Gordon Lightfoot, Canada’s Bard, Lifeless at 84
Gordon Lightfoot, the legendary Canadian singer-songwriter, has died on the age of 84.
“Gordon Lightfoot handed away this night in a Toronto hospital at 7:30 p.m.,” an announcement on Lightfoot’s Fb web page introduced on Monday, Might 1st. The assertion promised extra info “to come back.”
Born in Orillia, Ontario in 1938, Lightfoot grew to become recognized and beloved as Canada’s folks troubadour, an artist who stayed true to his roots regardless of worldwide success. Songs like “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” depicted the tradition, landscapes, and historical past of his Canadian residence and grew to grow to be each hits and signature tracks.
Within the 2019 documentary Gordon Lightfoot: If You May Learn My Thoughts, Rush’s Geddy Lee referred to as Lightfoot “our poet laureate… our iconic singer-songwriter,” whereas Tom Cochrane famous, “If there was a Mt. Rushmore in Canada, Gordon could be on it.”
Singing was Lightfoot’s calling from his youth; he was in his church’s choir, carried out on native radio, and received singing competitions. At age 17, he penned his first music, “The Hula Hoop Tune,” a novelty monitor celebrating the favored toy of the time. After two years of finding out at Los Angeles’ Westlake School of Music, he returned to Toronto and shortly embedded himself within the native folks scene. He was a member of the Singing Swinging Eight on the Nation Hoedown TV present, and carried out with Terry Whelan as a member of the Two-Tones.
As Bob Dylan and the Greenwich Village scene bloomed, Lightfoot was impressed to hone his songwriting craft. In 1965, he made his United States efficiency debut on the Newport People Pageant (the identical occasion the place Dylan first went electrical). Later that yr, he appeared on The Tonight Present with Johnny Carson and carried out at New York’s City Corridor for his first Stateside solo present.
’65 was additionally the primary time Lightfoot made it onto the charts — although not for his personal singing. Ian & Sylvia Tyson scored hits with the Lightfoot-penned “Early Morning Rain” and “For Lovin’ Me” (each songs had been additionally coated Peter, Paul and Mary). However when Marty Robbins’ model of “Ribbon of Darkness” topped the nation charts, Lightfoot’s profession actually took off.