TUNESMITH
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TUNESMITH was a once and future (2017-2020, TBD) monthly celebration of songs, songwriting and the artists who perform them live. in Toronto.
It takes place every fourth Monday of the month from 7-9pm at the Imperial Pub Backroom, 54 Dundas Street E. The Origin of TUNESMITH
The name of this event is inspired by the now-classic book from 1998 on songwriting, written by the legendary tunesmith himself, Jimmy Webb. I decided to create a monthly event, inviting artists I love and admire, to conjure an evening that celebrates the art of song, and the craft of songwriting. I invite artists to either showcase their own new or established material, or interpret covers, standards, or songs they believe should be considered standards, in an intimate environment that does not judge whether the music is original or part of the already existing great songbook. Years ago, when I was a web designer at Sony Music Canada for artists Céline Dion, Glenn Gould, Leonard Cohen, Our Lady Peace, Chantal Kreviazuk, and The Philosopher Kings, I was like a deer caught in the headlights, surrounded by such lofty talent. Fortunately during this era, I met the most-recorded bassist in pop history, Carol Kaye. When I told her I was also a musician, she said that any musician worth their salt has at least one hundred standards in his or her back pocket. Then one can play anything. The challenge was given, and I had my work cut out for me. I took this advice to heart. In addition to developing my own songs over the years, I chose to also delve deeply into popular music, searching to understand the construction of stellar songs by artists like Brian Wilson, Lennon and McCartney, Buddy Holly, and Elvis Costello, to name a few, distilling these pieces down to piano and voice. I wryly list these bespectacled artists here because they are illustrated in my daydream image above, yet there are so many more from which to choose, and artists who play this monthly event will curate selections for our audiences to discover and enjoy. I believe a live setting in a delightful room such as the Backroom at The Imperial Pub is a wonderful place to praise the “tower of song,” a lyric and song title gifted to us by that late, great monk from Mount Baldy you may have heard of: Leonard Cohen.
—Michael Thorner 03.14.18
08/27/2026
https://youtu.be/ytmDNu-QWC8?si=VS5Wid1LcDGAs2Uv
Blessing Offor, Dolly Parton - Somebody’s Child (Official Music Video) Official Music Video for “Somebody’s Child” by Blessing Offor and D...
08/26/2026
https://youtu.be/hKld0YQPojc?si=q2-vAre56Nl59eGn
Don Henley - When I Stop Dreaming ft. Dolly Parton ‘When I Stop Dreaming’ with Dolly Parton from Don Henley’s new albu...
08/25/2026
From 2010: One genius tunesmith honouring another.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BoWsajcyD/
08/17/2026
💙🙏💜
Happy 101, OP! 🎉☺️💜
08/09/2026
On March 19, 1968, Jimi Hendrix played two shows at the Capitol Theatre in Ottawa.
A few blocks away on Sussex Drive, a 24 year old Joni Mitchell was midway through a two week residency at a coffee house called Le Hibou. Her debut album had not been released yet.
They were staying at the same hotel. Hendrix called her from the Château Laurier that day and asked if he could record her set. In his tour diary he wrote that he wanted to knock on wood about it, and could not find any, because everything was plastic.
He arrived with a reel to reel, introduced himself by pointing out they were signed to the same label, and set up at the front of the stage and ran the machine himself through both sets.
Afterward, in the same diary, he called her a fantastic girl with heaven words.
The tape was stolen from a vehicle soon after. Hendrix died two years later, in 1970. The recording was gone, and for decades it was a story people told with no proof.
It turned up here. Ian McLeish, an Ottawa born music archivist, was working through the tape collection of his late friend Richard Patterson, a CBC radio producer who had drummed for the Ottawa band The Esquires. One reel was labelled Joni Mitchell Recorded Live At Le Hibou Mar/68.
The original went to Library and Archives Canada. In October 2021, on Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 2, the public finally heard it. Fifty three years after it was recorded.
One night on Sussex Drive. Two people who would both become legends. And a tape that took half a century to find its way home.
Reporting by The Globe and Mail and Global News.
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