The first time I heard Bruce Cockburn’s music on the radio was more than 40 years ago, a song called “Musical Friends” taken from his first album. That was about 1970 or 1971 on CHOM-FM in Montreal.

I don’t know exactly when I first saw Bruce Cockburn in concert, sometime fairly early in the 1970’s at Canada’s National Arts Centre in Ottawa. I do know I have seen him perform at least fifteen times over the years, maybe more. After a while I stopped counting. I have seen him both solo and with a band, acoustic and electric, intimate shows and big concerts with thousands of people.

Last week Bruce released a “new” album, Rumours of Glory, which is a companion to his memoir of the same title being released this Tuesday. As I have listened to the record (eight CDs and a DVD) I have been washed with a flood of memories of Bruce, his words and his music, and our encounters over the past 40 years. I have talked with him informally after shows and formally as a radio interviewer. For the next few days I am going to share some of those stories, with some thoughts on the music and the book (which I have started but not yet finished – my copy arrived early).

When True North Records announced this box set retrospective, my first thought was that I wouldn’t bother to buy it. I bought all Bruce’s records as they were released, first on vinyl then later on CD. It is not as if I needed to hear the music again. Even the “rarities” disc wasn’t much of an incentive as I already had most of the material. But I reconsidered, thinking that using the box set as a soundtrack while I read the book makes sense. Also, some of the songs I only had on vinyl, not on CD.

Bruce chose the songs, to go with the memoir, so I am sure the choices will all make sense as I continue to read. It is an excellent collection, but, as is always the case with such projects, there are favourites of mine that aren’t included. Songs such as “No Footprints,” a song about the return of Christ that Bruce used to dedicate in concert to the “Metcalfe Street Gang. In Ottawa  that would get wild applause from those who knew that was his reference to the congregation at St. George’s Anglican Church that he attended, located on Metcalfe Street. I also wish he had included “Closer to the Light,” written in response to the unexpected death of American singer/songwriter Mark Heard, someone I also knew, who was felled by a heart attack at age 40. Both those produce sentimental memories and are not in the box.

There is only so much you can fit into a book, and already I know there are things I wish Bruce had written about that didn’t make the cut. So I will throw in my two cents worth and perhaps fill in some gaps in the story.

For more than 40 years Bruce Cockburn has been a fixture on the music scene in Canada, an artist of substance with international acclaim. If you are not familiar with his work, with the interplay between his words and music, Rumours of Glory will be an eye opener. For those of us who already know Bruce, it is like sitting down once again with an old friend.