On the Saturday July 5, 2025 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we celebrate Canadian music and the people who make it.
We meet Kevan Staples, co-founder of the legendary Rough Trade. In this interview from 2021 Staples, who passed away earlier this year, talks about his legendary band and their best-known song, “High School Confidential.”
Household name Randy Bachman stops by. He’s best known as the lead guitarist, songwriter and a founding member of the 1960s and 1970s rock bands The Guess Who and Bachman–Turner Overdrive. Bachman was also a member of Brave Belt, Union and Ironhorse, and has recorded numerous solo albums. He is also a national radio personality and was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2016… In this interview we talk about where it all began for him.
We’ll listen to an interview from my archive with legendary musician Robbie Robertson. The Band guitar player, who passed away in 2023, joined me several years ago to talk about his earliest musical inspirations, how he was booed by Bob Dylan’s audience and how he once almost turned to a life of crime when he couldn’t get gigs.
And, we’ll get to know Mike Downie, director of “The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal,” the definitive four-part documentary series about the band who, as the programmers of TIFF noted earlier this year, “went on to make music that defined Canada to the world and, more importantly, Canada to Canadians.”
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
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On the September 6, 2020 episode of “Pop Life” Richard speaks to Rock and roll legend Randy Bachman. They discuss his connection with Les Paul, quitting school on the first day and why he isn’t a classical violinist.
Then the “Pop Life” panel, Bachman, singer Bif Naked and recording artist Chloe Charles, talk about idols and influences.
Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including superstar jazz musician Diana Krall, legendary rock star Meatloaf, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actor and best-selling author Chris Colfer, celebrity chef Jeremiah Tower, and many more.
Watch all new shows every Saturday at 8:30 pm on Saturday or 2:30 pm on Sunday on the CTV NessChannel! (channel 1501 on Bell Fibe, 62 on Rogers) AND on CTV midnight on Saturday nights. Also, check your listings for airings on Bravo and Gusto.
Music documentaries often veer into hagiography, looking back with rose coloured glasses at their subject. There are heaps of high praise in “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind,” a new career retrospective from co-directors Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni, but right from the outset it displays an honesty rare in authorized bios.
After a few bars of his chauvinistic ’60s hit “For Lovin’ Me” Lightfoot, watching vintage footage, demands it be shut off. “That’s a very offensive song for a guy to write who was married with a couple of kids,” he says before adding, “I guess I don’t like who I am.”
It’s a startling beginning to a movie that uses his music and a series of celebrity talking heads like Steve Earle, Sarah McLachlan, Geddy Lee, Anne Murray and Alec Baldwin, who helpfully adds, “This was a guy who sang poems,” to tell the story. Traditionally Lightfoot’s enigmatic approach to his biography has left many questions unanswered in the media. That doesn’t change much here, although he seems to have allowed open access to his home and is occasionally candid in the contemporary interviews. “I regret a lot of things,” he says near the end of the film. “I caused emotional trauma in people, particularly some women, the women I was closest to. I feel very, very badly about it.”
“If You Could Read My Mind” doesn’t skip over sensitive biographical points. His relationship with Cathy Evelyn Smith, a woman he loved who was later accused of killing John Belushi and the infidelities that marred his personal life are examined, although with a light touch that respects his privacy.
Supporting the storytelling are interestingly curated images. From rare clips of his early performances on the CBC and on the stages of Yonge Street taverns and Yorkville coffee houses and archival photos of the legendary, star-studded parties he threw at his Rosedale home, to old footage of his parents and behind-the-scenes images of his acting debut in Desperado—“You’ll never win an Oscar,” said co-star Bruce Dern, “but you’re fun to work with.”—the doc offers a comprehensive visual essay of Canadiana, Gordon Lightfoot style.
Ultimately the best documentary of Lightfoot’s storied life is his work, tunes like “Sundown” and “Rainy Day People” that suggest everything he has to say is in his songs. “Your personal experience and your emotional stress,” he says, “finds its way in by way of your unconscious mind over into the mind of reality and translates itself into your lyrics. And you don’t even know that is happening.”
