Of course we all know that famous line from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

I have been reflecting about many things this Christmas and on how the world changed for all of us this year.

As a member of the media and the music world my friends, artists and colleagues all got hit hard and it went down slowly and painfully. In my world, one by one major festivals I was supposed to be attending were canceled, postponed or switched to a virtual format. It was like slow motion watching it happen, surreal and hard to handle.

Charley Pride has left this earthly plane but his legacy and music will live on forever. A trailblazer, pioneer, role model, superstar and one of only three African American members of the Grand Old Opry the others being DeFord Baily and Darius Rucker. Pride passed away of complications of COVID-19 at the age of 86.

On November 11th, Pride was onstage performing at the 2020 Country Music Association Awards where he received the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award, an honour given  to “an iconic artist who has attained the highest degree of recognition in Country Music.” Charley performed his first #1 hit “Kiss An Angel Good Morning “ along with another young black artist Jimmie Allen.

Our library statistics in Record World Chart history show Charley Pride had 49 hit records of which 33 reached #1. In 1972 he had a duet hit with Henry Mancini, “All His Children” peaked at # 1.

Cashbox Magazine Charts show he had 67 Hit Songs of which 30 peaked at #1.

Charley Pride’s biggest hit was “Kiss An Angel Good Morning"

“We’ve waited 34 years to create an original release for Christmas and this Christmas, is one that most people will never forget.”

Created during the summer of 2020, with the world continuing its fight to recover from the massive impact of a global pandemic, “Songs For A Winter’s Night” is primarily a collection of original Christmas/Holiday songs written by Glass Tiger and joined by guest artists such as Roch Voisine, Natalie MacMaster, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Steve Sidwell Orchestra and of course the legendary Gordon  adds his voice to a very special poem written by Alan Frew, “Ode For A Winter’s Night”.

In doing so, the legendary Mr Lightfoot, is giving his personal thumbs up to the lads, for their covering of his classic hit, “A Song For A Winter’s Night.” With this eclectic mix of holiday music, Songs For A Winter’s Night, stirs the spirit and soul with the central theme focussing on gratitude for the things in life that matter most, like love and kindness; equality & friendship; and of course, family.

The single release is Happy Holiday (Joyeux Noel Mes Amis) Glass Tiger & Roch Voisine – check it out here:

The 16th Annual Andy Kim Christmas Special, presented by AIR MILES will make its national television debut on Citytv and Citytv.com as well as streamed globally at LiveNation.com. The two-hour music special will broadcast from Toronto’s one and only, El Mocambo on December 19 at 8 p.m

The Television Special in support of Crew Nation, CAMH Gifts of Light and Food Banks Canada airs Saturday, December 19 at 8 p.m. on Citytv and Citytv.com

Canadian legend and folk icon Murray McLauchan is raising his voice again, and we’re glad he is.

I believe it was Woody Guthrie who said “ A folksinger’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable and McLaughlan is rising to the occasion.

Watch the video for “I Live On a White Cloud here:

For 32 Christmases Tom Jackson’s Huron Carole has been a staple in Canada, touring the country bringing cheer and hope to the nation. But with the current pandemic, what will happen to Year 33? The need to social distance and travel limitations made for a huge obstacle in continuing this tradition.

Festivals and live events were being cancelled and postponed across the board but this was Tom Jackson we are talking about here. Tom is no stranger to stones in the road and fallen trees in his path. We caught up with him at his home in Calgary and the calmness and sense of resolve in his voice is something that soothes the nerves and gives a sense that every problem has a solution.

If you’re a Kim Mitchell fan then you’re in for a treat and if you’re not a Kim Mitchell fan yet then you will be after listening to this latest offering from this legendary Canadian icon.

This latest album, ‘The Big Fantasize’, is his eighth studio collection as a solo artist, having  previously had five albums as the front man of the highly successful band Max Webster. The last time his fans heard from Mitchell was his 2007 album ‘Ain’t Life Amazing’, an album of rock tunes in the tried and true Kim Mitchell style.

Catching up with Don McLean at his home in the USA, his personality is as strong and as free spirited as he was decades ago when his career soared to the top of the charts in 1971 with the legendary hit song, ‘American Pie’. The charttopping hit was an 8.5-minute folk rock "cultural touchstone" about the loss of innocence of the early rock and roll generation.

“I have always been the type of man who needs his freedom and I have a strong need and urge to be creative, even as a kid I knew I wanted to be a performer. I was an only child and my parents and friends were my first audiences. I was brought up in a typical middle class family in New Rochelle, New York and listened to every recording I could get my hands on growing up. I didn’t fit with what my father (Donald McLean ll) wanted me to be, and it was a strict upbringing so not an easy way of life to accept when you are an artist wanting to follow your dreams. He thought a musician was the lowest thing you could be. But when I was just 15 years old, he died and I didn’t know what I was going to do without him. He was the king, the boss. He knew everything.”

Photo Credits John Rowland

In 1965, at the onset of the British Invasion, the kids were ready for a shift in the music they could  all their own. The 1950’s had changed the culture and the music with the advent of  rock ‘n’ roll with Elvis, Buddy and Jerry Lee Lewis. There was a rebellious attitude that seeped into the mindset of the youth of the day. After Elvis joined the Army and around 1960 the trend softened with the Bobbys, Frankies and Johnnies singing more love ballads. So in 1964 the timing was right for a new kind of music, a new style and attitude.

The Prussians are Dominic Massó, Tino Lucena, Ferchu Vallejos, Pau Enric Serra and Juan David Ayora, a band from the island of Mallorca (Spain) that creates music with an electronic groove vibe influenced by Glass Animals, Balthazar, RY X, Crooked Colours and ALT-J.

Over the years, the band has performed at the main festivals and venues in Spain as well as performing in 2018 in Sweden at Live at Heart, and a mini tour of the USA in 2019, including a slot at the prestigious "Summerfest", Milwaukee. The Prussians has always had great support from national media as well as having several National TV appearances and music videos on high rotation on MTV and Sol Music TV Channels.

Debut EP ‘The Hills’ (2013) was followed by 2 albums (‘Mul Mul’ in 2014 and ‘Karma’ in 2018) and another EP (‘Kerala’ in 2016) but as The Prussians evolve constantly with different sounds and melodies, they launched several singles over the last year to show a more soulful and electronic to shift from a pure "indierock" style.

Dolly Parton is the most honored and revered female country singer-songwriter of all time. Achieving 25 RIAA-certified gold, platinum, and multi-platinum awards, she has had 26 songs reach #1 on the Billboard country charts, a record for a female artist. Recently, Parton reached #1 on the Billboard Christian Airplay Chart for the first time for her duet with Grammy award-winning Zach Williams of “There Was Jesus.”

Parton is the first artist to have topped the Billboard’s Adult Contemporary, Christian AC Songs, Hot Country Songs, Christian Airplay, Country Airplay and Dance/Mix Show Airplay radio charts. Parton recently became the first country artist honored as Grammy MusiCares Person of the Year given out by NARAS. She has 44 career Top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and 110 career-charted singles over the past 40 years. In 2014 the RIAA recognized her impact on recorded music with a plaque commemorating more than 100 million units sold worldwide. Her 2016 #1 album, “Pure & Simple,” which topped the Billboard Top Country Albums and Americana/Folk Albums charts and debuted at No. 1 in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia, added to that massive tally.

Multi-award winning singer/songwriter Maria Manna shares a message of love’s bliss and female empowerment alike in her sassy new single, “I Like It In The Water” – currently now a Top 20 Pick Hit on the October Chart on Cashbox Radio.

An indefatigable dynamo across her 45-year career and pure gem in Canada’s creative crown, “I Like It In The Water” lands as a moment for pause to revel in the fruits of a life well lived. “My inspiration while filming the video was my husband, who sat in the audience,” Manna shares. “He knows I like to dance in the water…”

Check out “I Like It in The Water” here:

I got my first Eric Andersen album,” ‘bout changes & things’” in 1966 at the height of the great Folk Explosion coming out of Greenwich Village in New York City.

Mini Pop Kids are remarkable – no other way to describe them. With the current state of the world, and with the way music is going these days, it is refreshing to find an act like this who are solely based on talent and optimism - and a love of music!

Combine that with the historical K-Tel label and distribution with WalMart,in many ways it is all a very throwback approach to when music was fun.

With BLACKPINK feat. Selena Gomez’s latest track “Ice Cream” hitting Top 10 on both the Global and U.S. Billboard charts, Canada’s original and best-selling kid’s music group are serving their own scoop of the song in their signature family-friendly way! MINI POP KIDS’ version of BLACKPINK feat. Selena Gomez’s “Ice Cream” is available now!

“This song is one of our favourites of 2020,” the MINI POP KIDS say. “We’re HUGE fans of BLACKPINK.”

They’re not kidding; MINI POP KIDS also feature BLACKPINK’s “How You Like That” on this year’s hit release, MINI POP KIDS 18.

The legendary funk band Crack of Dawn note the meaning of ‘time’ with “Tiempo,” their latest single featuring the incomparable Melba Moore.

Featuring the same signature velvet-funk tones that have made them Canada’s most celebrated soul act for 40 years and running, Crack of Dawn refresh and reimagine a song written years ago by lead singer Michael Dunston and Dennis Nieves.

“It’s about lovers needing time to find themselves again after a tumultuous breakup,” the band says about the track. “Fast forward to 2020, and things happened in Michael’s life where the meaning of the lyrics really hit home; his wife was battling a few serious medical issues.”

It’s under these renewed circumstances — along with the addition of Tony Award-winning, four-time GRAMMY nominee, TV star, first black actress to play ‘Fantine’ in Les Misérables on Broadway, and 11-time Billboard Top 10 charting artist, Melba Moore — that takes “Tiempo” to an unprecedented, out-of-this-world level. “It’s filled with an emotional interpretation that’s difficult to explain with words alone.”

There is a French expression “la plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose” which roughly translates to "the more things change, the more they stay the same". For me, this really describes the musical journey of The Kings.

It’s been 40 years since The Kings released “This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ To Glide,” and closed the show at Heatwave. To celebrate, they’ve got unseen, exclusive, re-mastered footage.

This story is about a hard-working band hailing from Vancouver, BC and Oakville, ON that appeared on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, was nominated for a JUNO Award, named ‘Most Promising Group’ by Cashbox Magazine, hit Platinum-selling status, and has released five studio albums, two live albums, a live DVD, an anthology, a documentary, and numerous hit singles — including “another rocking two-fer,” “Circle of Friends / Man That I Am.”  The 2018 single was somewhat like arriving full circle; it was mixed in Nashville by industry legend Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, KISS), who also helmed the same role on their 1980’s debut, The Kings Are Here, and sophomore follow-up, Amazon Beach.

After A Record-Breaking Billboard #1 Chart Hit,  Billy Ray Cyrus returns with Canadian-exclusive “Country Twisted”.

The Multi-Platinum selling, GRAMMY Award-winning and Billboard chart topping artist Billy Ray Cyrus is circling back to his roots in this, his newest single, “Country Twisted”.

Watch and listen to “Country Twisted” here:  https://youtu.be/5KcztiIBvaQ

The newly minted country anthem is straight out of the long-iconic American singer/songwriter’s wheelhouse, and sure to inspire a line dance redux as he first did in his unforgettable 1992 hit, “Achy Breaky Heart.”

Over thirty years on from its original release, Tears For Fears' third long-player The Seeds Of Love has taken on mythical status for its scope, ambition, timeless musicality, and the fact that it took over four years to record.

For music fans and audiophiles the world over, the album continues to astound with its depth and sheer audacity, which is why three decades on it, has barely aged a day.  As Roland Orzabal puts it, "Out of all our albums, I'd probably rank it highest. I think it surprised a lot of people, a lot of our peers as well, people who maybe we were being compared to in the mid-Eighties." Curt Smith "The tracks I liked then, I still like now. 'Woman in Chains,' 'Badman's Song,' 'Sowing the Seeds of Love,' and 'Advice For The Young At Heart' have all stuck around. We still play those live."

On August 16, 1977, 41 years ago, we lost one of the most significant artists on human beings the world has ever known.  Elvis Presley. Although the anniversary of his death is not as universally recognized as years past his impact on the world has not diminished. In 2010 we wrote the story “The Boy Who Would Be King” and thought it appropriate to rerun it for your reading enjoyment. Elvis didn’t like being called the King and at one show where they held up a sign saying Elvis Is King. He asked them to take it down saying there is only one King and pointed heavenward.

RCA Records will be releasing a much sought after new release available as a 2 LP Vinyl set or a 4 CD box set commemorating the Nashville years.

The official video for The Rolling Stones’ new track “Scarlet” was released on August 6, featuring Emmy-nominated actor Paul Mescal, who starred in critically acclaimed television series ‘Normal People.’

Watch and listen to the official “Scarlet” video here:

A love letter to ‘Scarlet,’ the video was directed by directing duo ‘Us’ and filmed with a socially distanced shoot at the London iconic Claridge Hotel in London, England.