One of Canada’s finest artists, Bruce Cockburn has enjoyed an illustrious career shaped by politics, spirituality, and musical diversity. Cockburn has written more than 350 songs on 38 albums over a career spanning five decades. Twenty-two albums have received a Canadian gold or platinum certification. He has sold more than one million albums in Canada alone. His journey has seen him embrace folk, jazz, rock, and worldbeat styles, all while deftly capturing the joy, pain, fear, and faith of human experience in song. Cockburn remains deeply respected for his activism on issues from Indigenous rights and land mines, to the environment and Third World debt. He’s also known for working with organizations such as Oxfam, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and Friends of the Earth.
Cockburn was born in 1945 in Ottawa, Ontario and spent some time at his grandfather’s farm outside of Chelsea, Quebec. He found his first guitar in his grandmother’s attic around 1959, adorned it with gold stars, and used it to play along to radio hits. He attended Nepean High School where his 1964 yearbook photo states his desire: “To become a musician”. After graduating, he took a boat to Europe and busked in Paris and thus began his beautiful musical journey.
Over the span of his career, Cockburn has been honoured with 13 Juno Awards, an induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, as well as the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, and has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Adding to his many accolades, this year Cockburn will receive an Honorary Degree from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario on June 14, making it his ninth Honorary Degree. He will also be inducted into the Mariposa Hall of Fame, which honours those who have made important contributions to the Mariposa Folk Festival’s storied past! A special live and pre-recorded tribute to Cockburn will be held on the evening of Sunday, July 7 to commemorate his Hall of Fame induction.
We are honoured to host Bruce Cockburn once again on May 31 in Southam Hall.
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