Nicholas Jennings
Nicholas Jennings is one of Canada’s most respected music journalists. He was the music critic and feature writer for Maclean's magazine from 1980 to 2000. In addition to Maclean's, he has written for Saturday Night, Billboard, Words & Music, TV Guide, Inside Entertainment and Hello! Magazines. For newspapers, he has written on music for The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail and, from 1992 to 1998, contributed the "Global Groove" column to Toronto’s eye weekly. Nicholas is also the author of Before the Gold Rush: Flashbacks to the Dawn of the Canadian Sound (Penguin), a critically acclaimed history of the Yorkville era of Canadian music in the 1960s, Fifty Years of Music: The Story of EMI Music Canada (Macmillan) and Lightfoot (Penguin Random House), the definitive biography of singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.
86 articles
List of articles in the library
Fela Kuti: Africa's Cult Musician: Fela Anikulapo Kuti
Report by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 13 October 1986
WHEN ONE OF Africa's most celebrated musicians receives visitors at his home in the Nigerian capital of Lagos, he lounges in little more than a ...
Paul McCartney: Paul Gets Back
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 2 October 1989
ENGLAND WAS basking in an unseasonably warm and bright afternoon one day last week. Paul McCartney, however, was spending it enveloped by darkness and fog, ...
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Eye Weekly, 26 July 1996
IN THE WORLD of ambient music, Brian Eno is god, the all-knowing, all-powerful genius of the recording studio. So omnipotent is Eno that his disciples ...
Leon Redbone: The Cult of Redbone
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 5 November 2001
FOR MORE THAN 25 years, Leon Redbone has been conjuring up the past with his Roaring Twenties show tunes and turn-of-the-century minstrel ditties. Wearing his ...
Manu Dibango: Dibango the Giant
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Eye Weekly, 28 July 1994
GLOBAL MUSIC often works best on the dance floor where, free from ghetto-izing labels and strict radio formats, it can cross over and capture the ...
Roaring Lion: At 87, he's still king of Calypso
Retrospective and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Toronto Star, 18 May 1995
HE'S THE GRAND old man of calypso, the historian and upholder of Trinidad's legendary musical tradition. He's also a living legend himself, the gentleman with ...
Coldplay: Englishmen in New York
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, April 2005
CHRIS MARTIN seems perfectly at home in the Big Apple. Although quintessentially English, the Coldplay frontman talks at New York speed, his mouth racing to ...
Retrospective and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Eye Weekly, 18 July 1996
TAJ MAHAL was deep into the pan-African diaspora long before anyone dreamed up the term "world music." Blues, ragtime, calypso, reggae, Mandinka soul from West ...
Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint: Interview: Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint
Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, May 2006
ELVIS COSTELLO is rock's renaissance man. Along with writing and recording his own songs — some of the wittiest and most acerbic in the pop ...
Blasts to the Past: Canada's labels dig through back catalog and discover gold
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Billboard, 31 March 2001
THERE'S GOLD in them there vaults. Like miners digging for precious nuggets, Canadian record companies have been sifting through their back catalogs to find long-lost ...
The Tragically Hip: From the Hip: The Tragically Hip
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 11 December 2000
WELL AFTER midnight, on a cold stretch of highway somewhere in British Columbia's Cascade Mountains, a party is in progress. It's mid-November, and members of ...
Gordon Downie: Gord goes it alone: The Tragically Hip's Gord Downie
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 26 March 2001
GORDON DOWNIE inhabits an enviable place in Canadian culture. At concerts, thousands of fans chant his lyrics as if they were mantras. They hang on ...
Oscar Peterson: A Living, Swinging Legend: Oscar Peterson
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 13 September 1999
OSCAR PETERSON peers up through the glass ceiling of his sunroom and apologizes for the faint noise coming from a distant jet passing overhead. "We're ...
Ian Tyson: Cowboy troubadour: Ian Tyson is riding high again
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 13 February 1989
THE AUDITORIUM was a sea of cowboy hats in a variety of styles – High Sierra, Ridgetop and Cattleman. The ranchers, cowhands and wives were ...
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, SOCAN Words and Music, Summer 2007
TORONTO'S MUSIC Gallery is housed in St. George the Martyr Church, on the edge of a park and a stone's throw from Queen Street West. ...
Buena Vista Social Club, Ry Cooder: Some Cuban Sizzle: Ry Cooder turns up the musical heat in Havana
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 13 October 1997
RY COODER'S RESUMÉ is one of the most impressive in popular music. He has lent his guitar skills to recordings by the Rolling Stones, Van ...
Jane Siberry: Songs in a Brave New Key
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 9 August 1993
MOST PERFORMERS would call getting booed during a concert their worst nightmare. Not Jane Siberry. Although she suffered that fate last year, at the height ...
Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Kate McGarrigle: Acclaimed musician left her mark
Obituary by Nicholas Jennings, The Globe and Mail, 20 January 2010
FOLK SINGER KATE McGarrigle left a deep musical legacy both in recordings with her older sister Anna McGarrigle and in her two children, singer-songwriters Rufus ...
Obituary by Nicholas Jennings, The Globe and Mail, 23 June 2007
AMONG BLUES-ROCK soloists and accompanists, he had few equals. An exceptional pianist, organist and accordion player, Richard Bell left his mark on more than 400 ...
Dennis Brown: Reggae crooner highly respected
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Toronto Star, 19 February 1992
REGGAE ARTISTS seem to have a knack for taking well-known pop songs, transforming them with reggae's distinctive, loping rhythm – what Bob Marley called "the ...
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 15 May 1995
THE BEER WAS flowing freely as waitresses served platters of breaded shrimp, gourmet pizza and chicken wings. But it was not the regular hockey crowd ...
Gil Scott-Heron: Jazz poet shuns rap spotlight
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Toronto Star, 28 January 1993
HE HAS BEEN called the godfather of rap, but Gil Scott-Heron steadfastly refuses to bask in any hip hop glory. ...
John Legend: Mr. Legend Comes to Town
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, September 2006
IT'S A MUGGY day and John Legend is trying his best to stay cool. The gifted American soul singer is in a Toronto Baptist church ...
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, October 2007
WHEN I FIRST met her, she spoke in a whisper, protecting the gold-plated vocal cords that had made Eurythmics one of the top musical acts ...
Gordon Lightfoot on Songwriting
Retrospective and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, SOCAN Words and Music, Winter 2003
ON AN UNSEASONABLY warm Thanksgiving, Gordon Lightfoot is in an uncharacteristically reflective mood, sipping coffee and looking back on a career that has produced every ...
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 23 November 1998
A FEW DAYS on the concert circuit with the Canadian band Sloan defy just about all the usual rock 'n' roll expectations. ...
The Guess Who: Guess Who's Reborn?
Retrospective and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 29 May 2000
ON AN EARLY May afternoon, on the eastern outskirts of Winnipeg, a spring ritual is under way. Like bears emerging from hibernation, some grey-haired men ...
Bruce Cockburn: Rumours of Glory
Sleeve notes by Nicholas Jennings, True North Records, November 2014
IN HIS ILLUMINATING memoir, also called Rumours of Glory, Bruce Cockburn writes: "My songs are influenced by what I read, where I travel and what ...
Owen Pallett Has Something to Prove
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, SOCAN Words and Music, Summer 2014
HIS WORK HAS won Grammys, JUNOs and an Emmy, and he's been nominated for an Oscar. He's an acclaimed solo artist, frequent collaborator with Arcade ...
Franz Ferdinand: Reigning rock star geeks
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, December 2005
IT LOOKS LIKE Andy Warhol's fabled Factory in New York. Walls, windows, doors and furniture are all encased in tin foil. Silver balloons add a ...
Alicia Keys: Alicia in Wonderland
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, Summer 2002
SHE HAS THE hooks and the looks – and depth and diversity too. Barely out of her teens, Alicia Keys may be the most sophisticated ...
Hawksley Workman: Hawksley's Moxie
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 21 April 2001
IS HAWKSLEY WORKMAN too good to be true? At 26, the Canadian singer-songwriter has already drawn comparisons to figures like David Bowie and Tom Waits ...
Beyoncé: The Solid Gold, Super Fly Destiny of Beyoncé
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, February 2004
SHE'S YOUNG, GIFTED and black. She's also devout, hard-working and extremely fly. ...
Bobby Curtola, The Moffatts, Justin Timberlake: Teen Idols and the fast track to fame
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, 2003
"Some people call me a teenage idol/Some people say they envy me/I guess they got no way of knowing/How lonesome I can be" (Ricky Nelson, ...
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 25 September 2000
IT WAS LIKE an IQ test question asking which was the apple among the oranges. ...
Daniel Lanois' shining pedal steel sound
Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, 2003
"I HAVE WANDERED far and wide," Daniel Lanois sings on the title track to his latest album, "all the way from Paris to Mexico". ...
Oasis: Interview: Liam Gallagher and Oasis
Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, 2006
OASIS IS EITHER the best, balls-to-the-wall rock 'n' roll band of the last decade or the worst case in recent memory of media notoriety trumping ...
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, 2007
WHAT A DIFFERENCE a few decades make. When Queen first came to prominence in the early 1970s, the British band was panned for its bombastic ...
Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, February 2005
VANCOUVER CROONER Michael Bublé is leading a charmed life. Since launching his singing career, raised on his grandfather's love of the sounds of the Mills ...
Neko Case: The Singer and the Song
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, SOCAN Words and Music, Summer 2006
FOR YEARS, Neko Case has been hailed as a siren, a honky-tonk angel with a stunning contralto described variously as "eerie," "luscious," "transcendent" and "the ...
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 13 September 1999
IT'S MID-MORNING in a quiet hotel restaurant and Diana Krall is having a love affair with an artichoke. ...
Review by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, 2005
CHICAGO IS THE cradle of modern blues, the place where Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf urbanized and electrified the music of the Mississippi Delta. But, ...
Crash Test Dummies: Brad Roberts: Crash Test Dude
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, December 2002
BRAD ROBERTS, the Crash Test dude, is no dummy. Although he's a Grinch who hates Christmas, can't stomach turkey and is practically Scrooge-like in his ...
Joni Mitchell: Lady of the Canyon
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 31 October 1994
FOR JONI MITCHELL, fame has been a fickle lover. In the 1970s, it lavished her with sold-out tours and numerous magazine covers. She was the ...
Shania Twain: Country Princess
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 28 August 1995
IT IS THE AUGUST holiday weekend, but there is no rest for Shania Twain. New country music's hottest new sensation is busy paying her dues ...
Retrospective and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 30 September 1991
GEDDY LEE visibly tenses up when he talks about the period when fans drove him and his family out of their east-end Toronto home. ...
Sarah McLachlan: Front and Centre Stage
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 28 July 1995
SARAH MCLACHLAN was lounging in her air-conditioned trailer, exhausted but exhilarated after a day spent fielding media questions and a night spent singing, strumming and ...
Johnny Clegg, Juluka, Savuka: Johnny Clegg: Scatterlings of Africa Regroup
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Toronto Star, 18 July 1996
HIS TOUR BUS has broken down. His cellular phone is running low on batteries. But Johnny Clegg has faced far greater obstacles in his career. ...
Ron Sexsmith, Rufus Wainwright: The New Romantics: Ron Sexsmith and Rufus Wainwright
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, June 2001
THEY ARE THE sensitive boys of Canadian pop. Both are acclaimed singer-songwriters, and both are unabashedly emotional. One is gay, with an impeccable musical pedigree, ...
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, SOCAN Words and Music, Spring 2010
HE'S ONE OF Canada's most successful songwriters, an artist whose songs have topped the country and pop music charts around the world. As a composer, ...
The Ugly Ducklings: The Yorkville Scene
Book Excerpt by Nicholas Jennings, 'Before the Gold Rush' (Penguin), 2 June 2010
ON A SPRING night in 1965, a warm breeze blew along Toronto's Yorkville Avenue, carrying with it a strange mixture of scents: rich coffee, pungent ...
Guide by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, September 2004
1. The Last Waltz THE BAND'S elegant swansong is the ultimate rock concert movie. Director Martin Scorsese's discreet camerawork and superb sound captures inspired performances from ...
Jane Bunnett: Our Gal in Havana
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 26 June 2000
SHE'S BEEN CALLED "Havana Jane", and Canada's Jane Bunnett has certainly earned the title. The celebrated jazz flautist and soprano saxophonist has been a familiar ...
Tracy Chapman, Sarah McLachlan, Kinnie Starr, Suzanne Vega: Songs of the Sirens: Lilith Fair
Report by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 28 July 1997
THEY READ tarot cards on the grass in the afternoon sun and danced under the moon to the sounds of Tracy Chapman. And before they ...
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 11 March 1996
CANADIAN MUSIC passes a milestone this year as the Juno Awards turn 25. To celebrate the occasion, this year's event (CBC TV, Sunday, March 10) ...
Barenaked Ladies: Barenaked in America
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 20 July 1998
THE LADIES' LUCK has changed. While Canada's Barenaked Ladies have fizzled at home in the past few years, their career has exploded south of the ...
Lighthouse, The Paupers: Skip Prokop: Lighthouse co-founder made rock history
Obituary by Nicholas Jennings, The Globe and Mail, 8 September 2017
SKIP PROKOP was one of Canada's first major rock stars, a world-class drummer and talented songwriter who co-founded the groundbreaking jazz-rock band Lighthouse, which earned ...
Cowboy Junkies take the indie route
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 7 May 2001
IT'S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to imagine Margo Timmins as a bad-tempered diva. The angel-voiced singer of Canada's Cowboy Junkies has always been a point of calm ...
Alanis Morissette: Adventures of Alanis in Wonderland
Profile by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 1 February 1995
SHE IS THE newest cover girl for "alternative" rock, a populist answer to Courtney Love. Fans and critics throughout North America have embraced Ottawa native ...
Blue Rodeo: Going Indie on the internet
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 7 May 2001
IMAGINE YOU'RE in a rock band that is wildly successful at home in Canada, but only mildly so in the United States. Canadian sales of ...
Aretha Franklin: The world says a little prayer for the Queen of Soul
Obituary by Nicholas Jennings, Hello!, 3 September 2018
SHE HAD A VOICE that perfectly blended the sacred and the secular, one that could scale gospel highs and move effortlessly from jazz and blues ...
Jackie Shane: Transgender soul singer thrilled crowds
Obituary by Nicholas Jennings, The Globe and Mail, 2 March 2019
JACKIE SHANE broke all the rules. An American-born, black, transgender woman, Ms. Shane first came to Canada in the conservative early 1960s and won over ...
Dr. John: New Orleans is Rising
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, HMV Magazine, April 1991
DR. JOHN AND New Orleans. Although the legendary pianist has made New York City his home for almost a decade now, his name still conjures ...
Robbie Robertson: Songs of a native son
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 23 November 1987
STEPPING OFF a Greyhound bus from Toronto in 1961, a 17-year-old boy found himself in West Helena, Ark., by the banks of the Mississippi River, ...
Ladysmith Black Mambazo: Joseph Shabalala: The Sonic Balm of Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Toronto Star, 29 February 1996
NOW THAT THE turmoil of recent times has passed, Joseph Shabalala can look back fondly on those halcyon days nearly 10 years ago when his ...
Lhasa de Sela : Lhasa de Sela: The Beautiful Sadness of Lhasa
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, Fall 2003
SHE RAN AWAY to join the circus. Although she'd been signed to prestigious Atlantic Records and was being touted as an Edith Piaf for the ...
Macy Gray: Outlandish, outrageous and utterly original
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, April 2003
THE HIGH PRIESTESS of Freak is looking suspiciously like a Volvo-Driving Soccer Mom. ...
Elvis Costello: Elvis Goes North
Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, November 2003
MY EDITOR thinks Elvis Costello's latest album, North, is a lot like Frank Sinatra's 1954 classic In the Wee Small Hours. He's right: both recordings ...
Elyse Weinberg: Forgotten folk singer had a surprising late-in-life comeback
Obituary by Nicholas Jennings, The Globe and Mail, 15 May 2020
SHE WAS one of Yorkville's forgotten female folkies, a contemporary of Joni Mitchell and a friend of Neil Young who left Toronto in 1968 for ...
Jane Siberry: The Eccentric Charms of a Pop Poet
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 7 October 1985
DRESSED IN white lace stockings and a silky smoking jacket, she fluttered tentatively around the stage. With her frail figure and whispery voice, she seemed ...
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 9 October 1989
IT IS A LONG climb up two flights of stairs, past a wall of hanging hats, into Jane Siberry's private world. In many ways, her ...
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 3 May 1993
AS A TEENAGER growing up in the housing projects of north Toronto, Darrin O'Brien did not seem to have much of a future. An indifferent ...
Leonard Cohen, Jennifer Warnes: Leonard Cohen: The return of the modern troubadour
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 9 May 1988
LEONARD COHEN, hailed 20 years ago as Canada's answer to Bob Dylan, had slipped into obscurity. It was the mid-1980s, and audiences seemed more interested ...
King Sunny Adé: The African Influence
Profile by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 15 August 1983
AFTER EXHAUSTING the musical possibilities of rhythm and blues over the past 30 years, pop music is searching for ways to rejuvenate itself. The Police ...
Joni Mitchell: Portrait of an Artist in her Prime
Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 4 April 1988
IT HAS BEEN 24 years since Joni Mitchell left Saskatoon and eventually arrived on the coffeehouse circuit in Toronto's Yorkville district. And although she has ...
Joni Mitchell: Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm
Review by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 4 April 1988
THE FIRST LINES on Joni Mitchell's new album, Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm, are an invitation to intimacy "I'm going to take you to ...
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Musical Missions and Spiritual Highs
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Toronto Star, 19 November 1992
WHEN NUSRAT Fateh Ali Khan performs, people get high. They break into tears, fall into trances and feel like they're flying. They may even see ...
Wray Downes: Jazz pianist Wray Downes was known for his expressive right hand
Obituary by Nicholas Jennings, The Globe and Mail, 1 April 2020
WRAY DOWNES was a gifted pianist, an Oscar Peterson protégé blessed with perfect pitch and impeccable timing and a bebop man who possessed one of ...
R. Dean Taylor: Toronto-born singer-songwriter R. Dean Taylor became a surprise Motown star
Obituary by Nicholas Jennings, The Globe and Mail, 21 January 2022
HE WAS AN unlikely pop star of the post-Woodstock era. Clean-shaven and pipe-smoking, with short, clipped hair and a preference for cardigans and safari jackets, ...
Jack Scott: Canada's forgotten rock 'n' roll star
Obituary by Nicholas Jennings, The Globe and Mail, 20 December 2019
IN THE LATE 1950s and early '60s, there were few bigger stars than Jack Scott. With his signature mix of snarling rockers and soothing ballads, ...
Ronnie Hawkins: Rocker Ronnie Hawkins was also a mentor to iconic Canadian musical acts
Obituary by Nicholas Jennings, The Globe and Mail, 30 May 2022
HE WAS SUCH a good ol' boy, a teller of such tall tales and the master of so many self-deprecating one-liners it was often easy ...
Bachman-Turner Overdrive, The Guess Who: Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings: United Once Again
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, FYIMusicNews, 5 July 2019
THEY ARE ONE of rock's most on-again/off-again partnerships, a pair of icons whose relationship was once described as the longest running soap opera in Canadian ...
Gordon Lightfoot: Just Like a Paperback Novel
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Zoomer, March 2020
I'M DRIVING NORTH up Toronto's Bayview Avenue on a winter's night in early January. I turn east on Post Road and into the Bridle Path ...
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 27 March 1995
WITH HIS STRAGGLY, shoulder-length hair, torn blue jeans and red sneakers, Greig Nori doesn't look like the sort of man to be wined and dined ...
Stranger Cole: Stranger in the Market
Retrospective and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, West End Phoenix, April 2021
TO WALK through the middle of Toronto's Kensington Market on a Saturday in the early '80s was to enter what locals called the "wobble zone." ...
Lucille Starr: Country singer Lucille Starr mastered yearning ballads and rockabilly yelps
Obituary by Nicholas Jennings, The Globe and Mail, 10 May 2020
SHE WAS Canada's consummate country music queen: petite, buxom and with towering hair to match a voice that could scale heartbreaking heights. Beginning in the ...
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