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Murray Lightburn is a central character in Hearts on Fire: as the founder, singer-songwriter and producer at the heart of the Dears—the only consistent bandmate of the last 25 years is his wife, keyboardist Natalia Yanchak. He’s also central to the Sam Roberts story and has close friends in Broken Social Scene circles. Danko Jones and Hawksley Workman are also friends and peers.
As any journalist who’s ever put a microphone in front of Lightburn knows all too well, the man likes to talk. Sometimes his mouth gets him in trouble. More often than not his aspirations of grandeur are tempered with self-doubt and deprecation.
I never interviewed him back in the day: the first time he and I sat down, with Natalia, was in early 2020 for Hearts on Fire. They invited me to their house and we sat in their backyard studio for a couple of lovely hours. He’s a great storyteller and highly quotable. Now a father of two teenagers, he’s also chilled out compared to the artist he was as a young man.
If you enjoyed the passages in Hearts on Fire about the Dears, I highly recommend my colleague Lorraine Carpenter’s book Lost in the Plot, a novella-size biography from Invisible Press’s Bibliophonic series. It’s one of the better books about Canadian music I’ve ever read: great writer, great subject. Can’t go wrong!
Lightburn has a new story to tell, this one very personal. It’s about his late father, with whom he had a very complicated relationship. Once Upon a Time in Montreal is a concept record, and a very good one. He hired me to write the bio. We had a long conversation about his father, this record, about the immigrant experience in Montreal, about Alzheimer’s, about fatherhood, about hiring session musicians instead of a therapist, and more. That conversation appears (only partially edited) in full below the paywall. I hope you find it as fascinating as I did.
This is part of what I wrote for the bio:
“The title of Once Upon a Time in Montreal makes it sound like a fairy tale: maybe a love story about an epic romance, maybe a mystery about a mythical figure, maybe a tragic tale about someone who struggled to be understood by the world around him and his own family. Maybe all three.
…His father was a saxophonist who worshiped Coltrane. There’s no hard bop on Once Upon a Time in Montreal, but it does feature an array of Montreal jazz players. Like this album’s predecessor, 2019’s Hear Me Out, Lightburn is in full crooner mode, distilling the passion and intensity of the Dears into gentle arrangements that feature a string section—even an oboe!—drawing on late-’60s, early-’70s folk/jazz/pop. Much like the music of the Dears, the influences might be obvious, but the end result is singular and without peer.”
Murray Lightburn
November 16, 2022
I loved your last solo record so much, and the first time I heard this one I thought, okay: same vibe, I know what’s going on here, he’s wearing the suit, he’s crooning, etc. But the more I listened, I realized how much jazzier it was. There are some real Lenny Breau guitar moments on here, some directed tempos. It seems to be more situated in vocal jazz, and jazz arrangements. What specific touchstones were you drawing from here?
It’s more of an era of songwriting and arrangements, a period in the ’60s where jazz was being really phased out in America—and largely across the world—as the rise of rock’n’roll was overtaking jazz. There was this crossover period in music where a lot of jazz musicians were playing on pop records.
That’s what Motown is.
Yeah! I was thinking of that period of music. Everything on this record is quite delicate. If need be, put it in the jazz box, I don’t care. The guys who played on the record are all steeped in that touch. The oboe player is more classical, as are the string players. It’s not indie rock, you know? I played a gig in Quebec City the other day, and I don’t feel like what I’m doing is indie rock. It’s not the Flaming Fucking Lips.
You’ve bristled at the term for 20 years now, so why stop now?
It’s just weird! I just made a playlist for my record label, which is something you do now when you release a record. The playlist is called “Nothing Past 1976” (laughs). There was that crossover period that sounds a bit like jazz but it’s not. Do you know what I mean? I’m having trouble putting this in words.
I do. Because the Boomers won history, the narrative is that rock’n’roll ruled the 60s. But who won Grammys and was actually at the top of the charts? It was this sunny, Muzak-y pop music that was very popular, a lot of it quite sophisticated, Bacharach etc., featuring jazz players, and that was the counterbalance to the wild rock’n’roll and R&B that was also happening. AM radio pop music, a lot of which is not passed down through generations, while the “cool” critical favourites are. Anyway, I don’t need to mansplain this to you.
Right. I’m just looking at this playlist now: Bill Withers. Nick Drake—he’s the total folk jazz guy. Gainsbourg’s Melody Nelson. Al Green. Some deep cuts. I thought about Dionne Warwick a lot when I was singing: she has so much control, it’s incredible how much she has. That’s what I was aspiring to. I’d love to hear something new that blows my mind, but this music is where I’m at right now.
I don’t have any information about this record yet [four months before its March 31 release], but judging by the lyrics it seems to be about a very religious saxophone player who moves to Montreal and starts a family, and who passed away somewhat recently. I’m going to take a wild guess that it’s about your dad.
Indeed. I wrote the album version of a biopic.
When did he pass?
2020. I leaned heavily on my friends. Torq [Torquil Campbell of Stars] was really great. It was uncharted waters, man. Even though I knew my dad was ill and that he could go, when they do go—all of a sudden a light goes out. Also because of when it was happening, and how it happened, that really complicated my feelings about it.
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