The Legendary Bruce Cockburn Has A New Tour And Album

The folk singer with the four decade career was in New York earlier this month for a two night stand at City Winery in support of his 31st studio album, Small Source of Comfort. It was the first American city on the North American tour he kicked off in Kelowna in March, which will wrap up in June.

Cockburn's tour mate, collaborator and opening act, Jenny Scheinman, took to the stage with a cold. "This is the sound of one nostril singing," she cracked, not that anyone likely would have otherwise picked up on it. She and her violin sounded great and had a lot energy for someone under the weather. Scheinman is a native of California, who's based in Brooklyn these days. She does a weekly gig in the borough at Barbes on Tuesday nights.

The 65-year-old Cockburn started his rollicking two hour set with Last Night of the World to much applause from the near capacity house. Clad all in black, he added a bit of colour to his ensemble with a green guitar and a stud in his right ear.

Cockburn didn't say much during the performance, sticking mostly to playing. But at one point he did remark, "You can write a song about anything," and an audience member good naturedly heckled back, "And you have!" The songwriter then added, "There are a few topics still to discover."

Part of the inspiration for Small Comfort came from Cockburn's travels to the Canadian Forces base in Kandahar in 2009. He wrote the song Each One Lost after he attended a ceremony honouring two fallen Canadian Forces soldiers who were killed that day. Another song, Comets of Kandahar, is a track that Cockburn describes as "Django meets John Lee Hooker," the latter being one of his music role models.

As Cockburn finishes up his tour in June, you'll be seeing him on your posts as part of the third installment of the Canadian Recording Artists stamp series. Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Robbie Robertson and Ginette Reno are also being honoured. The stamps will be issued on June 30th.

For the tour schedule and more information, go to: http://brucecockburn.com/