![]() Newton interviewed Downie numerous times over the years, starting in 1989, when the frontman called in from a Brantford, Ontario, payphone to chat about Up to Here, which would become the band's breakthrough. He liked the Tragically Hip a lot, and the feeling was mutual. So a lot of touring recording artists wanted to talk to somebody at an established newspaper, and I was more than happy to listen (if I liked them)." They also wanted to sell tickets to those shows, and maybe a few albums to boot. Luckily for me, the Straight was a major publication in a major city, one where a lot of major bands wanted to play. "Nowadays, everyone and their dog has a blog and can become an instant music critic," Newton writes, "but back in the '80s not so much. Newton was a Tragically Hip fan right from the beginning, which is to say the group was on his radar long before the rest of Canada discovered early hits like "Blow at High Dough" and "New Orleans Is Sinking".Īs Newton notes in Gord Downie, he started writing about music at a time when artists didn't have the Internet as a means of building an audience. The book is written by long-time Georgia Straight music critic Steve Newton, who, in the interest of full disclosure, I've had the pleasure of working with for 20 of his 35 years at the paper. ![]() It makes sense, then, that the new hardcover book Gord Downie serves a loving and often insightful rumination on one of the country's most beloved treasures. The Hip's greatest triumphs-"Locked in the Trunk of a Car", "Bobcaygeon", "Courage (For Hugh MacLennan)"-were in many ways reflections on the past. The singer and lyricist was fascinated by the decidedly Canadian stories of figures like doomed hockey player Bill Barilko, iconic painter Tom Thomson, and famed explorer Jacques Cartier. Instead, it was the way frontman Gord Downie was in some ways a historian as much as a rock star. At the risk of sounding overly esoteric, it wasn't the radio hits or famously hypnotic live shows that made the Tragically Hip Canada's greatest-ever band. ![]()
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