Jon Brooks

If folk music is meant to inspire change, Jon Brooks felt like he was in the right place recently when he was strumming his guitar in front of a class of Grade 11 and 12 music students at Sir Wilfrid Laurier secondary school. 

“We’re performing a brand of the folk song to, finally, the right audience,” said Brooks, a singer/songwriter based out of Toronto. “This is the audience I should be playing in front of all the time.” 

He is one of three acts taking part in the Home County Folk Festival Artists in…

By Greg Quill Entertainment Reporter 

Entertainment Columnist 

Sometime in the late 1960s, Pete Seeger — in his prime with just a banjo and a 12-string guitar — stepped up to a single microphone on the concert stage of the Sydney Town Hall in Australia, and started singing. 

One after another, the simple yet profoundly affecting songs that moved a generation — a couple of generations, actually — poured forth like some kind of healing sacrament. 

“Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” “Turn, Turn, Turn.” “We…

Writer skilled at mixing emotional music with everyday, extraordinary tales 

By STEPHEN COOKE Entertainment Reporter 

Jon Brooks heads east this week for a series of Maritime dates. A conversation with authors and per­sonal mentors Barry Callaghan and Austin Clarke after a night of off-track betting on horse races made him rethink his decision to trade music for prose. 

Jon Brooks is in love with words and the power they possess. For the past five years the Ontario singer-songwriter has been using melody…

Singer-songwriter to make island debut May 20 at Maxwell’s Lounge 

SYDNEY — He’s written songs about the island and now Jon Brooks is ready to make his first appearance on a Cape Breton stage. 

Topics : 

British Empire , Toronto Star , Cape Breton , New Waterford , Canada 

The Toronto singer-songwriter will make his island debut May 20 at 8 p.m. at Maxwell’s Lounge on Charlotte Street in Sydney, as part of a tour of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 

“I finally get to play in Cape Breton after writing…

Great songwriters, like the best artists in any discipline, defy convention and confound those who seek comparisons. 

Toronto’s Jon Brooks stands among an exalted few in the enduring Canadian song tradition – Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Fred Eaglesmith, Bruce Cockburn – as a lyricist, composer and performer with a fierce commitment to his craft and his vision. 

He says he’s proud to call himself a folksinger at a time when that particular f-word has ceased to have much meaning to armies of…

Ulverton (GM) – Pour fêter le deuxième anniversaire des spectacles intimes à Ulverton, Jon Brooks, l’artiste qui avait inauguré la série il y a deux ans, sera de retour avec un nouveau spectacle aux couleurs folk le samedi 28 novembre prochain, à 19h30. 

Jon Brooks est un artiste engagé qui, par le biais de ses chansons, nous livre des réflexions intelligentes à propos de ce qui nous motive en tant qu’individu, ainsi qu’en tant que membre de notre société actuelle. Il est très préoccupé par les questions…

Sound Advice inaugurated its modest new performance space this past Saturday with a pretty full house showing up to hear Jon Brooks, a singer/songwriter/guitarist from King City, Ontario. The space itself, while unprepossessing, was entirely appropriate for a small gathering, and the intimacy of the surroundings meant that the sound system was almost unnecessary, though in the end the electronics allowed for projection without strain. The management also made refreshments available. The cozy room also led…

Meaty solo effort a collection of stories 

When touring Alberta, singersongwriter Jon Brooks likes to have a steak with his breakfast. 

Such was the case this Friday morning past, when at a Whyte Avenue eatery, the Ontario-based troubadour ordered up a juicy portion of beef with some eggs. One couldn’t help but draw a line between his plate and the compact disc case sitting on the table. The latest collection of 10 songs from Brooks, which was released under the title Moth Nor Rust, also has much meat on…

CFMA finalist Jon Brooks plays Fridas Villas house concert 

An award-winning folk musician comes to Salt Spring next week for a house concert at Fridas Villa. 

Jon Brooks performs at the home of Tracy Harrison and Carl Borgstrom at 1375 Beddis Road on Thursday, Dec. 3. 

Harrison describes the Toronto-based Brooks as “an exceptional and provocative songwriter” who has won a number of prestigious awards. He was a 2009 Mountain Stage New Song Contest finalist, the 2008 winner of the Mac Beattie Award at the…

Jon Brooks’ latest CD features an ominous title – “Moth Nor Rust” – a phrase taken straight from new testament scripture – and equally ominous artwork entitled “Out of the Cave: Series III”. These touchstones point to a serious disc, indeed. But like so many a biblical phrase, there are hints of horror and damage but also hope and joy. Brooks elegantly rails against the injustices of our times, but this is no easy cynical blast of anger. Brooks’ music…

Folk From The Heart 

Jon Brooks is a folk artist from King City, Ont. currently on tour promoting his latest release, Moth nor Rust. His tour will include a stop at the Blacksheep Inn in Wakefield, Que. on Sept. 24. The record is a tribute to faith, trust, hope, memory and the idea of justice – essential elements to the human spirit that neither moth nor rust can harm. Brooks sat down with the Charlatan’s Colin Harris to speak about his new record and the current state of folk and pop music. 

The…

JON BROOKS IS taking music back to its storytelling core. The independent musician, a resident of Ontario’s King City, recently released his latest album, Moth nor Rust—a solo acoustic project that preaches the simple values of faith, love, and justice. 

“The only definition of folk music I care to discuss is the idea that these are the songs that outline the current spirit of the people, their suffering and their happiness,” reflects…

The ‘00’s’ perhaps may be remembered as a decade in which the Canadian nation was reintroduced to the realities of sending its young men and women overseas to fight hot wars on foreign soil after a half century of relative peace and contentment. If this is the case, Canadian folk artist Jon Brooks hopes his latest album Moth Nor Rust will give the listener some inner reflection and inspiration toward the ramifications and general social discontentment perpetuated by conflicts like the Afghanistan War…

Armed with an acoustic guitar, a harmonica a gravelly voice and a pen, Brooks follows the tradition of poking holes in accepted truths, a path blazed by the likes of Woody Guthrie and John Lennon. You’re likely to hang on to his every word. 

In his third disc, Brooks…

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie 

After growing up in a musical void for much of my life, I discovered more music while away at school than I knew how to handle. Continually catching up on the music that should have been the soundtrack to my childhood, and listening to the new stuff popping up around me, I was hooked. It was a late discovery, but when I finally discovered the music that was out there, it changed my life. 

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FOLK FOR FOLK’S SAKE 

Just like the late nineteenth century aesthetes who believed in “art for art’s sake,” Toronto-based folk singer Jon Brooks believes in folk for folk’s sake. The passionate artist – who quotes everyone from Jesuit priests and seventeenth century philosophers to Pablo Picasso – speaks more like an academic than like an artist. 

I meet up with the truth-seeking songwriter and self-professed idealist following his short set at Toronto’s Winter Folk in mid February. Dressed in a black hat…

CANADIAN WAR STORIES DRIVE ONTARIO SINGER-SONGWRITER JON BROOKS 

TORONTO — Canadian folk music is failing its grand tradition of truthful storytelling in times of war, says Ontario singer-songwriter Jon Brooks. The straight-talking musician is nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award for his disc of Canadian war stories, “Ours and the Shepherds,” a stirring collection of tales touching on the Korean War, the genocide in Rwanda and Canadian peacekeepers in Afghanistan. It includes songs about James Loney…

Local singer/songwriter Jon Brooks has just released an album with an intriguing concept. It’s called Ours And The Shepherds and it had me interested even before I cracked open this record. There was a little sticker on the cover with the words, “A collection of songs examining Canada’s war experience. From WWI through to Afghanistan.” Musically, it’s a laid-back affair that’ll appeal to fans of roots and folk. And lyrically, the stories that inspired these 13 narratives are so interesting and the songs are…