loss, remorse, devotion (religious and otherwise), politics, war, climate change, and violence. His discography boasts a stylistic range, poetic depth, cinematic scope, and level of guitar virtuosity few others can claim. 

Now, at 81, the Canadian singer-songwriter has pursued an idea that first occurred to him in the 1980s. As he puts it in the liner notes, he wanted to release a collection of songs from other writers “that I found sticking to the edges of my musical landscape . . . Some are sentimental favorites; others are interesting vehicles for exploring the fingerboard. All of them connect to times and places that remain shadings on the map of a life . . .”

The album opens and closes with a pair of spiritual songs: “Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down,” by bluesman Robert Wilkins, and “Peace in the Valley,” which was written by Thomas A. Dorsey for Mahalia Jackson, but Cockburn first heard it from Elvis Presley. The two songs bookend Christian imagery, perhaps nodding to Cockburn’s beliefs.

But, like Cockburn’s career, the album doesn’t rest there. From Herman Hupfeld’s iconic 1939 classic, “As Time Goes By,” to Lonnie Johnson’s “Laplegged Drunk Again,” Cockburn has put together an extravagant set of 15 songs that oscillate between blues and ballads, mostly performed with just his voice and guitar. Bass appears only occasionally, and slide guitar (possibly by Colin Linden) shows up in a couple of songs.

But The Blood of Others is about Cockburn and the songs, many of which sound like complete take performances. The solo space is unforgiving, making the artist especially vulnerable, but Cockburn has dwelt in it many times.  And if age has taken a toll on the artist, he flips the script, turning it to his advantage.

His voice has a gritty bottom end that is right at home on the blues numbers. “Buddy Bolden’s Blues” is a prime example sitting near the beginning. If you can’t at least crack a smile to hear Cockburn growl, “Funky butt, funky butt/ Take it away,” consult a therapist.  W.C. Handy’s “Yellow Dog Blues,” with its swinging guitar part, dixie-style harmonies, and exacting fills, is an album highlight, as is Cockburn’s jaunty resonator-guitar version of “That’s All Right Mama.” On the other side, the ballads create a fragile intimacy that is especially effective on “You Belong to Me,” “God Bless the Child,” “Fare Thee Well,” and “One for My Baby.” 

What comes across at the end is less a comparison with others who have performed these songs than a reminder of what a singular artist he is. His musical identity is instantly identifiable in both the guitar and his voice. Hearing him perform the songs that helped shape that identity is a rare privilege.     Photo: Daniel Keebler

October 9, 2026
Toronto Life

What singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn loves about Little Italy
Including a classic Italian café, a historic Italian cinema and a controversial pick for the city’s best slice

by Erin Hershberg

Bruce Cockburn is releasing his 39th album, The Blood of Others, this month and will regale Toronto audiences with his socially conscious tunes at Massey Hall. Though the Ottawa-born musician moved to San Francisco more than a decade ago, he started his musical career in Toronto and spent 20  years here, mostly in Little Italy.

“It was very low-brow back then,” he says. “There were no venues to play at and not much besides men’s clubs and espresso joints where old Italian or Portuguese guys would hang out.” We asked him about his favourite neighbourhood spots from back in the day—some enduring, some sadly defunct.

For drinking incognito: The Monarch Tavern

“I never really went to bars much, but occasionally I’d go to the Monarch because I could be anonymous there. That was appealing. When you’re somebody who does what I do, people will sometimes just start talking to you. Most of those conversations are perfectly pleasant, but once in a while, if someone’s had too much to drink and they’re angry about something, it’s not so nice. The Monarch wasn’t a regular hangout for me, but it was a good place to disappear.” 12 Clinton St., themonarchtavern.com

For a superior slice: Bitondo’s

“To me, Bitondo’s makes Toronto’s best pizza. The meatball sub is pretty excellent too. But I didn’t go there just for the food—I loved the vibe of the place. When I lived around the corner, the owner’s teenage son and his friends would hang around outside the pool hall on the north side of College, loudly and rather lewdly heckling women. Some of the stranger aspects of the old neighbourhood, warts and all, found their way into my music over the years.” 11 Clinton St. 

For everyday hangouts: Cafe Diplomatico

“I lived directly across the street from the Dip and went there constantly. It was around when ‘Lovers in a Dangerous Time’ came out, and one of the owners, Paul Mastrangelo—a lovely guy—would put the song on the jukebox whenever I walked in. It was a little embarrassing, but he meant well. In 1982, Italy won the World Cup, and the celebrations in and around the Dip were so raucous that streetcars couldn’t get through. One got stuck right in front of the café, and the driver got out, grabbed an Italian flag from one of the fans, stomped on it, then climbed back onto the streetcar.” 594 College St., cafediplomatico.ca

For foreign flicks: The Royal

“Back in the day, the Royal Theatre was run by Rocco ­Mastrangelo Sr., Paul’s big brother, who owned most of the buildings on College from Clinton to Grace. They mainly showed Italian films, and my Italian wasn’t good enough to make that a destination, but it gave the neighbourhood character. One day, my girlfriend and I held a sidewalk sale right by the theatre, and the Italians in the area were scandalized. Selling your possessions on the street just wasn’t something people did at the time. A lot of passers-by thought we were wrecking the neighbourhood.” 608 College St., theroyal.to 

For daily necessities: Splish Splash

“Now it’s an internet café and a convenience store, but it used to be a laundromat—that’s where the name comes from—and a place called Milk, Nuts and Things. They had delicious homemade gelato. One of the guys who worked there, Giancarlo Carnevale, went on to open a restaurant on Clinton called Trattoria Giancarlo, which I went to all the time. Things got so casual that, when I ordered takeout, they would give me their plates and cutlery. Once I was finished, I’d wash the dishes and take them back. Sadly, it closed during Covid.” 590 College St.

August 4, 2026 

The Blood of Others, the new album from Bruce Cockburn, arrives on October 16th via Sunset Blvd Records!
(These are the liner notes for the album as written by Bruce)

What began back in the eighties as a vague notion grew over time into a strong desire to put together a collection of material, written by others, that I found sticking to the edges of my musical landscape. The accumulation of these songs started in the sixties, before I’d even begun to try to create my own. Some of those stayed in my memory as warm-up exercises, or as relief from hearing myself sing my own words. Every now and then a new one would appear. I’d be fooling around on the guitar and realize I just played something that would fit with — You Belong to Me, for example — and then I would have to actually learn the song. Some of the choices are sentimental favorites, others interesting vehicles for exploring the fingerboard. All of them connect to times and places that remain shadings on the map of a life…

The Blood of Others is a novel, written during the Nazi occupation of France by Simone de Beauvoir. I read it in the seventies and found it very worthwhile. Among other things it deals with personal responsibility in the face of scary oppression, and the kinds of choices people make. I have borrowed the title because it seems perfect for an album of songs I didn’t write.

WISH I WAS IN HEAVEN SITTING DOWN

Robert Wilkins made up this song. I first heard it on an early seventies gospel compilation. Wilkins’ powerful bottle neck guitar and passionate singing made this conversation with God instantly memorable. The original guitar part is simple enough that I could maybe execute it, but it felt right to incorporate some of the angular harmonies that come naturally with the DADGAD tuning.

AS TIME GOES BY

Written by Herman Hupfeld in 1939. Who doesn’t love the scene in Casablanca in which Dooley Wilson plays this song, Ingrid Bergman at his side? I thought I should include the original preamble, which gives the familiar part of the song a context, but it seemed to want an update. Hopefully Herman approves…

BUDDY BOLDEN’S BLUES

I had heard some Jellyroll Morton, but I actually learned this song out of a book, or maybe Sing Out! magazine. My friends were singing country blues and old timey music. I was drawn to the somewhat more sophisticated style of ragtime and early jazz. For an interesting take on Buddy Bolden, said to be the first jazz trumpet player, check out Michael Ondaatje’s novel Coming Through Slaughter.

YOU BELONG TO ME

Jo Stafford’s gorgeously true voice was all over the radio with this when I was five. The geographical references were exciting, awakening the travel bug in me years before On the Road lit a fire under it.

THAT’S ALL RIGHT

Elvis Presley hit the radio in Ottawa right when I was hitting adolescence. He was captivatingly charismatic of course — but the guitar! Scotty Moore’s leads, by turns raucous and tender, bred a burning desire to play the instrument. This was one of the many songs that caught me, though the version I worked out owes more to Arthur Crudup’s original recording.

FOUR STRONG WINDS

The youngest of all these songs. Le hibou, the coffeehouse that was my spiritual home, was on the touring route of most of the artists in the sixties folk scene. Ian and Sylvia were regulars, appearing there a couple of times a year. We were all very excited when their song showed up on the radio.

GOD BLESS, THE CHILD

The 1939 creation of Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog. One Sunday, in 1960 or 61, I spent my collection money on what was likely a bootleg copy of Belafonte Sings the Blues at the corner store across from Westboro United Church. Tasty jazz arrangements of really good songs. A couple of years later I got to hear Billie Holiday’s original version. Theologically a bit off base, but a deeply moving expression of disappointment with the human species…

LOUIS COLLINS

One afternoon in August or September 1963, Barbie Luther invited me to her parents’ house to listen to music. She opened a bottle of Mateus wine and put on Mississippi John Hurt’s Folk Songs and Blues album. I was blown away by the sweetness, the idiosyncratic phrasing and the way he put voice and fingerpicked guitar together.

YELLOW DOG BLUES

I first heard this on a collection of Bessie Smith recordings around 1962. Right away fell in love with the lyrics. WC Handy copyrighted the song in 1914, having likely composed it some years earlier. When he wrote it he was living in Clarksdale MS. He made good use of the local slang, Yellow Dog for instance, being a nickname for the Yazoo Delta railway.

FARE THEE WELL

My earliest recollection of hearing this song is of Fred Neil’s beautiful version, though I was aware of it before that. It came back to mind when I got to perform it with the McGarrigle sisters at Pete Seeger’s ninetieth birthday event in NYC.

I’LL BE SEEING YOU

I’d heard this 1938 song growing up, sung by Bing Crosby among others. Much later, in the nineties, it came alive for me in a personal way, in the aftermath of a brief but heart-opening relationship. I was driving somewhere with the radio on and somebody’s rendering of it came on. I may have misheard it, but I thought that version ended with the line, “I’ll be looking at someone, but I’ll be seeing you”. That’s not in the original lyrics. They only refer to the moon, but it hit me in a powerful way. Thinking about the song, it struck me that it would work if I gave it a pace and rhythmic treatment in the style of I Only Have Eyes For You.

LAPLEGGED DRUNK AGAIN

Paris, 1964. I was playing for pocket money on the street with a couple of guys. It was the end of a summer of bumming around Northern Europe. I took some of my ill-gotten gains to a record store where I found a large selection of American blues and jazz on 45rpm EPs — cheap, and small enough to fit in a duffel — Petey Wheatstraw, the Mound City Blue Blowers, and Lonnie Johnson. The four pieces on the Johnson EP featured fantastic guitar, elegant vocals and a great band. Five or so years later l happened to come across a newspaper ad for Lonnie Johnson, playing in a supper club — in Ottawa! Some friends and I put on jackets and ties and went to hear him. On a break, we asked him for Laplegged Drunk Again. He shook his head and smiled, and said, “Oh, I can’t play that song in a place like this.”

ONE FOR MY BABY

This 1943 product of the songwriting team of Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen was originally sung by Fred Astaire in a film I’ve never seen. I first heard it on the Belafonte album mentioned above, but for me, the definitive version is the one Frank Sinatra recorded in 1958. There’s a cool video floating around, that looks as if it’s taken from a TV show, in which he performs the song sitting at a bar with only the bartender as an audience.

LES FEUILLES MORTES

Autumn Leaves is of course a familiar song, having been recorded hundreds of times by everyone from Doris Day to Cannonball Adderley. I didn’t realize it was really of French origin until I came across it in a collection of poetry by Jacques Prévert. Although the English lyrics are fine, Prévert’s words, in which a recitation sets up the sung verses, go a little deeper…

Oh how I wish that you would remember
The glad days when we were friends
Back then life was more beautiful
And the sun burned hotter than today
The dead leaves pile up in the shovel
See, I haven’t forgotten
The dead leaves pile up in the shovel
Memories, regrets as well
And the north wind carries them away
Into the cold night of forgetting
See, I haven’t forgotten
The song you sang me…

It’s a song that brings us together
You loved me, and I loved you
We lived, both of us together
You who loved me, I who loved you
But life separates those who love each other
Softly, making no sound
And the sea erases from the sand
The steps of lovers, disunited

PEACE IN THE VALLEY

Another gem of a song I first heard from Elvis. Thomas A. Dorsey (known in another life as Georgia Tom) wrote it in the late thirties for Mahalia Jackson.

Published July 30, 2026
Exclaim!

Hot Docs to Fund Films About Bruce Cockburn, Mat the Alien, King Reign
by Rachel Ho and Alex Hudson

The organization's Slaight Family Fund recipients have been announced

In its sixth year, the Hot Docs-Slaight Family Fund has announced five music-related projects as recipients of this year's round of production stage funding totalling $121,000. This includes docs about Bruce Cockburn, Mat the Alien and King Reign.

Cockburn will be examined with Robert Lang's road movie Into the Now, while the other artist profiles will venture into heavier terrain: David Click Cox and Kwame Mason's King Reign to the World Presents is about a group of artists completing the titular Toronto MC's final work following his sudden death in 2016, while River Jordan Easton's Rolling with Mat the Alien covers the BC-based DJ's life following an accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down.

The remaining two docs investigate the Inuk musical tradition of pisiit (Charlotte Qamaniq and Jamie Griffiths's Pisiksaqsiurlanga: I'm Searching for a Song) and Brampton's Punjabi hip-hop scene (Anupa Mistry's Brampton Underground).

The Fund is the first of its kind in the country, aiming to support and champion Canadian filmmakers telling compelling stories that celebrate music in all its forms. Since its inception in 2020, the Hot Docs-Slaight Family Fund has helped finance 23 projects with a combined investment of over $627,500.

Previous films supported by the Fund include Graeme Mathieson's Play It Loud: How Toronto Got Soul, profiling Jamaican Canadian singer Jay Douglas; Stephen Chung's It's All Gonna Break, detailing the meteoric rise of Broken Social Scene; Tim Kowalski's Nash the Slash Rises Again!, about the enigmatic musician Nash the Slash; and Omar Majeed and Peter Mishara's re-evaluation of disco, Disco's Revenge.

Below, check out the recipients along with their official synopses.

Brampton Underground
Directed by Anupa Mistry

While navigating the pressures of Canada's changing immigration policy, a group of international students form a grassroots Punjabi hip-hop scene in the parks and parking lots of Brampton, ON.

Into the Now with Bruce Cockburn
Directed by Robert Lang

At once a road movie, musical exploration and portrait of an artist deeply engaged with the present, the film accompanies Canadian music legend Bruce Cockburn as he sets out on a major concert tour through Canada and the eastern United States.

King Reign to the World Presents
Directed by David Click Cox and Kwame Mason

King Reign was a lyrical giant whose pen never received the recognition it deserved. When he died suddenly, he left behind unreleased music that was raw, honest, and unfinished. This film follows a group of famed hip-hop artists as they reunite to complete his final work, turning grief into music and memory into movement.

Pisiksaqsiurlanga: I'm Searching for a Song
Directed by Charlotte Qamaniq and Jamie Griffiths

Guided by an ancestral song from her family, Inuk artist Charlotte Qamaniq returns home to revitalize pisiit — an ancient Inuit musical form nearly erased by colonization — while composing new songs that carry the living tradition forward.

Rolling with Mat the Alien
Directed by River Jordan Easton

Legendary Canadian DJ Mat the Alien rebuilds his life and music after a spinal cord injury, as his community rallies around his return to music and the festival stage.

Photo of Bruce Cockburn: Daniel Keebler

July 20, 2026
Vail Daily

Bruce Cockburn set to perform at the Vilar
by Kimberly Nicoletti

In the past 50 years, Bruce Cockburn has written over 400 songs on more than 35 albums, 23 of which have earned gold or platinum certification.

His accolades include 13 JUNO Awards and the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award and inductions into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame; he’s also an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Early rock ‘n’ roll artists, like Elvis Presley and The Crickets, initially influenced him, but he quickly turned his attention to jazz, starting college with an aim to compose music for large jazz ensembles. But then he discovered songwriting, which dovetailed with his interest in poetry. So he dropped out of music school and worked with a handful of bands in the mid- to late-1960s.

“None of them were very good, and none of them had much of the future, but in that roughly five-year period, I became a songwriter, basically,” he said. “I had the musical interest, and I had studied enough music and been exposed to a lot of different kinds of music, so I had a very eclectic approach.”

He always believed lyrics should have meaning, so he focused on writing about topics that triggered an emotional response within, be it relationships, social injustice or environmental threats.

“(We’re) living in all that beauty and all that grandeur that is constantly under threat. One of the ways that I can respond to the threat is to write about it, if I feel sufficiently motivated. I can’t fake it. If I try to write a song deliberately on a topic, and I think, ‘Oh, I should write about blah, blah, it doesn’t work. I come up with a crappy song. But if I wait around for the emotional impact to be there, then the song has possibilities,” he said.

Spirituality, politics and diverse musical interests have shaped his career, though his paramount focus revolves around God; everything else comes after that, he said.

“Although in practice, of course, in day-to-day (life), it’s not always front and center, but that’s the intention. It starts there, and from that springs everything else. I mean, we owe each other love and respect,” he said.

He believes that spirituality and politics eventually overlap when dealing with real-world problems like hunger.

“At every point, there’s that interface where your attempts to engage in humanitarian work run up against politics either because you want to generate support in your own community or because you’re being resisted by somebody with vested interests,” he said. “You can’t not connect these things, but it is a balancing act. If you let the political side take over, then you end up making shallow decisions, I think. You need to keep track of the depth spirituality offers — that extra dimension.”

He honors great songwriters that emerged from Canada, like Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, and, while he also credits American and other songwriters, he views music that stems from Canada as having a different quality.

“I used to describe it as kind of a sense of space in the music. There’s more landscape. Margaret Atwood wrote a short book about this — not with respect to songwriting, but with respect to prose and Canadian writing in particular — and she made a point that the Canadian landscape looms very large in the culture. It’s a huge country with not that many people in it,” he said. “There’s so much emptiness in it … you have to travel huge distances before you can get to the next gig.”

As a result, travel, as well as nature, shows up in many of his songs.

He’s probably best known for his 1979 song “Wondering Where the Lions Are,” which depicts finding peace, courage and a connection to nature despite global conflict. 

Inspiration for the song came during a dinner with a relative who worked in international security at a time when no one was sure if China had nuclear weapons or not.

“At the time, Russia and China were shooting at each other across their mutual border sporadically,” he said. “So there was this huge concern around where this confrontation between the two countries would go. In the end, it kind of blew over. But at the time, the story was that as far as we knew, we could wake up, and it’d be the end of the world. I honestly didn’t feel like that, but it was an awesome thing to hear over filet mignon. And so I woke up the next morning, the sun was shining and everything was nice. I had had a dream a year or two earlier — a terrifying dream of lions breaking into my house, breaking down the doors and coming after me. So in this second dream about lions, they were at a safe distance, and they were just looking regal and beautiful walking around the streets of Ottawa. Those two things kind of flowed together: It’s a beautiful morning, the world’s not over and the lions are nice. The song mostly was (Canadian) nature imagery … almost all my songs seem to be about death and dying in some way. Either you’re expecting it, or you’re not expecting it. That song kind of expects it. The lions represent what is out there that threatens us.”

In his title track for “O Sun, O Moon,” released in 2023, he writes: “Time takes its toll, but in my soul, I’m on a roll.” Recorded in Nashville with his longtime producer Colin Linden, the record reflects more spiritual than topical issues with both simplicity and clarity, yet still highlights his driving resonator guitar.

“I think it’s a product of age to a certain extent, and seeing the approaching horizon,” he said, adding in a good-natured tone: “I think these are exactly the kind of songs that an old guy writes.”

His next project involves a collection of favorite cover songs.

June 28, 2026
CTV News

Bruce Cockburn hitting the road at 81, and still lending voice to any good cause
by Stephane Giroux

One of Canada’s most celebrated songwriters is hitting the road again, despite his advanced age.

Bruce Cockburn says it will highlight six decades of socially conscious music.

Cockburn has won 13 Juno Awards since the 1970s, as he all but defined Canadian protest songs.

Age, he says, isn’t slowing him down.

“My hands have become quite arthritic, and this makes certain things more challenging than they used to be,” he said. “There’s maybe a very few songs, four or five songs that I’ve had to revise the guitar parts.”

Cockburn made his debut on the coffee-house folk circuit and evolved over time with a crafty mix of blues, jazz, rock and folk music.

“You know, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to survive doing it, but my feeling was if I ended up playing in bus shelters for pennies, then so be it. Lucky for me, it’s been better than that.”

Like many artists, retirement isn’t an option because songwriting is not a craft that stops at 65.

“Why stop?” said Cockburn. “If I wasn’t getting paid to do it, I’d be doing it anyway.”

Cockburn never stopped recording. He has a new album coming out this fall, and to this day, he remains active on social issues.

“My voice is available when called upon pretty much for any good cause,” he said. “As a songwriter, I can spell out my own ideas and my own reactions to things.”

Cockburn has always defended liberal causes, but admits the current political climate can be hostile to his ideals.

“It’s very disturbing, actually, to be seeing things go in that direction,” he said. “I don’t know how far it’ll go or what the results will be, but it’s worrisome for sure.

“One of the deplorable developments that we’re witnessing is the inability to communicate with each other in a civilized manner.”

At 81, however, he’s proud his songs have been covered by some prestigious artists, from Jerry Garcia to Canada’s own Barenaked Ladies.

“People are paying attention to the songs. That’s the best part for me,” he said.

Cockburn’s tour begins next month in the U.S., but will hit Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal in October.

May 29, 2026
Press Release

Bruce Cockburn Announces Extensive 2026 North American Tour

29 May 2026 - Bruce Cockburn, one of Canada's most celebrated and enduring singer-songwriters, today announces a sweeping North American tour spanning 2026, bringing his extraordinary catalogue of songs to stages from coast to coast across Canada and the United States. The run of dates represents one of the most anticipated live events of the concert season, uniting longtime devotees, and new listeners around a body of work that has shaped the very soul of Canadian music for more than five decades.

Bruce Cockburn upcoming new album, as-yet-untitled and to be released in Fall, 2026 - continues the legendary songwriter's decades-long journey through folk, rock, jazz, and spiritual reflection with the wisdom and craftsmanship that have defined his career.

Ottawa-born and now based in San Francisco, Cockburn has spent more than 40 years documenting the full breadth of human experience across folk, rock, jazz, and worldbeat, travelling to Guatemala, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, and beyond in the service of both his music and his activism. His guitar playing, both acoustic and electric, has placed him in the company of the world's top instrumentalists, and his songs of romance, protest, and spiritual discovery are among the finest to have emerged from any country over the last half century. Music journalist Nicholas Jennings has written that Cockburn has deftly captured the joy, pain, fear, and faith of human experience in song, whether retreating to the country or going up against chaos, tackling imperialist lies or embracing ecclesiastical truths, always expressing what Cockburn himself has called a tough yet hopeful stance: to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.

His remarkable journey has seen him embrace an extraordinary range of sounds and subject matter while working on behalf of organisations including Oxfam, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and Friends of the Earth, lending his voice to causes from native rights and land mines to the environment and Third World debt. For his many achievements, the artist has been honoured with 13 Juno Awards, induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, a Governor General's Performing Arts Award, and has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada. His 38th album, 'O Sun O Moon,' continues one of the most remarkable bodies of work in the history of popular music.

Performing with Cockburn for a significant run of dates (October 15 through November 8) on the tour are Jeff Pevar and Inger Nova, the Oregon-based duo whose original music blends soul, rock, R&B, jazz, folk, and blues into a sound that feels both deeply rooted and distinctly their own. Jeff Pevar is a guitarist, bassist, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer whose career spans decades of collaborations with legendary artists. A founding member of CPR alongside David Crosby, he has toured extensively with Crosby Nash, Crosby Stills and Nash, and Crosby's Sky Trails Band, and his expansive career includes work with Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Phil Lesh, Marc Cohn, Rickie Lee Jones, Bette Midler, Jennifer Warnes, and Jefferson Starship, among many others. A New York Blues Hall of Fame inductee, Pevar brings multi-instrumental production depth and a lifetime of world-class musicianship to every stage he inhabits.

Inger Nova Jorgensen is a vocalist, songwriter, sculptor, and painter whose multidisciplinary career deeply informs her musical voice. Together, Pevar and Nova have spent more than two decades writing, recording, and performing original music throughout the United States and Europe, including multiple tours across Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark.

Cockburn has always insisted on continuing to grow, citing his models for graceful aging as John Lee Hooker and Mississippi John Hurt, musicians who never stopped working or deepening their craft. That spirit of perpetual creative renewal has carried him from the Riverboat in Toronto in 1969 through to the present day, and this tour is a vivid reminder of just how rare and precious the relationship between an artist and his listeners truly is. 

The tour includes a particularly meaningful Canadian homecoming, with Cockburn visiting some of the country's most storied rooms, among them the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Massey Hall in Toronto, Centre in the Square in Kitchener, and Gesù Salle in Montréal. A highlight of the broader run was his appearance at Legacy: A Celebration of David Suzuki at 90 in Vancouver on May 22, an event that sits squarely at the intersection of art, activism, and the natural world that has always animated Cockburn's finest work. 

Several dates on the tour will feature performances alongside legendary singer-songwriter Judy Collins on her "Sweet Judy Blue Eyes" Farewell Tour for from July 22 to October 3. Livington Taylor will join Cockburn for dates beginning October 20 through November 8. Jeff Pevar and Inger Nova will be performing with Bruce October 15 through November 8.

February 26, 2026
David Suzuki Foundation

Concert performers and special guests announced for “Legacy: A Celebration of David Suzuki at 90” in Vancouver

Unforgettable evening with David Suzuki and Tara Cullis to feature celebrated artists in Canada and global environmental leaders

VANCOUVER | TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORIES OF THE xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (MUSQUEAM), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (SQUAMISH) AND səlilwətaɬ (TSLEIL-WAUTUTH) FIRST NATIONS — The David Suzuki Foundation has announced an exciting lineup of artists and special guests for Legacy: A Celebration of David at 90, a benefit concert honouring David Suzuki’s milestone birthday.

Renowned storyteller, broadcaster and producer George Stroumboulopoulos will host the inspiring evening of music and reflection. The concert will feature performances by acclaimed artists Bruce Cockburn, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sarah McLachlan, Danny Michel, William Prince and Tanya Tagaq, alongside special appearances by Jane Fonda, Al Gore and Rick Hansen. Additional artists and special guests will be announced in coming weeks.

The concert will be held on Friday, May 22 at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre (600 Hamilton Street). Tickets start at $259, plus fees and taxes. Presale access is currently available for Foundation VIPs, donors and supporters with public ticket sales opening Friday, February 27 at 10 a.m. Pacific.

David Suzuki has inspired millions worldwide, strengthened the environmental movement and transformed how we understand our responsibility and relationship to the natural world.

“Music and storytelling have always been essential to social change,” David Suzuki Foundation executive director Pierre Iachetti said. “Bringing together iconic artists and internationally recognized leaders, this event is a celebration of the countless people who have joined David Suzuki on his journey and will serve as a rallying cry for bold environmental action.”

David Suzuki’s voice and vision continue to spark meaningful change. This 90th birthday celebration provides David Suzuki fans and Foundation supporters a chance to honour and thank him and answer his call to action.

For more event details and to buy tickets, visit here.

For more information, please contact Craig Long, Senior Communications Manager: clong@davidsuzuki.org, 604-732-4228 x1262

Note: David Suzuki, George Stroumboulopoulos, artists and special guests are not currently available for interviews.

The David Suzuki Foundation is a Canadian environmental non-profit organization, founded in 1990. We operate in English and French, with offices in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. We aim to collaborate with many different people in Canada, including Indigenous leadership and communities, all governments, businesses and individuals to find solutions to create a sustainable Canada through scientific research, traditional ecological knowledge, innovative policy and legal solutions, communications and public engagement. Our mission is to protect nature’s diversity and the wellbeing of all life, now and for the future. We envision a world where we all act every day on the understanding that we are interdependent with nature and each other.

David Suzuki is a grandfather, scientist, former host of CBC’s The Nature of Things, emeritus professor at the University of British Columbia and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Through radio, television and more than 55 books, he has communicated about humanity’s collective impact on the natural world, which now threatens the future of human life. Among his many accolades, Suzuki has been conferred with more than 30 honorary degrees from universities in Canada, the United States and Australia. He has been honoured with adoptions and names from eight Indigenous nations in Canada and Australia.

Tara Cullis is an award-winning author, activist and president of the David Suzuki Foundation. She has been a key player in environmental movements in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, Japan and British Columbia.  She co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation with David Suzuki “to collaborate with people in Canada from all walks of life, to conserve our environment and to find solutions that will create a sustainable Canada through science-based research, education and policy work.”

George Stroumboulopoulos is a globally renowned storyteller, broadcaster and producer, synonymous with music, television, film and the creative arts in Canada. For more than three decades, he has shaped the national conversation through iconic prime-time news and late-night programs, including CBC’s The Hour and George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, his interview series on CNN and as anchor of Hockey Night in Canada. He also fronted and produced The Strombo Show on Apple Music, further cementing his reputation as one of the most trusted and influential voices in contemporary culture.

Bruce Cockburn has enjoyed an illustrious career shaped by politics, spirituality and musical diversity. His remarkable journey has seen him embrace folk, jazz, rock and worldbeat styles while earning high praise as a prolific, inspired songwriter and accomplished guitarist. He remains deeply respected for his activism and humanist song lyrics that thread throughout his career. On all his albums, Cockburn has deftly captured the joy, pain, fear and faith of human experience in song. Cockburn has won 13 JUNO Awards, an induction into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award and has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada, among many other accolades. He has 22 gold and platinum records including a six-times platinum record for his Christmas album. Cockburn continues to tour internationally.

Jane Fonda is a two-time Academy Award–winning actor, producer, author, activist and fitness guru. Her career has spanned over 50 years, accumulating a body of film work that includes more than 50 films and significant contributions to political causes such as women’s rights, Indigenous rights and environmental protection. She is a seven-time Golden Globe winner and was honoured with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021. She accepted The Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. In April of 2024, Fonda accepted the TIME Magazine Earth Award. She also received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in February 2025.

Al Gore is the founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit devoted to solving the climate crisis, a founding partner and chairman of Generation Investment Management and a co-founder of Climate TRACE. He is also a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a member of the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees and a past member of the board of directors at Apple.

Rick Hansen is a six-time Paralympic medalist and Canadian icon best known as the “Man In Motion” for undertaking an epic 26-month, 40,000-kilometre journey around the world in his wheelchair. He is the founder of the Rick Hansen Foundation, an organization committed to inspire, create and deliver innovative solutions that accelerate a global movement to remove barriers to inclusion for people with disabilities.

Chantal Kreviazuk made her critically acclaimed full-length debut, Under These Rocks and Stones, in 1997. Since then, the Winnipeg-born and internationally celebrated three-time JUNO Award and Grammy winning singer-songwriter and musician, classically trained pianist, actress, movie producer, philanthropist, humanitarian and proud wife and mother of three has recorded 10 albums, including a live album, a holiday album and a collaboration with her husband and Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida. A prolific songwriter, Kreviazuk has written global smashes for the likes of Drake, Gwen Stefani, Pitbull, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Carrie Underwood, Avril Lavigne, Shakira, Kelly Clarkson and Kendrick Lamar. Equally committed to helping those in need, Kreviazuk was awarded the Order of Canada in 2014, along with Maida, for their efforts to raise awareness and support for human and animal rights, mental health, education and the environment. Kreviazuk has been an ambassador to War Child for more than two decades and one of the organization’s founding artists.

Sarah McLachlan is one of the most celebrated singer songwriters in entertainment with more than 40 million albums sold worldwide. She has received three Grammy Awards and twelve JUNO Awards over her career and has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. Sarah’s music embodies the art of song writing on its most personal level, and her indelible vocals resonate with people everywhere. Her songs have had a profound influence; “Angel,” “Building A Mystery,” “Fallen,” “I Will Remember You,” “Adia,” “Sweet Surrender,” “World On Fire,” “Possession” and countless others are an inspiration to music lovers around the globe.

Danny Michel is a Canadian songwriter and producer who has built a decades-long career on curiosity and creative risk-taking. Blending rock, pop, folk, world and even classical influences, his “musical A.D.D.” has earned him a devoted fan base, multiple JUNO and Polaris Prize nominations, CBC’s Heart of Gold award and CFMA honours, including Producer of the Year and the Oliver Schroer Pushing the Boundaries Award. Beyond music, he founded the DM Ocean Academy Fund to support a non-profit high school in Belize and has performed at milestone celebrations for Jane Goodall and David Suzuki, as well as toured with Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe.

William Prince is a songwriter shaped by powerful legacies of family and craft, his perspective is both singular and resonant. His fifth LP, Further From the Country, is a striking work of reflection and ambition, marked by clarity, humanity, and emotional depth. The distance travelled on this new album is generational, aspirational and deeply personal. Expansive and declarative, the record finds Prince meeting the challenge of writing enduring songs for an age of uncertainty. A two-time JUNO Award winner, Prince continues to build an exceptional body of work, earning the John Prine Songwriter Fellowship and an Americana Honors & Awards nomination. From Newport Folk Festival to sold-out performances at Massey Hall, from NPR’s Tiny Desk to tours with The War and Treaty and Yola, he has appeared on some of music’s most storied stages. In June 2025, Nipissing University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) recognizing his contributions to music, storytelling, and cultural bridge-building.

Tanya Tagaq is an internationally celebrated artist from Ikaluktutiak (Cambridge Bay, Nunavut). She is an improvisational singer, avant-garde composer and bestselling author. A member of the Order of Canada, Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award winner and recipient of multiple honorary doctorates, Tagaq is an original disruptor and a world-changing figure at the forefront of seismic social, political and environmental change.

March 2, 2026
North Forty News
Fort Collins, Colorado

Bruce Cockburn Reflects on Faith, Protest and a Career-Spanning Tour Before Sold-Out Fort Collins Shows
by Bill Forman

Career-spanning set highlights classics, global influences, and songs from O Sun O Moon

Over the course of his career, Bruce Cockburn has remained a prominent figure in the music industry, crafting songs that blend spiritual depth with social consciousness. The singer-songwriter has earned 13 Juno Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy), received six honorary doctorates, and released 35 albums, with more than one million copies sold in his native Canada alone.

Now, Cockburn is out on a solo tour, armed with just a couple of guitars — a stripped-down approach that aligns well with his reputation as a masterful guitarist and poignant lyricist.

“Back in the ‘80s, which is when a lot of people in America got introduced to my stuff, music was more band-oriented, so my guitar parts tended to shrink because I was making room for all these other instruments,” Cockburn recalled in a recent interview. “But more and more commonly over the years, I’ve been writing in such a way that the songs work either with or without a band. And the guitar parts that I include with the songs tend to function like a band — in my mind, at least.”

Over the past year or so, Cockburn has been playing a mix of career-spanning signature songs like “Wondering Where the Lions Are,” “If a Tree Falls,” and “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” alongside a selection of songs from his most recent release, “O Sun O Moon.” Cockburn’s first vocal album in six years — his 2019 album “Crowing Ignites” was entirely instrumental — it features guest appearances by Shawn Colvin, Buddy Miller, and the McCrary Sisters gospel group.

But one song fans won’t hear on this tour is Cockburn’s 1985 hit “If I Had a Rocket Launcher,” which he dropped from his set list when Russia began bombing Ukraine, and he hasn’t played it since. Written after his visit to Guatemalan refugee camps that were under attack by their own government’s military helicopters, it closes with the lyric “If I had a rocket launcher, some son-of-a-bitch would die,” a line that reportedly led to some radio stations fading the song out before the last chorus.

Given changing social attitudes toward violence and the potential for misinterpretation, Cockburn doesn’t know if he’ll ever play it again. “I got really sick of hearing people shout “Yeah!” at that line,” he said. “The idea of that song representing anything to celebrate just wore on me after a while. And eventually, I said no, I’m not doing this, because the world has gotten that way, and I don’t need to further that.”

Musically, Cockburn continues to draw upon the influences of diverse cultural traditions, an approach that dates back to a time when he was determined to create a sound that was truly original.

“I went through a phase where I didn’t want to be derivative of any of the songwriters that were around at the time,” he said. “I mean, I admired artists like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. They were great songwriters. But I didn’t want to sound anything like them.”

Instead, Cockburn spent five years going out of his way to avoid listening to them or to any other popular musicians. “I listened to music from everywhere I could find,” he elaborated. “European Renaissance music, Japanese flute music, Tibetan monks chanting, guys playing a log on the beach in Guadalcanal, it was a real voyage of discovery.”

That voyage would continue, in various shapes and forms, throughout Cockburn’s career. He collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including Jamaican reggae artist Leroy Sibbles and his rhythm section, who were featured on his early hit “Wondering Where the Lions Are” and performed frequently with him at live shows. Cockburn also went on a month-long trip to Mali, West Africa, where he jammed with African desert blues musicians Ali Farka Toure and Toumane Diabaté.

Recent albums have found Cockburn incorporating more elements of American blues and early jazz into his music, although his pop and folk singer-songwriter skills are still as sharp as ever. His progressive Christian faith, meanwhile, plays a larger role in his lyrics than in years past, while his propensity for social commentary remains undiminished.

A case in point is “Orders,” which combines both elements: “The enemy outside the gate / The drunk who tags the bathroom stall / The Proud Boy headed for his fall / The list is long, as I recall / Our orders said to love them all.”

“If somebody chooses to align themselves with darkness, it doesn’t come out of nowhere,” said Cockburn. “There’s a reason that they’re doing that. It doesn’t mean that we have to tolerate their actions, but I think we should try to communicate and to confront each other with respect. And that’s something that’s been downplayed in recent years in our culture. Respect and manners and things like that have kind of gone out the window with the internet and other things. But you have to have that. Otherwise, you’re just surrendering to the chaos.”

Photo: Daniel Keebler