My forthcoming book, Yorkville: How A 1960s Coffeehouse Scene Rewrote Popular Music, will be published by Sutherland House on September 29, 2026.
Pre-order through your local independent bookstore:
https://www.indiebookstores.ca/book/9781997701569/
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.ca/Yorkville-1960s-Coffeehouse-Rewrote-Popular/dp/1997701561/
Indigo:
Here are links to some of my earlier work:
When The Blues Came To Yorkville Maple Blues Newsletter, January 2020: 4-5
Some excerpts from my research into live music in 1960s Yorkville coffee houses, focusing on blues performances within the boundaries of the Village.
Listening To 'Space' Grateful Dead Studies Vol. 4, 2019/2020
A musicological analysis and interpretation of one minute of a 1976 Grateful Dead "Space" performance. First presented years before at So Many Roads: The World in the Grateful Dead, a remarkable conference in San Jose.
The Voice(s) of Frank Sinatra originally published in Frank Sinatra: 100th Birthday, I-5, January 2016
Written for a now-defunct magazine, this was my first foray into writing about Frank Sinatra's singing.
John Lennon's Solo Albums: A Critical Guide originally published in John Lennon, I-5, December 2015.
Same deal, this is a series of capsule reviews of John Lennon's solo albums.
Mattie May Thomas, Mystery Blueswoman Maple Blues Newsletter, November 2016: 6-7.
Primary source research into the life of Mattie May Thomas, who recorded just four sides at Parchman prison in 1936 for ethnomusicologist Herbert Halpert.
Miranda Sings (Badly): A YouTube Star Mediates Adolescence Paper given at International Association for the Study of Popular Music - Canada and U.S. Chapter Meeting. Calgary, Alberta. May 28, 2016.
Going off in another direction, analyzing the brief phenomenon of Miranda Sings, an operatically trained YouTube star whose shtick was bad singing.
Lou Reed's 'Ostrich' Tuning as an Aesthetic Point of Articulation Rock Music Studies, 3:2, 148-156 (2016)
First presented at a conference on the electric guitar in culture in Bowling Green, Ohio the previous year.
My Master's thesis from 1997. The formatting and font drive me crazy now, but this thesis was well-received at the time, winning the York University Thesis Award that year.
Fate's Right-Hand Gal: Mary Martin, Music Business Catalyst unpublished manuscript.
Maybe the most extensive bio of the late Mary Martin, the Canadian music business maven who transformed the careers of Bob Dylan, the Band, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell and more. Based on her collected papers at the Rock Hall Archives in Cleveland.