Canadian legends recall legendary music scene
Gordon Lightfoot and other local musicians got together in a music hall recently, not to perform together but to remember the places they and many other Canadian legends got their start performing: here in the Yorkville area.
That’s the Yorkville of the 1960s and 1970s, an era when live music poured from clubs and coffeehouses with names like the Riverboat, the Purple Onion, the Mynah Bird, and the Penny Farthing — and from the Masonic Temple at Yonge Street and Davenport Road.
The veteran musicians gathered with music historians, politicians and 500 other guests at the Masonic Temple on May 6 to unveil Heritage Toronto plaques commemorating two music venues (Purple Onion and Penny Farthing) and Yorkville’s once-thriving music scene.
Lightfoot and Jerry Gray, banjo player and lead singer with the folk group The Travellers, recalled the era. The rhythm and blues band Luke and the Apostles performed.
