Bruce Cockburn

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Bruce Cockburn at City Stages festival (Birmingham, Alabama, USA)

Bruce Cockburn (pronounced: "Co-burn"; born May 27, 1945 in Ottawa , Canada ) is a Canadian folk guitarist and singer .

biography

After graduating from high school , he studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston , USA , before moving to Toronto , Canada after completing his studies , from where he started his musical career.

While his music in the 1970s was mainly assigned to the genres of folk and jazz rock and the lyrics were often shaped by his Christian faith, since 1980 further musical influences ( reggae , world music ) and political topics have been added.

Cockburn traveled to many countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa and let his impressions from these trips flow into the songs. Political issues such as oppression, violence, environmental pollution or land mines are mentioned.

Text example from the song If I Had a Rocket Launcher from the album Stealing Fire :

  • "On the Río Lacantún, one hundred thousand wait / to fall down from starvation - or some less humane fate / Cry for Guatemala, with a corpse in every gate / If I had a rocket launcher ... I would not hesitate."
  • "On the Río Lacantún, hundreds of thousands are waiting / to fall over from hunger - or for an even more inhuman fate / cry for Guatemala, where a corpse lies in every gate / If I had a rocket launcher ... I wouldn't hesitate."

Text example from the song Tropic Moon from the album The Trouble with Normal :

  • "Hear the cry in the tropic night. Should be a cry of love but it's a cry of fright. Some people never see the light 'til it shines through bullet holes. "
  • “Hear the scream in the tropical night. It should be a scream of love, but it's a scream of horror. Some people never see the light until it shines through bullet holes. "

In many cases, Cockburn simply describes his observations without judgment, for example in the song Tokyo from the album Humans :

  • "Gray suited business men pissing against the wall"
  • "Gray-clad business people piss on a wall"

Germany is also one of the countries that Cockburn likes to travel to and where he has a loyal fan base. The singer worked with the German language in some of his older pieces. On the 1986 LP World of Wonders he speaks the text passage in the song Lilly of the Midnight Sky : "I want everything - all of you" and in the title Berlin Tonight he sings: "... follows traffic on the Autobahn." Song Get Up Jonah from the album The Charity of Night contains the text "But it made me think of Germany and the guy who sold me cigarettes."

Bruce Cockburn's best-known songs are Wondering Where the Lions Are from 1980 (Cockburn's only top 20 success in the USA from the album Dancing in The Dragon's Jaws ), Lovers in a Dangerous Time and Maybe the Poet from 1984 (from the album Stealing Fire ), Call It Democracy from 1986 (from the album World of Wonders ), If a Tree Falls from 1989 (from the album Big Circumstance ) and A Dream Like Mine from 1991 (from the album Nothing but a Burning Light ). In 2001 he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame .

In October 2010, Cockburn had to cancel some concerts due to pneumonia.

Discography

Studio albums

year Title
music label
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, music label , placements, weeks, awards, notes)
Remarks
DE DE CH CH US US
1980 Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws
True North 37
- - US45 (24 weeks)
US
First published: 1979
Producer: Eugene Martynec
1980 Humans
True North 42
- - US81 (9 weeks)
US
First published: September 1980
Producer: Eugene Martynec
1984 Stealing Fire
True North 57
- - US74 (29 weeks)
US
First published: August 1984
Producers: Jon Goldsmith, Kerry Crawford
1986 World of Wonders
True North 66
DE48 (3 weeks)
DE
- US143 (8 weeks)
US
First published: July 1986
Producers: Jon Goldsmith, Kerry Crawford
1989 Big Circumstance
True North 70
- - US182 (7 weeks)
US
First published: December 1988
Producer: Jon Goldsmith
1994 Dart to the Heart
True North 82
- - US176 (2 weeks)
US
First published: March 1, 1994
Producer: T-Bone Burnett
1996 The Charity of Night
True North 150
- - US178 (1 week)
US
First published: February 4, 1997
Producers: Bruce Cockburn, Colin Linden

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

further studio albums

  • 1970: Bruce Cockburn (True North 1)
  • 1971: High Winds White Sky (True North 3)
  • 1972: Sunwheel Dance (True North 7)
  • 1973: Night Vision (True North 11)
  • 1974: Salt, Sun and Time (True North 16)
  • 1975: Joy Will Find a Way (True North 23)
  • 1976: In the Falling Dark (True North 26)
  • 1978: Further Adventures of Bruce Cockburn (True North 33)
  • 1981: Inner City Front (True North 42)
  • 1983: The Trouble with Normal (True North 53)
  • 1991: Nothing but a Burning Light (True North 77; release: November 5th)
  • 1993: Christmas (True North 83; release: October)
  • 1999: Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu (True North 183; release: September 14th)
  • 2003: You've Never Seen Everything (True North 301; released June 10th)
  • 2005: Speechless (True North 390; release: September 27th)
  • 2006: Life Short Call Now (True North 425; release: June)
  • 2011: Small Source of Comfort (True North 536; release: March 8th)
  • 2017: Bone on Bone (True North 536; release: September 15th)

Live albums

  • 1977: Circles in the Stream (2 LPs; True North 30)
  • 1990: Live (True North 73; release: June)
  • 1998: You Pay Your Money and You Take Your Chance: Live (True North 161; release: January 13th)
  • 2009: Slice o Life: Bruce Cockburn Live Solo (2 CDs; True North 520; release: March 31st)

Compilations

year Title
music label
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, music label , placements, weeks, awards, notes)
Remarks
DE DE CH CH US US
1981 Resume
Millennium 7757
- - US174 (5 weeks)
US
First publication: May 1981
only in DE and US

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

more compilations

  • 1981: Mummy Dust (True North 45; only published in CA)
  • 1985: Rumors of Glory ( plans 88402; only published in DE)
  • 1987: Waiting for a Miracle: Singles 1970–1987 (2 LPs; True North 67; release: January)
  • 2002: Anything Anytime Anywhere: Singles 1979-2002 (True North 267; release: January 15)
  • 2014: Rumors of Glory (box with 8 CDs + DVD; True North 601; release: October 28th)

Singles

year Title
album
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)
Remarks
DE DE CH CH US US
1980 Wondering Where the Lions Are
Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws
- - US21 (17 weeks)
US
First published: 1978 (CA) / March 1980 (US)
Author: Bruce Cockburn
1985 If I Had a Rocket Launcher
Stealing Fire
- - US88 (3 weeks)
US
First published: November 1984
Author: Bruce Cockburn
1992 A Dream Like Mine
Nothing but a Burning Light
DE87 (2 weeks)
DE
CH38 (1 week)
CH
-
First published: December 2nd, 1991
Author: Bruce Cockburn

more singles

  • 1971: One Day I Walk
  • 1972: It's Going Down Slow
  • 1974: Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long (release: February)
  • 1975: Burn (promo; release: April)
  • 1977: I'm Gonna Fly Some Day (released February)
  • 1977: Vagabondage (release: April)
  • 1978: Free to Be (release: February)
  • 1978: Laughter (released May)
  • 1980: Rumors of Glory (release: October)
  • 1980: Tokyo (release: December)
  • 1981: The Coldest Night of the Year
  • 1981: I'm Okay (Fascist Architecture) (release: March)
  • 1981: Radio Shoes (release: November 9th)
  • 1981: Wanna Go Walking (release: December)
  • 1982: You Pay Your Money and You Take Your Chance (release: February)
  • 1983: The Trouble with Normal (released February)
  • 1983: Candy Man's Gone (release: April)
  • 1983: Tropic Moon (release: May)
  • 1983: Waiting for the Moon (release: September)
  • 1984: Making Contact (release: July)
  • 1984: Lovers in a Dangerous Time (release: July)
  • 1985: Peggy's Kitchen Wall
  • 1985: People See Through You (released December)
  • 1986: See How I Miss You (released March)
  • 1986: Call It Democracy
  • 1987: Waiting for a Miracle
  • 1987: Stolen Land (release: October)
  • 1989: If a Tree Falls (release: May)
  • 1989: Don't Feel Your Touch (release: September)
  • 1989: Shipwrecked at the Stable Door
  • 1991: Great Big Love
  • 1991: A Dream Like Mine
  • 1994: Listen for the Laugh
  • 1994: Burden of the Angel / Beast (EP, Promo)
  • 1994: Christmas Sampler (EP, Promo)
  • 1996: Night Train (Promo)
  • 1997: The Whole Night Sky (EP, promo)
  • 1997: Pacing the Cage (Promo)
  • 1999: Last Night of the World (Promo)
  • 2003: Open (Promo)
  • 2006: Different When It Comes to You (Promo)

Videos

  • 1991: Purely Music Concert Series: Bruce Cockburn (Laserdisc; Image Entertainment 7901)
  • 2005: Full House (2 DVDs; recording: May 14, 1986, Große Freiheit , Hamburg; Norddeutscher Rundfunk ; only published in DE)
  • 2013: Pacing the Cage (True North; release: May 21)

swell

  1. ^ Canadian Music Hall of Fame - Inductees. Canadian Music Hall of Fame , accessed August 6, 2017 .
  2. Tour cancellation  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on Brucecockburn.com@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / brucecockburn.com  
  3. a b c Chart sources: DE CH Billboard Hot 100 Billboard 200

Web links