News

Rita MacNeil Now Flying on Her Own

Submitted by cashbox on Fri, 04/19/2013 - 03:35
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Submitted by Cashbox Canada

The voice of the Cape Breton singer Rita MacNeil has been stilled at the age 68, with the cause of death has listed as complications from surgery. Born in Big Pond, Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton Island, MacNeil was one of eight children. At the tender age of 17, MacNeil moved to Toronto, where she wrote her first song and began singing in folk clubs. She would then move to Ottawa, where she recorded three albums, but eventually returned home to Big Pond, the place she truly called home.

MacNeil was famously shy, but said her parents helped her overcome that trait by constantly reminding her to believe in herself. "You can be shy," she said. "You can work through all kinds of struggle. But somewhere deep down, you have to have belief or nothing's going to happen for you."

Cape Breton's first lady of song made her mark during a six-week run at Expo ’86 in Vancouver. As well in 1986, she opened Rita’s Tea Room in her hometown of Big Pond, where she also gave performances as well as providing a venue for other Maritime talent.  In 1987 she earned a Juno award as most promising female artist, at age 42. She also hosted a CBC-TV variety program, Rita and Friends, which ran from 1994 to 1997 and drew regular audiences of one million viewers.

Elephant Stone Bring New Album To Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall April 13 w/openers The Black Angels

Submitted by cashbox on Thu, 04/11/2013 - 23:53
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Montreal based quintet Elephant Stone and magnetic frontman Rishi Dhir are internationally renowned for their unique Hindie rock. That’s a seductive mashup of indie rock, traditional Indian music and neopsychedelia that’ll get ya 'dancin’n’trancin’.

Their sophomore self-titled album recently dropped digitally and on vinyl via Hidden Pony Records, so expect lots of new material, including current hot tracks “Heavy Moon” and “Setting Sun".

Listen to “Love The Sinner, Hate The Sin” and “Heavy Moon” on 
npr.org

Elephant Stone’s self-titled second album defines the unique sound the band has been building over the last three years and two releases. Like many great albums before, Elephant Stone defies categorization. Instead, each song is a musical journey that ebbs and flows from BJM-style rollers, to Caribou dance floor rumblers, to REM-stylejanglers, to Hindustani raga spiritualizers and back again.

Arguably the best show in the T.Dot this Saturday night.

Lenny Stoute

Annette Funicello - Now’s The Time To Say Goodbye

Submitted by cashbox on Thu, 04/11/2013 - 23:37
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Submitted Cashbox Canada

M-I-C-K-E-Y - Why? Because we LOVED her. Annette was one of the original Mousketeers. Walt Disney’s group of kids assembled to entertain other kids on The Mickey Mouse Club television show. In 1955, the 12-year-old was discovered by Walt Disney when she performed as the Swan Queen in Swan Lake at a dance recital at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank, California. Disney cast her as one of the original "Mouseketeers". She was the last to be selected, and one of the few cast-members to be personally selected by Walt Disney himself. She proved to be very popular and by the end of the first season of The Mickey Mouse Club, she was receiving 6,000 letters a month, according to her Disney Legends biography.

In an Annette serial, she performed a song that would launch her singing career. The Disney studio received so much mail about "How Will I Know My Love" that Walt Disney decided to put  it out as a single, and gave Annette a recording contract.

Andy Johns Engineer/Producer Gone at 61

Submitted by cashbox on Thu, 04/11/2013 - 22:35
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Submitted by Cashbox Canada

Recording icon Andy Johns has passed away at the age of 61. Cause of death was not disclosed but Johns did enter the hospital with a liver ailment.

When I was a young man, or as John Sebastian would say, “ a  musical proverbial knee-high, I would read every word and credit on the back of an album. After reading the song content I would go the songwriters, producers and, yes, engineers.

The name Glyn Johns stood out for his work on the Eagles first three albums and  of course The Band, The Who, The Beatles, Rod Stewart, Humble Pie and on and on. I then started seeing another Johns on the back of LP jackets. Andy Johns, Glyn’s younger brother started to have his name appear on some huge projects. Before his nineteenth birthday, he was working as Eddie Kramer's second engineer on recordings by Jimi Hendrix and many others. In a career spanning more than forty years, he engineered or produced records by artists ranging from Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones to Van Halen and Rod Stewart. Total sales for these various artists reached in excess of 160 million units.

Andy Johns was born in Surrey, England and had started as a bass player before following his brother Glyn into the studio end of the business..  As a tape operator at Olympic Studios in London, he contributed to sessions for Axis Bold As Love by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Phil Ramone The Soundtrack of Our Lives

Submitted by cashbox on Thu, 04/04/2013 - 15:45
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Submitted by Don Graham

There are a handful of record producers that have earned the “iconic” label. Phil Spector, David Foster, George Martin and Quincy Jones come to mind.  If I left out any obvious choices, I apologize for the omission.  Phil Ramone is a must to include on that list.

Phil Ramone was behind the board for such musical giants as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Chicago and many, many more. Billy Joel's “52nd Street” album was picked as album of the year in 1979.  In 1982 “52nd Street” became the first pop CD ever released; and in the year for which he won Producer of the Year, 1980, his productions had also included Chicago, Paul Simon and Billy Joel.

Phillip Ramone was born in South Africa and grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and in 1958 co-founded A & R Recording, Inc., a recording studio at 112 West 48th Street, New York, above what was then the world famous Manny's Music. The success of that studio caused it to grow into several studios as well as a record producing company.

As a recording  engineer, Ramone was behind the board for such iconic albums as Bob Dylan's “Blood on the Tracks,” The Band's “Rock of Ages,” and Paul Simon's first two solo albums. By the end of the 70’s Ramone was producing commercial hits by Chicago, Billy Joel, Kenny Loggins, Barbra Streisand and Phoebe Snow.

Liverpool’s Own China Crisis at Hugh’s Room on April 28

Submitted by cashbox on Thu, 04/04/2013 - 15:35
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Submitted to Cashbox Canada

China Crisis is an English pop/rock band, formed in 1979 in Kirkby, near Liverpool, Merseyside with a core of vocalist/keyboardist Gary Daly and guitarist Eddie Lundon. Their output was pop music similar in style to that of New Wave but with strong similarities to the post-punk movement of the early 1980s, namely inclusion of a broader range of musical influences and occasional flirtation with political commentary. Throughout their career, China Crisis has seen moderate success in the United Kingdom with ten hit singles between August 1982 and January 1987 and six albums, as well as commercial success in Western Europe, Australia and the Americas.

Sharing an affection for Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, David Bowie, and Brian Eno, Daly and Lundon played with various Knowsley post-punk groups. Daly then spent time tinkering with synthesizers and a drum machine. Along with Lundon, Daly began writing songs. The pair eventually asked drummer and percussionist Dave Reilly to join them, and in 1982 they released their debut single "African and White" as China Crisis on the independent record label, Inevitable. In June 1982, they supported the former Television guitarist, Tom Verlaine, at London's Venue.

Bobbie Smith of The Spinners Passes On

Submitted by cashbox on Thu, 03/21/2013 - 00:45
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Submitted to Cashbox Canada

Bobbie Smith, the original lead singer of soul group The Spinners, has died at the age of 76 in Orlando, Florida. The group's management said in a statement on Monday that Smith died on Saturday due to complications from pneumonia and influenza. The statement added that Smith had been diagnosed with lung cancer in November.

Smith was the voice behind the band's first hit, “That's What Girls Are Made For”. The band was originally  known as the Detroit Spinners.

Their biggest hits came in the 1970s, including  “I'll Be Around”, “Could It Be I'm Falling in Love” and “Games People Play”. They all featured the voice of Smith, although fellow lead singer Philippe Wynne had by then also joined the band. The quintet began in 1955 as a high school doo-wop group called the Domingoes and they were signed by Harvey Fuqua to Detroit record company Tri-Phi Records.

Berry Gordy's Motown label took over Tri-Phi in 1965, but the group struggled to make a big impact on the charts. It was not until 1972, when tenor Wynne came on board and the group signed to Atlantic, that the hits began coming. Wynne left the group in 1977 and new lead vocalist John Edwards came on board but the band's producer Thom Bell left shortly afterwards. The band has continued in various guises since then, the most recent version consisting of Smith and fellow original member Henry Fambrough, along with newer members Charleton Washington, Jessie Peck and Marvin Taylor.

17 Million And Counting on Music

Submitted by cashbox on Thu, 03/21/2013 - 00:38
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Submitted by Michael E. Williams

Live Music generates an estimated $455 million in revenues and contributes $252 million to the Canadian economy growing at an annual rate of 6.4 % since 2010. (Source:  An Economic Analysis of the Sound Recording Industry in Canada, PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2011)

A few weeks ago, the Ontario government started a Live Music Working Group with 21 industry experts including Graham Henderson, Gil Moore and Neill Dixon.  The aim is to make Ontario a world class destination for live music.

As I have seen such a waste of these funds over the years, I wanted to see what this new program might have to offer and how its success would be evaluated.   I called the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sports, Michael Chan to answer my questions.  He graciously made time for me and I thank him.

MW:  Why did the provincial government decide to get involved in live music?
MC: I think it’s a good thing to do. Since the digitization of music, recorded music has been spiraling down, so we looked at the statistics, numbers and talked to industry leaders, big and small, in the music industry. We all joined together collectively to create a strategy for the growing segment of the industry, Live Music, to make Ontario an even greater destination for live music, sports and cultural based entertainment events.I have been driving this music file quite aggressively and we think there is a lot of good in there, that’s why we are doing it.

PledgeMusic And Fontana North Distribution Announce Partnership

Submitted by cashbox on Thu, 03/07/2013 - 16:08
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Submitted to Cashbox Canada

PledgeMusic will now be the default direct-to-fan platform for Canada's premiere distribution house Fontana North and the legendary e-commerce store MapleMusic.com. The partnership opens up new avenues in Canada for getting ahead, building up a strong fan base, and exploring new paths for marketing in the Canadian market. The union is off to a positive start with campaigns for a variety of notable Canadian bands. Fontana North's General Manager Matt Smallwood says, "We are proud to be in a partnership that is innovative and pushing the music business forward."

Established in 2006, Fontana North provides full marketing, promotional, and publicity support accompanied by a nationally dedicated sales force. Fontana North has received the Independent Music Distributor of the Year award three years in a row at the Canadian Music Industry Awards and its roster includes some of the world's best independent labels such as Warp, Paper Bag, Daptone and Savoy.

MapleMusic.com provides e-commerce services to hundreds of fantastic Canadian artists. Founded in 1999, Maple Music's been a strong advocated of bringing Canadian music to the world...and the world's music to Canadians. They specialize in the selling of physical / digital goods, from music to t-shirts to concert tickets. With an ever growing roster, Maple remains the premiere music shop in Canada.

Stompin’ Tom Connors Dies at the Age of 77

Submitted by cashbox on Thu, 03/07/2013 - 15:53
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Submitted to Cashbox Canada

Canada lost one of its' true musical icons with the passing of Stompin’ Tom Connors O.C.,LL.D.,Litt.D. Connors died on March 6 , 2013 of natural causes at his home in Ontario. He was 77 years of age.

Stompin’ Tom literally put Canada on the map with such songs as “The Hockey Song”, “Sudbury Saturday Night”, “Bud The Spud”, “Tillsonburg”, "Big Joe Mufferaw" and countless others.

Born Thomas Charles Connors in Saint John New Brunswick on February 9th 1936, he was separated from his mother at a young age and raised by foster parents in Skinners Pond, P.E.I. until he was 13 years old. His life of poverty, orphanages, hitchhiking and playing bars would eventually turn into a life of hit songs, national concert tours and fame in spite of a constant uphill battle to be recognized by the music industry in Canada. In 1979 in a fit of frustration and disappointment he returned all 6 of his Juno awards as a statement of personal protest against the Americanization of the Canadian Music Industry, a sentiment he continued to express to this day. In 1989 Tom signed with EMI Music Canada, teamed up with talent promoter Brian Edwards and returned to the stage where fans young and old embraced his music once again as he quickly became one of the biggest concert draws and sought after performers in the country.

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