This newsletter is an extension of the 2022 Summer Album Guide, and will evolve to include writing about the community, the city and the world in areas other than hot vinyl and vital music. But for now consider it a gesture to continue the art of the album review, forever disappearing from our print newspapers. - Dave Bidini
Terra Lightfoot
Healing Power
Here’s a lovely and satisfying new record by Terra Lightfoot, possessing a tickle-trunk of hooks and mature, soulful singing by one of Canada’s most captivating performers. My only quibble is that the overall sound of the record shakes some of the sand and dirt out of Lightfoot’s live delivery, which, on the great nights, can pin you to the back wall of the theatre. I think the purpose here is getting these songs — “Need You Tonight” and the brilliant “Someone Else’s Feelings” — a little bit more exposed, but it’s a Rubicon that at some point deserves a reversed flow: warts and fuzz and frap put back in. But that’s a taste thing, and in spite of this, “Healing Powers” will win its own friends with its Friday night energy, ascendant melodies and perfectly-angled folk/rock/pop headrest.
Rolling Stones
Hackney Diamonds
In the early 90s, we staged a show — and pressed a subsequent CD — called “Nerdstock,” where Adam West, People From Earth, The Inbreds and Gunwalebob played an afternoon engagement at Ultrasound Showbar. Ultrasound’s owner, and former Regent Park cop, Richard Crooks partnered with Dan Ackroyd to operate the bar, and with the Stones in town rehearsing one of their tours, rumour spread that Her Majesty’s Darlings might turn up at the venue. At one point, the room became very crowded and when I looked to my left — I’d been standing on a ledge on the window-side next to Dinner is Ruined’s (and Country of Miracles’) Dale Morningstar, who counted the Stones as the reason he played music — I noticed a phalanx of leather-jacketed men coming up the stairs into the second story club. Looking down between them, I saw Mick Jagger moving forward towards the stage where, ostensibly, he might settle at one of the tables. But I didn’t know if Dale had noticed so, pointing at the Glimmer Twin, I shouted: “It’s Mick Jagger!” He looked me in the eye and, raising a hand, turned the phalanx around to march out of the club. Later, we watched from the roof of the bar post-show as the band made their way to Richard’s penthouse, but not before someone placed an enormous wooden skid over the window, hiding the Stones from our view. The band was in Toronto a lot in those days, and here they are with a new album. Life goes on, and they really mean it.