A (timeless) soul in full swing

One of Canada's greatest artists of all time, Bruce Cockburn has had an illustrious career shaped by politics, spirituality and musical versatility. His path has in fact led him to embrace folk, jazz, rock and worldbeat, to travel to places such as Guatemala, Mali, Mozambique and Nepal and to distill his peculiar perspective on the world into songs that remain indelible. "My job," he once explained, "is to try to trap the spirit of things in the scratches of the pen on the paper and to extract notes from the metal." His intense, committed poetics and compositional complexity have earned Cockburn high praise as an outstanding songwriter and revered guitarist. His songs range from the intimacy of personal relationships to the cry of protest, from the documentary gaze to the spiritual quest, and are among the best that Canada has churned out in the last 50 years. His guitar playing, both acoustic and electric, places him among the best instrumentalists in the world. In addition, he is still deeply respected for his activism on issues ranging from indigenous rights to landmines, from environmental protection to Third World debt, working for organizations such as Oxfam, Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières and Friends of the Earth. This social commitment is also reflected in his songs, which are often powerful vehicles to bring the listener's attention to essential issues. Throughout his career, Cockburn has skillfully captured the joy, pain, fear, and faith of the human experience in song. Whether he sings of retreating to the countryside or facing chaos, confronting the lies of imperialism or embracing spiritual truths, he has always expressed a tough but hopeful stance: kicking the darkness until the light of day bleeds. "We cannot be satisfied with things as they are," he warned, "if we do not address the problems, they will only get worse." For his many accomplishments, the Ottawa-born artist has been honored with 13 Juno Awards, has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award, and has been named an Officer of the Order of Canada. But he never rested on his laurels. "I'd rather think about what I'm going to do next," Cockburn says. "My role models for aging harmoniously are people like John Lee Hooker and Mississippi John Hurt, who never stopped working, trying to improve until the end as musicians and as human beings." Old or not, Cockburn shows a palpable urgency in the opening track of his latest album "O Sun O Moon". "Time takes its toll, but in my soul I'm in full swing," he sings in the chorus. His voice is supported by an enthralling resophonic guitar, played with all the vigor of his veteran blues heroes.
Bruce's only show at FolkClub was in the fall of 2003.
Missing this concert is an unacceptable mistake!

http://brucecockburn.com/

Opening Act: James Meadow

James Meadow, aka Davide Falcone, is a singer-songwriter, anthropologist and podcaster. Her stage name conceals a reference to the anthropologist Margaret Mead and her musical roots lie in the North American folk scene. His first studio album released in 2020 for IRD, entitled "A Scarecrow Sight", was described by the British magazine AmericanaUK as "an album of songs that stand out for their unique voice and excellent guitar skills". He has performed in Italy and Canada and has opened for Christian Kjellvander, Bocephus King, James Maddock and Thom Chacon. Since 2020 he has been hosting "Where The Lions Are", a program on North American songwriting on the frequencies of ADMR-RockWebRadio that led him to interview Colin Linden and Bruce Cockburn himself.