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BRUCE COCKBURN > Award Presentation

Hometown Star Award Celebration – Canada’s Walk of Fame

April 25, 2022 7:16 p.m. PDT

Bruce Cockburn honoured in his hometown.

For more than five decades, Ottawa’s Bruce Cockburn has been writing and performing hit songs, and now, he’s been honoured in the capital.
Cockburn was awarded with a Hometown Star following his recent induction into Canada’s Walk of Fame. He says this award is special.

“This was comfortingly informal and casual, and yet substantial too,” says Cockburn. “So I guess, of the two, I prefer this thing, if we had to take one or the other.”

Dozens of friends, family and fans were in attendance at the National Arts Centre to celebrate Cockburn’s achievements.

“We have transformed Canada’s Walk of Fame to mean more, to more people, more often,” says Canada’s Walk of Fame CEO Jeffrey Latimer. “And our hometown visits also include a placement of a permanent plaque displayed in a location of our inductees’ choice. Something that was significant to them.”

Cockburn’s songs truly represent the voice of his generation. Songs like Lovers in a Dangerous Time, which was covered by fellow Canadian band, The Barenaked Ladies.
He’s won 13 Juno awards and is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

“You know, it’s great to see Bruce in his hometown, just getting close again. I like that,” says Cockburn’s manager and long-time friend, Bernie Finkelstein. “Not that it was apart, but just, it’s nice. I just think on a human level it’s nice.”

The plaque will most likely be placed on the wall outside what used to be Le Hibou Coffee House on Sussex Drive, where Cockburn, as well as many famous Canadian musicians frequently played in the 1960’s and 70’s.

“One of the things that is great about Canada in my mind, is our willingness to celebrate each other,” says Cockburn. “And it feels really good to be part of that.”

This honour comes with $10,000 charitable donation. Cockburn, the humanitarian, is glad to help. Giving half to Seeds of Change and the other half to the Unison Fund.

“One of the greatest things about it is the ten thousand dollars that I get to divert to a charity of my choice,” says Cockburn.

The world knows about Bruce Cockburn, his music and his compassion. Now his hometown can recognize his impact forever. ~ by Dave Charbonneau CTV


WeSeedChange

Bruce Cockburn & Ama Amponsah Seedchange donation

On April 25, 2022 a number of SeedChange staff, alumni and supporters had the honour of celebrating with Canadian legend and longtime SeedChange champion Bruce Cockburn, as he received his Hometown Star from Canada’s Walk of Fame in Ottawa. During his acceptance speech, Bruce spent a few minutes explaining why he selected SeedChange as one of the two charities to receive a $5,000 cheque from Canada’s Walk of Fame.

Bruce has been a generous supporter and Champion for SeedChange for more than five decades, thanks to the impression that our founder, Dr. Lotta Hitschmanova, first left on him as a boy.

Throughout his special day, Bruce’s commitment to social justice and global solidarity continued to shine as bright as ever. Congratulations Bruce on receiving this well-deserved recognition for your music, and thank you for growing a better world with us all these years!
Photo credit: Patrick Michel
weseedchange.org FB
weseedchange.org

The Unison Fund

Unison was formed in 2010 with one simple but important goal in mind: to ensure that the people who make up the Canadian music business never face times of crisis alone. Created by the industry, for the industry, we deliver life-saving emergency financial services and professional counselling that offer much-needed hope to those in need.
Unison Fund – Twitter
unisonfund.ca


Taming Sari – Mary Bryton Nahwegahbow & Joe Fraser

Mary Bryton Nahwegahbow - Bruce Cockburn - Joe Fraser - Taming Sari - 25apr22 - Hometown Star Walk of Fame

Mary Bryton Nahwegahbow & Joe Fraser who had the extreme honour and pleasure to perform ‘Lovers in a Dangerous Time’ at the NAC – National Arts Centre for the Canadian icon Bruce Cockburn himself.


Unveiling the Hometown Star plaque — a video from Governor Generals Performing Arts Award


Bruce Cockburn 25April22 NAC Hometown Star WoF

Bruce Cockburn 25Apr22 NAC Hometown Star photo Michael Cole

Bruce Cockburn 25Apr22 NAC Hometown Star photo Michael Cole

Photos: CBC Michael Cole


Bruce Cockburn to be honoured by Canada’s Walk of Fame

Story by Howard Druckman – Socan

Bruce Cockburn - Canada's Walk of Fame 2021

12 October 2021 – SOCAN members Jully Black, Bruce Cockburn, and the late Salome Bey will be inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame, and SOCAN member Serena Ryder will receive the Allan Slaight Music Impact Honour, at Toronto’s Beanfield Centre on Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021, with a broadcast drawn from the event to air later in December on CTV.

“I’m so grateful for this opportunity to speak, to express, and to represent every little Black boy and girl who looked out and didn’t see someone who looked like them on television, or heard them on the radio, or seen them in film and TV, or saw them teaching in schools,” said Jully Black on learning of her induction.

“Being inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame feels to me like an excuse for a party,” joked Bruce Cockburn. “It feels wonderful. When I first heard the news, I was very excited. I was like, ‘What? Me?’”


Crowing Ignites – Canadian Folk Music Award

13 March 2021 – Eric Alper PR Roster Gets 12 Canadian Folk Music Award Noms: Bruce Cockburn, Crystal Shawanda, Sultans Of String, Craig Cardiff + More

The Canadian Folk Music Awards celebrates its 16th edition, with a roster of nominations that celebrates the breadth and depth of Canadian folk music, and Eric Alper Public Relations and its clients and extended family celebrates the talent of artists and musicians across Canada.

Established by Canada’s vibrant and internationally-recognized folk music community, the awards currently boasts 19 categories. Nominees are chosen for each category through a two-stage jury process. More than 100 jurors, located across Canada, representing all official provinces, territories and languages, determine the official recipients in each category.

The 16th edition of the Canadian Folk Music Awards Celebration will take place online again this year, and will present all 19 Awards, plus the Unsung Hero Award bringing the total to 20 Awards, virtually, over the weekend of April 9-10, 2021.

Contemporary Album of the Year: Coyote by Catherine MacLellan, Contemporary Singer of the Year: Catherine MacLellan for Coyote

Ensemble of the Year: Sultans of String for Refuge, Indigenous Songwriter(s) of the Year: Crystal Shawanda for Church House Blues

Instrumental Solo artist of the Year:Natalie MacMaster for Sketches, Producer(s) of the Year: Chris McKhool & John ‘Beetle’ Bailey for Refuge (Sultans of String)

Single of the Year: Yellowknife by Craig Cardiff (Producer: Craig Cardiff), Solo Artist of the Year: Catherine MacLellan for Coyote

Traditional Album of the Year: Crowing Ignites by Bruce Cockburn, The Lost Tapes by Ian & Sylvia

Traditional Singer of the Year: Kevin Harvey for Hand Me Down Blues, World Album of the Year: Patria by/par Mazacote

Credit: That Eric Alper.



Bruce Cockburn reflects on his career during CSHF plaque ceremony at Studio Bell, home of National Music Centre

by Eric Volmers – Calgary Herald

Bruce Cockburn CSHF plaque NMC - photo_Darren Makowichuk-Postmedia
Bruce Cockburn presented a plaque to honour his induction into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame on Sunday at Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre. DARREN MAKOWICHUK/Postmedia

January 22, 2018 – Bruce Cockburn is not in the habit of listening to his old songs. But he did find a unique way to review his canon of music a few years back.

It was when he drove his daughter to preschool in San Francisco. He became his own captive audience.

“She would always insist on hearing my stuff in the car,” said Cockburn, talking to media on Sunday evening at Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre. “‘Can we put on your music in the car?’ Every day this would repeat itself. ‘Do we have to? Can I not play somebody else?’ Nope. So I’d play me. It’s like looking at an album of snapshots in a way. It brings back all the feelings. Not all of the details, some of those are lost to the murk of time. But, certainly, that brings back the feelings that went into those songs.”

Cockburn was in a bit of a reflective mood Sunday evening at the National Music Centre, where he participated in the plaque ceremony held in honour of his 2017 induction into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. It found him placing his plaque on the wall, which already holds the names of artists such as Leonard Cohen, Hank Snow, Joni Mitchell and Wilf Carter.

  • Vanessa Thomas- National Music Centre - Bruce Cockburn - CSHF - Andrew Mosker

Now housed at the National Music Centre alongside the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, the organization is overseen by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN). The honour seems long overdue. Somehow SOCAN managed to find more than 50 songsmiths to induct before honouring Cockburn — a songwriter’s songwriter who wrote If I Had a Rocket Launcher and Lovers in a Dangerous Time — this year, alongside Neil Young, Beau Dommage and Stéphane Venne.

But he was gracious and had high praise for his fellow songwriters from the Great White North.

“I think Canada punches well above its weight in terms of the quality of songwriting that comes out of this country relative to the size of the population,” said Cockburn, who will play the Jack Singer Concert Hall on Tuesday night. “When you think how much we were influenced by English pop music in the ’60s and American pop music forever, there’s a lot of American pop music that is actually Canadian. And a lot of it that is not pop but has more serious intent than what often gets called pop music comes from here and I’m proud of that.”


Handwritten lyrics by Bruce Cockburn part of National Music Centre exhibit

by Eric Volmers
Updated: December 13, 2017

Music Museum - NAC - Adam Fox - photo Darren Makowichuk/Postmedia
Music Museum – NAC – Adam Fox – photo Darren Makowichuk/Postmedia

It’s a small battered notebook, filled with scribbled lines, multiple revisions and the frayed edge of a page that has been mysteriously ripped out.

It also represents the inner workings of one of Canada’s most beloved songwriters and the early glimmers of one of his most beloved songs. Bruce Cockburn’s handwritten lyrics for Lovers in a Dangerous Time are currently on display as part of The National Music Centre’s temporary exhibit in Studio Bell to honour Cockburn’s 2017 induction into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.

“You can see things have been scratched out and ideas are written around,” says Adam Fox, director of programs for the National Music Centre. “You can almost get a sense of their compositional method; just how they are crossing things out and putting things in different order.”

Bruce Cockburn notebook - photo Darren Makowichuk/Postmedia
Bruce Cockburn notebook – If A Tree Fa;lls – photo Darren Makowichuk/Postmedia

The notebook, which also includes handwritten lyrics for Cockburn’s politically charged hit If I Had a Rocket Launcher, is on display, as is his lyrics from 1988s If A Tree Falls. They are both on loan from McMaster University, where many of the songwriter’s archives have been housed since he donated them in 2013.

The temporary exhibit, which will be on display on the fifth floor of Studio Bell until the fall of 2018, celebrates a new batch of inductees to the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame. Both now have a physical home at the National Music Centre, as does the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

Continue reading Calgary Herald article

Bruce Cockburn guitar signed - NMC -photo Madison McSweeney
Bruce Cockburn’s signed guitar on display National Music Centre – photo Madison McSweeney
Bruce Cockburn guitar signed - NMC -photo Madison McSweeney
Bruce Cockburn’s signed guitar on display National Music Centre – photo Madison McSweeney
Bruce Cockburn notebook Lovers in a Dangerous Time - NMC - photo Madison McSweeney
Bruce Cockburn notebook Lovers in a Dangerous Time – NMC – photo Madison McSweeney

Bruce Cockburn inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame-including his speech

On Saturday September 23, 2017 Bruce Cockburn along with Neil Young, the group Beau Dommage, and Stéphane Venne were inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Scroll to the end for Bruce’s acceptance speech in his own hand.


14 January 2018 – This is the short film biography that was shown on the big screens during the celebration.

Published to YouTube by: Matt Zimbel – What an honour to tell this man’s story. Writer / Producer MZ, Editor Hugh John Murray, Voice Over, Olaf Gundel.


(The following is from Billboard article by Karen Bliss)

The impact of four life-changing Canadian songwriters — Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, the group Beau Dommage, and Stéphane Venne — was the common thread at the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (CSHF) induction ceremony over the weekend at Toronto’s Massey Hall, where professional musicians of all ages — and one former astronaut — expressed their respect and gratitude for their music.

Stéphane Venne - Buffy Saint-Marie - Neil Young - Bruce Cockburn - Randy Bachman - photo Tom Sandler
Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame – Stéphane Venne – Buffy Saint-Marie – Neil Young – Bruce Cockburn – Randy Bachman – photo Tom Sandler – 2017

This was the first induction ceremony in six years. The CSHF was created by music publisher Frank Davies in 1998; the inaugural gala was held in 2003 with six more to follow. The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers (SOCAN) purchased it in December 2011 and has been working to update the brand and educate the public about its inductees and mandate.

The historic Massey Hall, which opened in 1894, was the perfect setting for such esteemed honorees. Both Young and Cockburn have recorded live albums there and the late Jonathan Demme’s final doc on the folk-rocker, 2011’s Neil Young Journeys, culminates in two performances at Massey. It’s a venue many Toronto artists dream of headlining — our Carnegie Hall.

The four-hour show, which ran an hour over schedule, was a bilingual affair, giving equal time to the two Quebecois legends, even if, truth be told, many of the Anglophones in the audience found their own grade-school French studies proved absolutely useless. Each artist was feted with covers of their songs and stories about their influence, plus the customary tribute video.

The evening began with an cappella group Eh440 singing and beat-boxing Cockburn’s “Lovers In A Dangerous Time” from the back of the hall, down the aisle to the stage, right past the songwriter himself, as well as Neil Young with “true love” Daryl Hannah; Buffy Sainte-Marie sitting next to Randy Bachman; Venne, and members of Beau Dommage.

Continue reading article from Billboard

(Excerpt from David Friend’s article on CTVnews.ca)

A performance of Cockburn’s “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” by Blackie and the Rodeo Kings added another notch to the political tone of the event. Lisa LeBlanc joined them for Wondering Where the Lions Are.

Blackie & the Rodeo Kings - CSHF2017 - photo Gary Craig
Blackie & the Rodeo Kings – CSHF2017 – photo Gary Craig

There was also a performance by William Prince & Elisapie Isaac covering “Stolen Land” and Hawksley Workman & Don Ross covering “Silver Wheels”.

It was followed by Buffy Sainte-Marie who offered her perspective on the songwriter’s career as she introduced him onto the stage.

“Bruce is an agitator, an activist, a protester,” she said.

He writes “words that move the needle of public opinion” and that “shine the light on injustices,” Sainte-Marie added.

And here is Bruce’s handwritten speech:

Bruce Cockburn - Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame speech 2017 -pdf

To view above speech in standard pdf viewer click here.


Here’s the text version:

Thank you, Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Thank you SOCAN.

I spend so much time playing and singing my own songs — it’s very interesting, very moving, to hear them performed by others! And on an occasion like this — to be so honored in the company of these wonderful artists.

I’ve been at my craft for a long time — long enough that the beginning seems like yesterday.

Under the influence of those who were a bit quicker on the draw than me, Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, Buffy Sainte-Marie among others, I was seduced away from the pursuit of an education in jazz composition by songs…creations that combined music with something like poetry.

Though I didn’t understand it at the time, I came to realize that art, including the art of songwriting, is about sharing the human experience. Music is a spiritual bonding agent, a means of sharing deep feelings of all times. When you add words, the sharing becomes pointed — specific. A song can offer inspiration, distraction, solace, solidarity – a sense that we are not alone in our feelings. The human ability to create songs is precious and vital. We have always done it and I think we always will — the artifice of machines (and ISIS) not withstanding.

I’m immensely grateful to have been allowed to live a life centered around songwriting. And immensely grateful for the attention my efforts have received. To be able to do this and make a living at it is truly a great gift.

Re “Making a living at it,” I want to offer a word of thanks to Bernie Finkelstein, my friend and long-time manager, from whose asute ears and talent for strategizing I have benefited greatly. So too, all the excellent producers and musicians I have worked with, some of whom are here tonight, who have helped give my raw material the power to appeal to the world at large.

In a world increasingly defined by its fakery, we’ve together pulled off the greatest trick ever — we spread truth.

Cheers All!

CSHF 2017 Bruce Cockburn & Buffy Sainte-Marie - photo Tom Sandler
Bruce Cockburn & Buffy Sainte-Marie – CSHF 2017- photo Tom Sandler

Related Posts:
22 January 2018 – Bruce Cockburn reflects on his career – Plaque ceremony at Studio Bell
31 January 2018 – Video Studio Bell – Bruce Cockburn on writing songs and rhythms



Folk Alliance People’s Voice Acceptance Speech – video

Bruce Cockburn received the inaugural Folk Alliance International People’s Voice Award during the opening-night awards ceremony at the organization’s 29th annual conference in Kansas City, Mo.

Bruce Cockburn Peoples Voice Award presented by Kris Kristofferson - photo Andrea Brookhart
Bruce Cockburn & Kris Kristofferson – photo Andrea Brookhart

Here’s the video of Bruce giving his acceptance speech:

[direct link]

[click through for the transcript and more photos]


‘Keep singing’: Bruce Cockburn calls on folk artists to push for free speech

by David Friend, The Canadian Press

Folk singer Bruce Cockburn is encouraging U.S. musicians to keep pushing for free speech under the Donald Trump administration.

While accepting an honour at the Folk Alliance International awards show in Kansas City, Mo. on Wednesday night he took a moment to address the volatile political climate.

Bruce Bockburn & Kris Kristofferson - photo CANADIAN PRESS HO BrianHetherman
photo CANADIAN PRESS HO Brian Hetherman

“It seems evident that the current administration is not much interested in democracy,” he said in prepared remarks.

“They are trying to stifle opposition across the board by a range of means. Looks to me like they’re just getting started.”

The Canadian singer, who lives in San Francisco, then urged musicians to be a catalyst for dialogue and debate.

“We may get tired, but we have to keep singing,” he said.

Country singer Kris Kristofferson presented Cockburn with the People’s Voice Award in recognition of his role in social and political commentary. His 1984 track “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” is widely considered a staple of activist music.

Cockburn reflected on his experiences as a young performer during the Vietnam War, and on later years when he found his voice during the U.S. presidency of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

He then turned to the current U.S. political climate and told songwriters to consider their music as more than just words, but a “focal point for collective energy” of the community.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t sing love songs,” Cockburn reasoned.

“But if you think you can keep your head down and ignore the political side of things, it’s liable to be waiting for you with a blackjack in the alley when you come out the stage door.

Credit: MontrealGazette.com
Photo: Bruce Cockburn, left, accepts his People’s Voice Award for his role in social and political commentary from country singer Kris Kristofferson at the Folk Alliance International awards show, in Kansas City, Mo., on February 15, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Brian Hetherman, *MANDATORY CREDIT*

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