Before the Gold Rush: Flashbacks to the Dawn of the Canadian Sound

Jack S. Broumpton is an assistant professor of music at Huntington
College, Laurentian University.

The title of this entertaining book is a play on the famous Neil Young
song “After the Goldrush.” Young is just one among many Canadian
artists who began their careers in and around Toronto’s Yorkville.
(Others included Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot, Murray
Maclachlan, John Kay, Ian and Sylvia, and Ronnie Hawkins.)

Nicholas Jennings explains how Yorkville came to be a source of
inspiration for Canadian artists of all kinds, just as New York’s 52nd
Street did for jazz artists in the 1940s. Yorkville clubs like the
Riverboat and the Myna Bird showcased the talents of many great Canadian
artists. Jennings also explains how Canadian musicians benefited from
the Canadian content regulations developed by the CRTC.

Before the Gold Rush, which includes photographs, the CHUM Chart Top 10
lists since 1959, informative appendices, and a useful artist index,
sheds light on an important time and place in Canadian pop music.