October 18th, 2026
Some concerts are over the moment you leave the room. Others stay with you long after the lights come up. Bruce Cockburn’s two-set, 120-minute performance at Montreal’s intimate Gesu Theatre was definitely the latter.
At 81, Cockburn doesn’t need bells and whistles to hold an audience. Give him a guitar, a few stories and a stage, and he’s got you. His dry humour had the crowd smiling, but it was the music that really pulled everyone in. More than five decades into his career, he still plays with the curiosity and conviction of someone who has plenty left to say.
Joined by multi-instrumentalist Jeff Pevar and vocalist and percussionist Inger Nova, Cockburn delivered a show that felt less like a greatest-hits package and more like being invited into his musical world. Pevar added layers of color to the arrangements, while Nova’s voice and percussion brought warmth and depth. Their harmonies were a real treat, particularly in a venue where you could catch every little detail.
Opening with “Last Night of the World,” Cockburn eased the audience into the evening before shifting gears with “Night Train” and “On a Roll.” From there, the music travelled wherever it pleased. Folk, blues, jazz and rock blended together, sometimes within a single song. Nothing felt forced, and the musicians played off one another with the ease of people who genuinely enjoy making music together.
Naturally, the familiar favourites landed beautifully. “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” struck a chord, while “Wondering Where the Lions Are” brought a welcome rush of nostalgia. But Cockburn wasn’t interested in simply revisiting old glories. Songs such as “King of the Bolero,” “Push Comes to Shove” and “Orders,” from 2023’s O Sun O Moon, showed just how much ground his songwriting continues to cover.
Then came “If a Tree Falls.” Its warning about deforestation, first heard in 1989, still hits hard. In the close quarters of the Gesu, the song felt less like a trip down memory lane and more like a message we haven’t finished hearing.
There was plenty to watch, too. Cockburn moved between acoustic guitars, including his distinctive green Manzer, brought out a small green 12 string charango and even settled a mountain dulcimer across his lap. Each instrument changed the mood, reminding us that his musicianship is every bit as compelling as his songwriting.
For the encore, “Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long” sent things out on a loose, grooving high. It was the perfect finish: relaxed, playful and full of life.
Walking out, it was hard not to feel grateful for the chance to witness an artist still exploring, still connecting and still making these songs matter. At the Gesu, Cockburn didn’t just revisit a lifetime of music. He made it feel alive, right there in the room.
Bruce Cockburn has spent a lifetime accumulating other people’s music. Some songs became warm-up rituals, others a welcome escape from singing his own words. A few arrived by accident, a guitar figure leading him toward a melody he suddenly needed to learn. On The Blood of Others, due October 16 on Sunset Blvd. Records, the Canadian singer-songwriter follows those musical debts back to their sources, finding a life’s worth of memories in songs written long before his own career began.
The idea took shape in the eighties, though its roots reach back to Cockburn’s childhood in Ottawa. The album borrows its title from Simone de Beauvoir’s novel, written during the Nazi occupation of France and read by Cockburn in the seventies. Its questions of responsibility, oppression, and moral choice give the collection a weight beyond nostalgia.
These are other people’s songs, but their histories have become inseparable from his own.
In 1956, Cockburn was 11 when older boys at summer camp sang Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock.” He thought they sounded ridiculous. The following year, Elvis Presley hit the airwaves, and the young Cockburn changed his mind about rock ’n’ roll.
“I just kind of fell for that music hook, line, and sinker,” he recalls in a recent interview to Glide. “It was the vibe. We were interested in him. But it was the records that just had this great power. And I never got to see him live. I saw him on TV a couple times.”
It was the records, more than the celebrity, that got him. “Hound Dog” and “Blue Suede Shoes” carried a charge he couldn’t resist. Cockburn retrieved a cheap guitar from his grandmother’s attic, painted gold stars on it, and posed in front of a mirror. His parents agreed to support his playing if he took lessons and promised to avoid leather jackets and sideburns.
The lessons opened other doors: jazz, country swing, blues, ragtime, classical music. Elvis had provided the entrance, but Cockburn kept moving through the rooms. His arrangement of “That’s All Right” returns to Arthur Crudup, the blues musician who recorded the song before Presley made it a rock ’n’ roll landmark.
Elvis was an introduction. He was a lesson. He was a segue. He was a starting point to go deeper into music. Radio was another kind of education. Cockburn remembers going home for lunch while his mother prepared the meal, the radio playing. Later, a transistor radio tucked beneath his covers let him tune into distant stations, including WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia, for country music. A Buffalo station delivered harder-edged rock than the local Ottawa broadcasters.
“You could tap into it,” he says. “You had this tiny transistor radio, and you could start discovering other types of music.”
Daytime radio might put Frank Sinatra alongside Johnny Cash, Brenda Lee, or Jerry Lee Lewis. The boundaries between styles were less rigid, and the young listener could follow his curiosity wherever it led. When the Beatles arrived, Ottawa’s folk community went wild, learning the songs and imagining that perhaps they, too, could become the next Beatles. Cockburn eventually turned away from contemporary songwriters to develop his own voice, listening instead to Renaissance music, Pacific Island drumming, and Tibetan chanting.
But the American musical experience remained a lasting point of reference. Mississippi John Hurt’s “Louis Collins” takes Cockburn back to an afternoon in 1963, when a friend played him Hurt’s rediscovery album. Hurt’s sweet voice and intimate fingerpicked guitar left an impression that endured. W. C. Handy’s “Yellow Dog Blues,” which Cockburn first heard through Bessie Smith’s recording, reaches into the vocabulary and geography of the Mississippi Delta. The title itself carries a local reference: “Yellow Dog” was slang for the Yazoo Delta railroad.
Other songs arrived through unexpected detours. Jo Stafford’s “You Belong to Me” was on the radio when Cockburn was five. Its references to faraway places stirred his wanderlust years before Jack Kerouac’s On the Road added fuel to it. Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child,” written with Arthur Herzog Jr., entered his life through a likely bootleg copy of Harry Belafonte’s Belafonte Sings the Blues, purchased with his collection money around 1960 or 1961. Hearing Holiday’s original a couple of years later gave the song a different force.
In Paris in 1964, while busking for pocket money, Cockburn spent some of his earnings on American blues and jazz records, including music by Lonnie Johnson. Five years later, he saw an advertisement for Johnson’s appearance at an Ottawa supper club. Cockburn and his friends dressed up and went. During a break, they requested “Laplegged Drunk Again.” Johnson smiled but explained that he couldn’t play it in a place like that. Some blues, apparently, required a less respectable address.
Cockburn’s apprenticeship began at Le Hibou, an Ottawa coffeehouse where Reverend Gary Davis, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, and Ian and Sylvia performed. Cockburn washed dishes, ran the espresso machine, and eventually took the stage for open-mic nights. He remembers Davis as a crusty, intelligent musician whose guitar was famously out of tune by ordinary standards. Once, an audience member tried to correct it during a break. Davis returned, struck a chord, and demanded, “What the fuck wrong with this?”
The old songs carry stories: the people who played them, the places where they were heard, and the listeners who never quite forgot them. Cockburn’s collection moves from gospel and blues to early jazz, French poetry, and the lonely intimacy of “One for My Baby.” Each selection has its own lineage, and each has found a place in his musical life.
At 81, Cockburn is not simply revisiting the records that shaped him. He is listening again, with the perspective of a musician who has spent decades learning how much there is to hear. The songs have outlived their original moments, crossing borders and generations without losing their power to surprise.
What does it mean to walk through life with music as your guide? Join host Buzz Knight in this captivating episode of takin’ a walk as he welcomes the legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn. With a career spanning over five decades, Cockburn reflects on his latest album, The Blood of Others, a deeply personal project that resonates with the influences of gospel, blues, and jazz from his childhood in Ottawa. This episode is not just about music; it’s an exploration of music history, resilience, and the stories that shape iconic musicians.
As Buzz Knight delves into Cockburn’s journey, listeners are treated to a treasure trove of inside music stories. Bruce shares anecdotes from his formative years, revealing how the sounds of his youth laid the groundwork for his illustrious career. The album features a collection of songs from artists who inspired him long before he began writing his own material, showcasing the music and emotional healing that has been a constant theme in his life.
Listeners will be intrigued as Cockburn discusses the therapeutic process of selecting songs for The Blood of Others, the significance of its title, and the emotional connections he has with each track. One standout moment includes his heartfelt rendition of ‘As Time Goes By,’ which holds a special place in his heart due to its association with his marriage. It’s a reminder of how music can encapsulate our most cherished memories.
The conversation also touches on the evolution of music consumption, the importance of album structure, and Cockburn’s admiration for fellow Canadian icons like Neil Young. As Buzz Knight navigates through these themes, listeners gain insight into the Nashville music scene and the legendary artists who have shaped it. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in music history podcasts and legendary musician interviews.
As the episode draws to a close, Cockburn shares a profound desire to take a walk with Jesus, highlighting the spiritual side of his artistry and the inspiring music icons that have influenced his path. This conversation is not just an interview; it’s an invitation to reflect on the power of music in our lives and the journeys we all take.
Don’t miss this chance to hear from one of music’s most inspiring musicians in an episode that promises to resonate long after the last note fades. Tune in to takin’ a walk with Buzz Knight for an unforgettable exploration of music history on foot, where every step tells a story, and every story is a piece of the music history tapestry.
Sunset Boulevard Records
ROBIN KEARNS
There’s a moment in the guitar picking that opens the first track on Bruce Cockburn’s The Blood of Others that sounds almost like the beginning of Wondering Where the Lions Are, his career launching song released 47 years ago. With this engaging collection there’s no wondering about Bruce’s early influences.
In the years since that breakout album Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws Bruce has been a standard bearer for Canadian music: an observant lyricist and a guitarist as well as staunch advocate for indigenous rights and global justice issues. He began as the Ottawa valley folkie singing of quiet earthy aspirations as in songs like Gavin’s Woodpile and Goin’ to the Country.
Then in the ‘80s he summoned a band and a bolder muse, sharpened the blade of political critique and released hard-hitting albums like The Trouble With Normal (1983) and Stealing Fire (1984). (His song from that era, Call it Democracy, is worth a listen for its prescience today). Yet if anger found a way into his oeuvre, it’s always been countered by a mysticism, an understated non-preachy Christianity, evident in album titles like World of Wonders (1986) and O Sun O Moon (2023).
And now we have The Blood of Others, a generous 15-track not-quite covers album, whose title references a Simone de Beauvoir novel dealing with freedom and responsibility as war approaches. The songs seem not-quite covers because while none of this collection is penned by Cockburn the songs are reworked and reinterpreted. Lyrics are even updated: in Time Goes By he sings of robot interventions and we’ve grown a bit weary with AI and quantum theory (whimsy has always been a Cockburn hallmark; in the 90s he often ended live shows with Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life)
The songs are delivered in the measured voice of his advanced years and carried along by his brilliant guitar picking. In the artist’s words, it’s a collection of material, written by others, that I found sticking to the edges of my musical landscape. And it sure is varied. Billie Holliday, Elvis Presley, Mississippi John Hurt. His take on Ian Tyson’s Four Strong Winds is a standout. There’s a boldness in taking on such a well-known song. Whereas Neil Young’s version was light and breezy, Cockburn’s is slow and deliberate, reflective of the vantage point of a man in his 80s rather than the carefree spirit of Young who released his version in his 30s.
The bluesy Buddy Bolden’s Blues has Bruce offering a lilting guitar melody and a raspy vocalisation that could be encountered under a veranda in New Orleans (fellow Canadian Michael Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter makes good complementary reading).
Another great track, God Bless the Child, is beautifully and plaintively delivered. A song Bruce tells us he first encountered on a Harry Belafonte album bought at the age of 15.
A scrapbook of memories and significances. These are standout songs given a fresh take by a master of the guitar and vocal subtlety. A man into his ninth decade sharing songs that are worthy of not only remembrance but a reworking.
The cover: a lone chair and acoustic guitar. A stripped back image that speaks to these carefully chosen and delivered tracks from the elder statesman of Canadian music.
Robin Kearns
The Blood of Others is due out Oct 16th on Sunset Boulevard Records
WBCQ/The Planet airdate – 10/10/26 Welcome to Fluxedo Junction! Each episode we bring you the best music of all genres from throughout the world, and this week we’ll be speaking with singer/songwriter & guitarist Bruce Cockburn.Bruce Cockburn has spent more than five decades writing some of the most enduring songs in Canadian music, and on his new album, The Blood of Others, released October 16th through Sunset Boulevard Records, he turns his attention to the songs that shaped him long before he wrote a single lyric of his own.The album gathers material written by others, tracing a musical lineage that stretches from the gospel, and blues records he heard as a child in Ottawa to the folk clubs and coffeehouses where he first found his voice.Cockburn will bring these songs – along with many others – to audiences across North America on an extensive run of tour dates, including a performance at Town Hall in New York City on October 24.
