Bruce Cockburn
Wed. May 7 7:30 PM
$55
One of Canada’s finest artists, Bruce Cockburn has enjoyed an illustrious career shaped
by politics, spirituality, and musical diversity. His remarkable journey has seen him
embrace folk, jazz, rock, and worldbeat styles while travelling to such far-flung places as
Guatemala, Mali, Mozambique, and Nepal, and writing memorable songs about his ever-
expanding world of wonders. “My job,” he explains, “is to try and trap the spirit of things
in the scratches of pen on paper and the pulling of notes out of metal.”
That scratching and pulling has earned Cockburn high praise as an exceptional
songwriter and a revered guitarist. His songs of romance, protest, and spiritual discovery
are among the best to have emerged from Canada over the last 50 years. His guitar
playing, both acoustic and electric, has placed him in the company of the world’s top
instrumentalists. And he remains deeply respected for his activism on issues from native
rights and land mines to the environment and Third World debt, working for
organizations such as Oxfam, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and
Friends of the Earth.
Throughout his career, Cockburn has deftly captured the joy, pain, fear, and faith
of human experience in song. Whether singing about retreating to the country or going up
against chaos, tackling imperialist lies or embracing ecclesiastical truths, he has always
expressed a tough yet hopeful stance: to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight. “We
can’t settle for things as they are,” he once warned. “If you don’t tackle the problems,
they’re going to get worse.”
For his many achievements, the Ottawa-born artist has been honoured with 13
Juno Awards, an induction into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian
Songwriters Hall of Fame, as well as the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award,
and has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada. But he never rests on his laurels.
“I’d rather think about what I’m going to do next,” says Cockburn. “My models for
graceful aging are guys like John Lee Hooker and Mississippi John Hurt, who never stop
working till they drop, as I fully expect to be doing, and just getting better as musicians
and as human beings.”
His commitment to growth has made Bruce Cockburn both an exemplary citizen
and a legendary artist whose prized songbook will be celebrated for many years to come.
https://brucecockburn.com/
$55
One of Canada’s finest artists, Bruce Cockburn has enjoyed an illustrious career shaped
by politics, spirituality, and musical diversity. His remarkable journey has seen him
embrace folk, jazz, rock, and worldbeat styles while travelling to such far-flung places as
Guatemala, Mali, Mozambique, and Nepal, and writing memorable songs about his ever-
expanding world of wonders. “My job,” he explains, “is to try and trap the spirit of things
in the scratches of pen on paper and the pulling of notes out of metal.”
That scratching and pulling has earned Cockburn high praise as an exceptional
songwriter and a revered guitarist. His songs of romance, protest, and spiritual discovery
are among the best to have emerged from Canada over the last 50 years. His guitar
playing, both acoustic and electric, has placed him in the company of the world’s top
instrumentalists. And he remains deeply respected for his activism on issues from native
rights and land mines to the environment and Third World debt, working for
organizations such as Oxfam, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and
Friends of the Earth.
Throughout his career, Cockburn has deftly captured the joy, pain, fear, and faith
of human experience in song. Whether singing about retreating to the country or going up
against chaos, tackling imperialist lies or embracing ecclesiastical truths, he has always
expressed a tough yet hopeful stance: to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight. “We
can’t settle for things as they are,” he once warned. “If you don’t tackle the problems,
they’re going to get worse.”
For his many achievements, the Ottawa-born artist has been honoured with 13
Juno Awards, an induction into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian
Songwriters Hall of Fame, as well as the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award,
and has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada. But he never rests on his laurels.
“I’d rather think about what I’m going to do next,” says Cockburn. “My models for
graceful aging are guys like John Lee Hooker and Mississippi John Hurt, who never stop
working till they drop, as I fully expect to be doing, and just getting better as musicians
and as human beings.”
His commitment to growth has made Bruce Cockburn both an exemplary citizen
and a legendary artist whose prized songbook will be celebrated for many years to come.
https://brucecockburn.com/