Music Biz Headlines, Oct. 13, 2022

By Kerry Doole

Jessie Reyez: Godmother of the New Vulnerability

From Donovan Woods to Carly Rae Jepsen, TOBi to Shawn Mendes, Julian Taylor to grandson, JP Saxe to Savannah Ré, speaking authentic emotional truth is the currency on which careers are based, and (not coincidentally) the thing that resonates most deeply with audiences. Jessie Reyez serves as a kind of Godmother (or midwife, or architect, or Patron Saint) of the new vulnerability. – Howard Druckman, Words & Music

Two fixtures of Toronto jazz scene take artistic departures with new albums

Singer Barbra Lica released the pandemic-inspired “Imposter Syndrome” and drummer Ernesto Cervini based his 15-track album “Joy” on the novels of Canadian mystery author Louise Penny. –  Nick Krewen, Toronto Star

Justin Bieber postpones rest of world tour shows due to his health

A statement on the tour’s official Instagram account says all remaining dates of the tour, up to and including March 25, 2023, are postponed to next year. The pop superstar had initially sidelined the North American leg of his tour, including two Toronto dates, in June to deal with the fallout of his Ramsay Hunt syndrome diagnosis. – CP

Carly Rae Jepsen Teams Up With Rufus Wainwright for New Song “The Loneliest Time”

Jepsen’s upcoming album, The Loneliest Time, is out October 21. – Pitchfork

Alvvays releases a new album, Blue Rev

Frontwoman Molly Rankin and the band will head to the U.K. and the U.S. for a string of live dates. – Ben Rayner, Toronto Star

From pop idol to sex criminal: The rise and fall of Hedley’s Jacob Hoggard

Inside the timeline of criminal allegations against one of Canada’s biggest pop stars. – Alyshah Hasham, The Spectator

New COC season features eclectic slate, including ‘Macbeth’ and world premiere of Canadian LGBTQ opera

The season opens Friday with a revival of Richard Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman,” originally directed by Christopher Alden. – Joshua Chong, Toronto Star

Why has Sheridan College’s Canadian Music Theatre Project, the birthplace of Come From Away, called it quits?

The Canadian Music Theatre Project (CMTP), a program for incubating new musicals at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ont. – and which actually started with Come From Away in 2011 – came to an end earlier this fall with little fanfare. – JK Nestruck, Globe and Mail

Rage Against the Machine's lost Calgary recording sessions

It’s a sure bet most fans don’t know about the band’s early connection to Calgary. – Brodie Thomas, Vancouver Province

Jodi Proznick, Amanda Tosoff lead new Canadian jazz supergroup The Ostara Project

A new Canadian jazz supergroup co-led by bassist Jodi Proznick and pianist Amanda Tosoff has announced its self-titled debut album. Named after the Germanic goddess of the spring equinox, the all-female The Ostara Project also features vocalist Joanna Majoko, trumpeter Rachel Therrien, alto saxophonist Allison Au, guitarist Jocelyn Gould and drummer Sanah Kadoura. – Adam Feibel, JazzFM

Calgary Opera Company celebrates 50th anniversary with Carmen

Not everybody was watching the hockey Summit Series in 1972. Some people were busy forming an opera company – Calgary Opera, specifically. On Oct. 22, the company will hold a celebratory party entitled Where Were You in ‘72?. It’s a rhetorical question. If one was in Calgary five decades ago, one was in a city without opera. – Brad Wheeler, Globe and Mail

You’re wrong about Michael Bublé

With an affable presence, a big smile and a tuxedo with a carefully loosened tie, Bublé took over the world. He sold a preposterous amount of records – more than 75 million – and played sold-out stadiums the world over. And now he's really in the driver's seat. – Elamin Abdelmahmood, Globe and Mail

The List: Symphonic Star Wars brings 45 years of epic anthems to Winspear

We are currently in the second golden age of Star Wars fandom thanks to The Mandalorian and the even better series Andor, both of which brought back the pure, unnerving delight of the 1977 original film without feeling like a cheap knockoff.  – Edmonton Journal

Glimpse of the artist as a young writer: Leonard Cohen’s posthumous book ‘A Ballet of Lepers’

Made up of short stories and a novella that carries a flair which, even in a work this early, is recognizably Cohen’s own. – Robert J. Wiersema, Toronto Star

Nostalgia and rain — Hamilton remembers Neil Young’s 1973 concert

It’s been 49 years since the Canadian legend performed at McMaster. – Beatriz Baleeiro, Spectator

Meghan Lindsay is bored with the old-world notion that opera singers only sing

Opera Atelier is back at the Elgin Theatre this fall. The specialist opera company is Canada’s leader in producing stage works from the baroque and classical eras – complete with an orchestra of period instruments, set and costume designs of the time, and a full corps de ballet. Lindsay is one of its current stars. – Jenna Simeonov, The Globe and Mail

COC’s expressionist ‘The Flying Dutchman’ buoyed by a thrilling directorial vision, striking performances

The addition of an intermission to this propulsive production diminishes what is otherwise an electric interpretation of Richard Wagner’s early opera. – Joshua Chong, Toronto Star

Next Week in Music | Oct. 10-16 • New books

Leonard, Linda, Charlie, Sly, and more of the big names headed for the bookshelf. – Darryl Sterdan, Tinnitist

International

BMI moves to for-profit business model, eyeing growth and new initiatives

"Growth requires investment, not just maintenance," says CEO Mike O'Neill. – Ed Christman, Billboard

CAA and Brookfield buy into Primary Wave

Primary Wave last week announced two new investments into the company. Talent agency CAA is to become a strategic partner and minority shareholder in the music rights firm, while investment outfit Brookfield has taken a “significant” minority interest, providing $1.7 billion in new funding. –  Andy Malt, CMU

Chris Castle: Will the Copyright Royalty Board approve Big Tech’s attempted cover-up?  

Chris Castle gives his insights on the Copyright Royalty Board’s recent frozen mechanicals proceedings with Google. – Hypebot

Watch out Spotify: TikTok Music Twitter accounts suggest a pending global launch

When will Resso, ByteDance‘s subscription music streaming service – currently available in India, Indonesia and Brazil – launch in the US as ‘TikTok Music’? – Murray Stassen, MBW

Met Opera starts streaming of live performances to homes

The Metropolitan Opera is expanding its live telecasts to direct-to-home streaming in areas that don’t have movie theater transmissions, among them Brazil and Italy. The Met launched its high-definition telecasts to movie theaters in December 2006 and plans 10 broadcasts per season. – AP

Warner Music Group expands into Metaverse with new job listings

Warner Music Group unveiled the new job roles for its metaverse expansion shortly after its recent partnership with NFT marketplace OpenSea. Entertainment Warner Music Group is also making a foray into the exploding metaverse market with job postings. – Coinspeaker

Singer Linda Ronstadt reflects on her roots in new book

Singer Linda Ronstadt sold millions of records, performed for over four decades and made history as the first woman to have three consecutive platinum albums. Her new book, “Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands,” offers a different window into her life as she reflects on her roots. Jeffrey Brown spoke with Ronstadt for our arts and culture series. – PBS

Anton Fier, drummer who left stamp on a downtown scene, dies at 66

He worked with everyone from the Feelies to Herbie Hancock to Laurie Anderson, as well as leading the indie-rock supergroup the Golden Palominos. But there was a troubled side. – Alex Williams,  The New York Times

‘We carried pistols to defend ourselves’: the Four Tops and the Temptations on six decades of soul

As they tour the UK together, Motown icons Duke Fakir and Otis Williams reflect on meeting the Beatles, facing down white supremacists, and the collaborators they’ve lost along the way. – Garth Cartwright, The Guardian

"Without Tina Weymouth Talking Heads would have been just another band"

Released on 8 October 1980, Talking Heads’ Remain in Light is a paranoid funky masterpiece, thanks in no small part to Tina Weymouth’s sinuous basslines. – Scott Rowley, Bass Player

Led by a surprise No. 1 hit, Steve Lacy redefines the rock star for Gen Z

Lacy has been many things over his still frighteningly young career. A Black and Filipino teen guitar prodigy; a member of the Odd Future-aligned R&B collective the Internet; a producer to game-changers like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Mac Miller and Solange; a collaborator with Frank Ocean and Vampire Weekend; and more. – August Brown, LA Times

How to write a Bond theme song, according to 007 songwriters

It could not have been more fitting that, when Jimmy Napes got the call about composing the next Bond song, he was airport-bound in a water taxi, making a quick getaway through the canals of Venice. – GQ

A look at the life of the late country queen Loretta Lynn

Her 1976 autobiography, Coal Miner’s Daughter, with its revelations of her turbulent relationship with her husband, hit the bestseller list, and the film adaptation in 1980 won Sissy Spacek an Oscar for her portrayal of Lynn. – No Depression