Wade Hemsworth, who was a career draftsman for the Canadian National Railway, once explained, “I build bridges with a slide rule and paper and pencil.” But after office hours, he crafted brilliant folk songs about life in the Canadian north that will likely prove as durable as any bridge he ever designed. Celebrated for the…
Tag: music
The day I invited Chubby Checker to town
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Some years ago, shortly after my 90th birthday, I wrote an autobiography. The exercise helped me recall many episodes from my more than eight decades in Toronto since coming here with my family from England at the beginning of the First World War. As I described in the book, I had a multifaceted career. I…
Jerry Gray still traveling with Travellers
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By his own telling, Jerry Gray had one of the most thrilling experiences of his life in late June (2011). In front of a sold-out house at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall, he stood at the conductor’s podium, raised a baton, and led the 385-voice Mormon Tabernacle Choir and a full orchestra in a rousing rendition…
Jolson Sings Again
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What was it like to see Jewish show business legend Al Jolson at his best in front of an adoring public? A high-budget musical profile of Jolson, now on stage at the historic Victoria Palace Theatre in London’s West End, seemingly rekindles that quintessential and electrifying spark that this most famous cantor’s son was able to…
The ageless charm of an Irving Berlin musical
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The story has it that when Irving Berlin’s new musical Annie Get Your Gun was being readied for its 1946 Broadway opening with Ethel Merman in the title role, the legendary composer was so nervous about one particular number, There’s No Business Like Show Business, that he was prepared to yank it from the show.…
‘Devil in Babylon’ astute study of jazz age
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Allan Levine, the hybrid Winnipeg novelist, historian and school teacher, says he is putting his Jewish detective hero Sam Klein on the shelf for a while, even though his trio of Sam Klein mystery novels “has done well in Canada and in Germany, where I did a five-city book tour last fall.” The Sam Klein…
Prince of Egypt transforms the Exodus story
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Based on the Biblical story of the Exodus, Dreamworks Studio’s visually stunning animated musical The Prince of Egypt opens across North America during the lucrative Christmas market (1998), and the studio hopes to see profits on the $70 million production soon. The first full-length animated film to focus on a Biblical narrative, The Prince of…
Drabinsky protects Showboat with legal action
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Entertainment mogul Garth Drabinsky has filed a legal notice of claim against the Ontario government after learning that the provincial Anti-Racism Secretariat allegedly funnelled $200,000 to various groups that were part of an organized campaign to stop the musical Show Boat from opening at the North York Performing Arts Centre in October 1993. “They have…
The making of Ragtime the musical
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Last week in Toronto (1996), arts journalists were given an exclusive first peek at four stage numbers from Ragtime, the musical-in-progress that Livent Inc. is developing from the best-selling 1975 novel by E.L. Doctorow. Given that the show isn’t set to open at North York’s Ford Center until next January, the pieces seemed surprisingly polished.…
RebbeSoul’s music is soulful, spiritual
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The first time you hear RebbeSoul will be a revelation; at least it was for me. Within minutes of sliding his new album into the CD player, I realized that here was a type of contemporary Jewish music I had rarely heard before. Melodious and musically rich, Change the World With A Sound does more…
