Humans

Immensely popular in his native Canada, singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn has found only cult success south of the border, in spite of a rich, varied body of work and considerable critical nods. He has won numerous Juno Awards and has kept the quality control on most of his albums at a high level.

Cockburn's first decade of work (1970-1979) is largely literate, singer/songwriter folk-rock, often with a strong Christian tone and mystical, devotional lyrics. In 1979, Cockburn had his only major U.S. single, "Wondering Where the Lions Are," which peaked at number 21. The accompanying album, Dancing in the Dragon's Jaw, saw him augmenting his music with worldbeat rhythms, an approach he would continue over his next few albums. Cockburn toned down his Christian viewpoint for much of the '80s, partially as a way of disconnecting himself from the American religious right, which he found antithetical to his own spiritual beliefs, and partially to concentrate on more humanitarian, political subject matter. In 1984, Cockburn produced an AOR hit, "If I Had a Rocket Launcher," whose accompanying video depicted conditions in war-torn Central America and gained a fair amount of MTV play.

Cockburn's later '80s work took on a more streamlined rock sound, and his political agenda was weighted toward environmental concerns, as well as oppression. In the '90s, he returned to the more introspective feel recalling his earlier work, and moved toward a more global and political perspective with issues of the angry and polemical for You've Never Seen Everything in 2003. 2005's Speechless was an all-instrumental affair, showing off the artist's skill on guitar, while the next year's Life Short Call Now showed an artist at the prime of his musical maturity. A live set, Slice o Life: Bruce Cockburn Live Solo, arrived in 2009. After a brief tour, Cockburn returned to the studio in 2010, where he finished work on a new collection entitled Small Source of Comfort, which was released in early 2011; it is an intimate set of songs and guitar-based instrumentals (including the live but never recorded Cockburn standard "The Gift"). The album was produced by Colin Linden and features violinist Jenny Scheinman. After the birth of his daughter Iona that year, Cockburn faded into the backdrop to focus on family and writing his autobiography. He also assembled the 11-disc career-spanning box set, Rumours of Glory, which was issued in 2014. His memoir of the same title was published in 2016. Inspired by a book of poems by 20th century Canadian poet Al Purdy, Cockburn set to work writing new material and entered a California studio with Linden as producer/guitarist, his road band, and guests including cornetist Ron Miles and Mary Gauthier. The finished album, Bone on Bone (his 33rd) was issued by True North on September 15, 2017, a week before Cockburn was inducted -- along with Neil Young, Beau Dommage, and Stéphane Venne, into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.

—Steve Huey

Long regarded as Bruce Cockburn's finest moment on record, Humans, issued in 1980, is easily the most revealing of his tomes as well. This Rounder reissue is fully remastered and contains one bonus track, a live reading of the album's opener, "Grim Travellers." Cockburn's marriage had fallen apart, he'd moved from the country to a gritty inner-city section of Toronto called Cabbagetown, and he'd begun to explore in earnest the reggae rhythms that had underscored his hit single "Wondering Where the Lions Are" from Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws. The record of a restless travelogue that has become his stock in trade as a wandering observer, activist, and minstrel with deep wanderlust, Humans is the result of great turmoil and pain, and reveals Cockburn's musical, spiritual, and emotional worldview as all in flux. The record opens with the hard truth of global mercenaries in "Grim Travellers," a shimmering beauty of a song with a dubby bassline and jazzed-out Fender Rhodes piano. This is Cockburn's first issued song in his documentary style, complete with rich metaphorical images of horror and truth and the beauty on their nether sides. "Rumours of Glory" is straight-up reggae. It grooves and rocks steady, with a bubbling bassline punching up the front line. Lyrically the song offers a new kind of mystical attraction for Cockburn, one rooted in the crust of everyday life: "You see the extremes of what humans can be/In that distance/Some tensions are born/Energy surging, like a storm/You plunge your hand in/You draw it back, scorched/Beneath, it's shining like gold/But better...." A beautiful backing chorus that sounds like the I-Threes croons the tune to a close.

There is real darkness and anguish here, too. On "You Get Bigger as You Go," a relationship separates as the world comes apart in front of the protagonist's eyes as he looks out the window; acoustic guitars, violins, and tom-toms usher in the tough truth of a new day. The album's best travel song, "How I Spent My Fall Vacation," talks about the tensions of traveling in a beautiful but dangerous world; it's followed by "Tokyo," a darkly ironic account of a terrible accident witnessed by the protagonist while visiting. The album closes with a low-key manifesto in "The Rose Above the Sky." It's an affirmation of faith in the darkness, of waiting for God in the heart of loss and uncertainty. Graced by acoustic guitars fingerpicked softly and painted by keyboard washes, it grows in tension and texture, becoming an anthem by its end. Humans is universal in its confusion and hard-won willingness to endure without seeking creature comforts or easy answers. Its musical and lyrical adventure would be a watermark for any artist; for Cockburn it became the first step to musical and poetic freedom. It sounds as harrowing, beautiful, and ethereal 20-plus years later as it did when it was first issued, and offers a uniquely universal message for seekers of personal, social, and spiritual truth. This is the one to start with. It is also the one to end with.

—Thom Jurek