The Capitol Centre says Tom Cochrane: Songs and Stories - The Duo will entertain June 11. Cochrane promises an intimate evening of music and storytelling about a career spanning almost 50 years.
Starting out as a folk-based singer/songwriter playing the coffeehouses of Toronto`s famed Yorkville scene in the early 70s, Tom joined forces with rock group Red Rider in 1978 as their lead singer and main songwriter.
Together as Red Rider and later as Tom Cochrane & Red Rider, they released a total of nine albums with hits, "Lunatic Fringe", "Victory Day", "Human Race", "Boy Inside the Man", "White Hot" and the chart-topper, "Big League."
Cochrane launched his solo career with the release of the hit "Life Is A Highway" from the breakthrough album Mad Mad World. This record sold over one million copies in Canada alone and another six million copies worldwide, giving it certified Diamond Status in Canada and earning him a Grammy nomination in the United States.
A Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductee, Cochrane, both with Red Rider and as a solo artist, has won eight JUNO awards. His legacy as a Canadian icon has been cemented with a star on Canada`s Walk of Fame and a 322 km section of Manitoba`s provincial highway named "Tom Cochrane`s Life Is A Highway."
An iconic career that started in the pubs, rough neck bars, and coffeehouses of the roads and highways of first Ontario and then the rest Canada and then the world has spanned over four decades.
Commenting on some of the jobs he had early on in his life, which include cab driving, working at CIL Paints, on the loading dock at Sears and Canada Packers, and crewing out on a sailboat (not a cruise ship). “Those gigs are character builders, you pay some bills along the way with them but it’s real life also that you learn from and draw songs from.”
Tickets go on sale to the public on January 17 at noon for $70.
Throughout his career, Tom, has thrown his support behind a wide range of worthy causes. He has traveled the world, including Africa nine times and Asia twice on behalf of World Vision. He helped spearhead the Canada for Asia initiative, entertained our troops in Afghanistan, raised money for Parkinson’s research, has performed at Live 8, in Tears Are Not Enough, Young Artists for Haiti, and more. He endorses or supports besides World Vision: Waterkeeper’s Alliance, Amnesty International, War Child, Medicin Sans Frontiers, Unison, World Animal Protection, The United Way, Tree Canada, Unison and Tempo, to name a few and has lent and continues to lend his support to several other causes.
An outspoken proponent of freedom of speech in his work and personally, Tom believes that journalism and journalistic freedom is the cornerstone of democracy. Before embarking on a music career he wanted to be a foreign correspondent and report “the truth from different parts of the world”, which continues to transcend and fuel his musical creativity in the same manner he touched on the universal values of hope and perseverance in his international hit, "Life is a Highway".
“I was a funny kid, my heroes included the likes of Edward R Murrow, Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, and the great Canadian journalist Peter Jennings. I felt there was nothing more noble than doing what they did, that’s why I like to think of myself as a sonic journalist”