Whispering Pines: The Northern Roots of American Music from Hank Snow to the Band

“What makes Canada such fertile ground for talented artists?” When Canadian music journalist Schneider posed the question to Toronto-born guitarist Robbie Robertson, Robertson replied, “Must be something in the water.” Schneider's ambitious full-length study of Canadian musicians from Wilf Carter through the Band seeks to test that very potent water, and although the results are inconclusive, his study is sure to become a key piece in the survey of popular music history. Schneider introduces picked-over subjects such as Leonard Cohen with such nuanced attention to personal humanity, it is as if the author has revealed them to us for the first time. Schneider beautifully weaves in the complicated relationships, both professional and personal, of the various artists who have come to define the sound of 20th-century American popular music (yes, American). If Schneider's book does nothing else, it exposes the semantic futility of delineating popular music of the U.S. from that of Canada, be it Dylan's quintessential 1960s sound, courtesy of the Band, or the sound of 1970s California, as created by Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and the Mamas and Papas, Canadians all. (Aug.)