BLUE RODEO’S “HASN’T HIT ME YET” FINDS NEW MEANING IN ELBOWS UP ERA
Is it really necessary to go over how stupid the world is at the moment? Case in point: Only a few weeks ago, Blue Rodeo fans were preparing to spend a pleasant late summer evening, as they do every year, communing with the band at their annual RBC-Budweiser-whatever amphitheatre show in Toronto.
Then, literally the day before, the person we would all love to see (insert your preferred method of torture here) decided he had the power to change the name of one of the planet’s largest bodies of water with the stroke of a pen. Blue Rodeo happened to be playing right next to said body of water, and its name also happened to appear prominently in one of their most popular songs.
It added up to a normally joyous event taking on surreal overtones. Everyone in attendance was anticipating the performance of “Hasn’t Hit Me Yet,” specifically the line “Watching the snow fall on this cold December night / Out in the middle of Lake Ontario,” which all 16,000 voices belted out in unison, as a map of the lake — a last-minute addition to the production — was projected from the back of the stage.
The moment made immediate national headlines and even drew attention from left-leaning U.S. media. Blue Rodeo’s Greg Keelor told CBC two days later, “We were all just a little shocked at the wave of emotion that came from the audience when they got to that line. It has a different meaning now. I’m very happy for that.” Keelor added that when the band resumes its normal touring schedule in the fall, he expects a similar response wherever they play. “If the song galvanizes a mood or an energy in the country, that is amazing.”
BRYAN ADAMS HONOURS TERRY FOX WITH NEW SONG FOR DOC
As we reported, Bryan Adams also recently responded to American bullying with the rousing single “51st State,” and he’s followed it up with another new song that’s sure to stir powerful emotions within all Canadians. “The Ballad of Terry Fox” will be featured in the new documentary Run Terry Run by filmmaker Sean Menard, which promises “a behind-the-scenes look at Terry Fox’s legendary 1980 Marathon of Hope.” The film is slated to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this month.
In a statement, Adams said, “I remember Terry’s run back in 1980 when I was on tour In Canada playing 200-capacity clubs. I was 20 years old and I think Terry was a year older than me. When he stopped near Thunder Bay on September 1, I had just played in Ottawa, and his run was all over the news. Thinking back, it was a pivotal time in Canada. Without knowing it, Terry gave our slightly fractious country a ‘something’ and ‘someone’ that everyone could agree on and unite behind.”
Menard also directed a standalone video for the song and added, “Bryan is a legendary storyteller, and his words paired with Terry’s story on screen felt incredibly powerful. To have one Canadian icon write a song about another is truly special. Given the political climate while I was editing the video, I often found myself deeply moved with Canadian pride.”
TINARIWEN POSTPONES CANADIAN TOUR OVER LOST DOCUMENTS
World-renowned African music collective Tinariwen has postponed its Canadian tour on the eve of the opening date in Victoria B.C. due to incomplete documentation. A statement posted on Instagram explained that the travel documents belonging to several members of the group’s crew and touring party were destroyed in a house fire.
The post read in part, “The team has been doing everything possible to maintain the tour, but despite their best efforts, they are unfortunately now obliged to postpone the current Canadian tour. Tinariwen sincerely apologizes to all of their friends and fans across Canada for this unexpected change. They are doing everything they can to return and perform for you as soon as possible.”
Already purchased tickets will be honoured at the new dates, or refunds can be requested. Tinariwen released its latest album Hoggar back in March on its own Wedge Records label.
JASON ISBELL LEADS CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST AI COMPANY SUNO
As the push to integrate artificial intelligence into our daily lives continues, those seeking to prevent it from taking over the arts are beginning to push back. The latest example is a class action lawsuit headed by singer-songwriter Jason Isbell against AI company Suno, which creates complete songs, including lyrics and vocals, out of simple text descriptions and hummed melodies or basic beats.
Suno has already been sued by the three major corporate record companies, Sony, Universal and Warner, although the last recently settled and is working with Suno on developing a partnership. Isbell’s lawsuit, filed Aug. 31 in the Massachusetts District Court, claims that Suno’s software is also capable of creating songs based on an artist’s name alone, which opens a Pandora’s Box of copyright and potential identity theft issues.
Other artists including Cracker’s David Lowery are also part of the lawsuit, which states, “[Suno] encoded musicians’ identities into its AI model to create its commercial product without consent, and now exploits those identities by publicly using musicians’ names to Suno’s considerable commercial benefit.”
The case contains similiar elements to lawsuits from the 1980s, specifically when Tom Waits won a multi-million dollar verdict against Frito-Lay over its use of a voice impersonator in a Doritos radio commercial after Waits refused to license his song “Step Right Up.” There were also the bizarre instances of Neil Young and John Fogerty being sued by their former record labels — in Young’s case, for making records that didn’t sound “Neil Young enough,” and in Fogerty’s case for making new music that sounded too much like Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Yet, in this new age of AI, Isbell’s lawsuit may be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to an artist’s ability to retain full control over not just their music, but their humanity. As his claim also states, “Many musicians sell their rights to specific recordings. However, the identity right belongs to the performer regardless of who owns any copyright in an underlying recording unless the identity right is separately licensed, typically for merchandise under an artist’s control. This lawsuit seeks to recover the value of those misappropriated identities and to stop their ongoing commercial exploitation.”
CASSANDRA WILSON 1955 – 2026
Multi-Grammy Award-winning vocalist Cassandra Wilson has died at the age of 70. An official statement from her manager said that she passed away at her home in Jackson, Mississippi surrounded by loved ones, with no cause of death mentioned. Wilson’s last solo album was the 2015 Billie Holliday homage, Coming Forth By Day, and she also appeared on the 2020 release Ella 100: Live At The Apollo!, a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.
Relying on her sultry, smokey contralto, Wilson was seen as the spiritual successor to those great female jazz vocalists from the time she arrived in New York City in the early 1980s, through the encouragement of prominent New Orleans jazz figures such as Ellis Marsalis. She first made her mark as a member of M-Base, a musical collective that aimed to expand the scope of jazz, which led to the launch of her solo career with the 1986 album Point Of View.
After six more albums released by the German label JMT, Wilson signed with Blue Note Records for the 1993 album Blue Light ’til Dawn that would sell over 250,000 copies. The record contained a wide range of material, from Mississippi Delta blues to more contemporary material by Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Ann Peebles.
In a lengthy 2002 profile in JazzTimes, Wilson said, “Joni Mitchell writes great melodies and great chord changes. She writes very freely, maybe because she’s unschooled, and the things she does with guitar tunings have always fascinated me. And the language that she and Bob Dylan use is so powerful. Their lyrics are connected to folk, the common folk, whereas Cole Porter and Harold Arlen are more connected to the wealthy, the bon vivant. Dylan, Mitchell and Robbie Robertson [of the Band] are writing for the disaffected, discontented and disenfranchised; they’re saying, ‘Hey, it’s not perfect down here; we have some demons to deal with.’
“And the blues – it used to be that jazz artists prided themselves on knowing the blues. But how many young jazz musicians are willing to transcribe Robert Johnson or Blind Lemon Jefferson the way they transcribe Bird or Trane? You can’t tell me that this music is too common or too easy. Those songs are bottomless.”
