Bruce Cockburn

Listen to the earlier '70s albums - just before Dragon's Jaws I'd recommend Joy Will Find A Way, In The Falling Dark, and esp. Further Adventures Of.. from 1975-1976-1978. Really wonderful albums. The christian mystic gradually moving out into a broader world. Inner City Front is the end of this process, when he finally moved into Toronto on a full-time basis. He does this neat thing on his albums where he lists off where and when he wrote each song in the liner notes.

My favourite album is definitely The Charity of Night from 1996 - wonderful production and lots of Jonatha Brooke harmonies. I hardly ever listen to the last three albums. Or the 80's stuff, to be honest.

"If I Had a Rocket Launcher" is SUCH A BALEARIC JAM

Not on YouTube, but recommended: "Mighty Trucks of Midnight" -- best NAFTA song this side of Tom Joad, with Booker T. on organ.

Saw him solo last weekend in a community-college theater outside Milwaukee, and both the guitar playing and the songwriting were so strong and dense.

Also, had no idea he published a "spiritual memoir":

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-rumours-are-true-bruce-cockburn-on-his-new-memoir-51735/

I've been listening to his music all afternoon. I'm surprised there's been no mention of Humans, from 1980, which has no weak songs and some of his best. He even gets away with "What About the Bond", a God-says-we-can't-get-divorced song.
At his best, he's both clear-eyed and poetical/mystical; but from album to album, he can seem to lose all those qualities and become stiff, polemical and dull (like on The Trouble With Normal from 1983). It's not that he loses the balance of personal, political and spiritual; whether the records are good or bad, those elements are all still there, but some essence is missing.

Happy Canada Day! This guy is so Canadian. I also listened to Oscar Peterson ("Canadiana Suite") and Leonard Cohen today.

And Claude Vivier.

Saw him a bunch back in the day, always a good performer and a surprisingly gifted, if overwhelmingly Canadian, singer and musician.

Nothing but a Burning Light is a little-discussed classic.

*singer/songwriter

Yeah, that and Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws are my favorites of his.

That's a great one. "Wondering Where the Lions Are" is all time.

That's a great one. "Wondering Where the Lions Are" is all time.

His first four records are honestly perfect.