HE IS FINE - the rumour of his death was a mistake!

[charlene]

I just spoke with Bernie Fiedler and the rumour that Lightfoot passed away last night is an internet hoax...

He is fine..

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/gordon-lightfoot-very-much-alive/article1208760/

SUNDOWN? NOT YET
Gordon Lightfoot very much alive
JAMES ADAMS
Toronto — Globe and Mail Update
Published Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010 3:05PM EST
Last updated Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012 1:38PM EDT

Canadian folk icon Gordon Lightfoot is alive and well, says the singer's long-time friend, despite rumours to the contrary which spread quickly on Twitter and were picked up by some mainstream media outlets.

"I'm fine, everything is good. I don't know where it comes from. It seems like a bit of a hoax or something," the folk icon told all-news station CP24.

"I was quite surprised to hear (it) myself."

He went on to joke: "I haven't had so much airplay on my music now for weeks."

Bernie Fiedler, Lightfoot's some-time publicist and road manager, said at 2:40 p.m. ET that the singer-songwriter was very much alive and in Toronto. Indeed, he claimed Lightfoot's secretary had spoken with the artist "just a half-an-hour ago."

Mr. Fiedler claimed in a phone conversation that the death report was "a prank" originating as "a Twitter coming out of Ottawa." He indicated a media release might be issued soon putting the rumour of Mr. Lightfoot's death to rest.

Mr. Fiedler also has been Lightfoot's concert promoter and tour organizer.

A Canwest news service story reported the death Thursday afternoon and quoted singer Ronnie Hawkins, who reportedly confirmed the rumour. The story was published on several websites, including the Vancouver Sun, the Ottawa Citizen and the Calgary Herald, before it was pulled down.

One report had singer Ronnie Hawkins confirming the death.

Mr. Hawkins says he heard the rumour via his management team in the United States, which said they heard it by phone from someone claiming to be Lightfoot's grandson.

"I think they can trace that phone call, maybe, and see who did that," Hawkins said from his home in Peterborough, Ont.

"Oh what a dirty, sick joke that is, but I'm glad it was a sick joke and not the truth."

A spokesman for Canwest did not immediately return calls for comment.

ERRONEOUS REPORT:

http://ow.ly/i/wMO/original

[RM]

Ma'am,

What are you talking about ?

[imported_Ordinary_Man]

I live in Saint Louis and it was reported on our paper's user forum. I googled and a bunch of Canadian news websites said that he had died last night. I am SO VERY glad it is not true.
Am going to see him at the Ryman in March.

Steve

[gretschviking1967]

A friend of mine sent me an email telling me Lightfoot had passed on!!! My heart sank but I am so glad that it was a hoax!!!


Morons on Twitter should really get a friggin' life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT FUNNY!!!!!! IDIOTS!!!!!


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/gordon-lightfoot-very-much-alive/article1473102/

[charlene]

Gord was just on the local radio to say he is just fine..
he didn't know why the radio was playing his songs...
most online papers have pulled the story....
http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100218/100218_lightfoot_hoax/20100218/?hub=CP24Entertainment

[imported_Ordinary_Man]

I read he was at the dentist when all this stuff hit the fan and driving home was wondering why the radio station was playing all his songs.
I had to laugh at that.

[DJ in MJ]

I'm just glad I heard about the hoax before I heard about the "death".

Delighted he's alive and well, but royally ticked at whomever needed to start such a rumour.

[Acadia]

What a terrible, horrible hoax, thank you Charlene for clearing that up.

[jj]

A friend of mine sent me an email telling me Lightfoot had passed on!!! My heart sank but I am so glad that it was a hoax!!!


Morons on Twitter should really get a friggin' life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT FUNNY!!!!!! IDIOTS!!!!!


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/gordon-lightfoot-very-much-alive/article1473102/


WOW,
miss a few days on corfid browsing and the sky falls! (well, even worse)

i dunno what would motivate the rumour, is he still on the no fly list? ;)

i did just read one reader comment under the G+M article (thanks for the link) and somehow got a grin out of it:

"I have to admit I was disappointed after reading the headline. Not disappointed that he wasn't dead, but because I thought the headline was going to lead into a story about a new album. "

hope GL & all here doing well ...still not too late to add GL to the closing ceremonies
j

[jj]

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/767612--gordon-lightfoot-not-dead?bn=1

Gordon Lightfoot alive and well
By BEN RAYNERPop Music Critic
Thu., Feb. 18, 2010
Gordon Lightfoot, it seems, learned of his own passing much later than most Canadians.

Unbeknownst to the 71-year-old Canadian folk icon, he was declared dead – first by a Twitter poster in Ottawa, then by a plethora of news websites, then by just about every other media outlet in the country – during a visit to his dentist on Thursday afternoon. It was only when he innocently flipped on the radio while driving back to his office that he learned that he was no longer alive. According to some reports, in fact, he had died the night before.

“I was quite surprised to hear it myself,” a good-humoured Lightfoot quipped in a call to CP24 hastily made upon his return to the Early Morning Productions office, where the phones were predictably ringing off the hook. “I’m sitting in my office right now.”

The speed with which Lightfoot’s death and resurrection in the media took place was amazing. At 2:40 p.m. EST, for instance, the Vancouver Sun’s website posted a brief announcing Lightfoot’s death, quoting fellow singer Ronnie Hawkins as saying his old friend had passed away the previous evening. By 2:52, it was gone.

“I’m fine. I’m in great health. I’ve been doing just fine. The whole thing’s a hoax,” said Lightfoot during another call, this one to 680 News, joking that “all of a sudden, my music is in heavy rotation.”

“We’re gonna be getting calls here all afternoon, I’m sure … I really appreciate the concern. I don’t know what to make of it but I hope that we’ll find out. But I’m fine.”

Where the rumours came from is anyone’s guess at this point. Hawkins is certainly baffled.

Reached at his rural-Ontario home, Hawkstone Manor, he called the whole affair “some kind of a sick joke” and graciously accepted the offer from this reporter of Lightfoot’s home phone number, which he’d misplaced, to ring up his old pal and apologize.

Hawkins said he’d received a call from his management office in Minneapolis earlier in the day telling him Lightfoot’s grandson had phoned in to say that the man responsible for such indelible folk tunes as “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “Early Morning Rain” had passed away the night before.

“I don’t know Gordon’s grandson. I didn’t even know if Gordon has a grandson,” he said, audibly flustered. “I called my wife in Florida and told her and I guess she faxed some of her friends and now, all of a sudden, it’s all over the world. It’s terrible. I can’t even get ahold of Gordon. Holy smoke, it’s unbelievable.

“It’s a sick joke. I’m glad it is a sick joke, but it’s bad.”

Lightfoot’s longtime manager, Bernie Fiedler, was clearly weary of the whole affair by the end of the afternoon. But at least he used it as an opportunity to promote the singer’s upcoming spring tour, which kicks off in St. John’s on March 29 and 30 and concludes at the John Labatt Centre in London on April 15.

“He’s alive and well,” affirmed Fiedler. “He’s looking forward to his touring.”
too bad the Lloyd Robertson rumour was a hoax...when he does pack it in (and move to FL or wherever) i hope he takes the entire CTV (Olympic) crew with him

[Yuri]

Yikes!!!!
I just had one of those "Where were you when J.F.K., John Lennon,.....died" moments.
Whewwwwww.....

[Yuri]

The Sun has a mini-gallery of photos of an alive & kickin' Gord.
http://www.torontosun.com/entertainment/2010/02/18/12933196.html

[Jesse Joe]

YIKES like Yuri said, I had just seen on TV that Gordon Lightfoot had been reported dead, but it was not true. It got a little scary for 5 to 10 minutes until I came here to his loyal fans to find out what was going on.

~Thanks~

[buzzard]

I was just driving home and on the five o'clock and about five items in, the local news guy said "Canadian music icon Gordon Lightfoot . . . " And I thought oh-oh. But I was delighted that he went on to say ". . . is dismissing reports of his death which were reported on the internet today. Lightfoot said is much alive and well. He (Lightfoot) said that at least the reports resulted in an increase in the amount of play his music was getting today".

At least he can maintain a sense of humour about the whole thing.

Brian

[charlene]

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2010/02/18/lightfoot-alive.html

Lightfoot responds to death reports: 'I'm fine'
Last Updated: Thursday, February 18, 2010 | 5:03 PM ET Comments79Recommend38CBC News
Gordon Lightfoot, pictured here in 2005, says he was at the dentist when he heard reports about his death. (Aaron Harris/Canadian Press)
Canadian icon Gordon Lightfoot said he was at the dentist when he heard on the radio that he was dead.

The folk legend, whose hits include If You Could Read My Mind, Sundown and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, took the news lightheartedly and was soon on the phone with Toronto-based all-news station CP24.

"I'm fine, everything is good. I don't know where it comes from. It seems like a bit of a hoax or something," the 71-year-old singer said. "I was quite surprised to hear [it] myself.

"I haven't had so much airplay on my music now for weeks."

The initial reports of Lightfoot's death appeared on Canwest news sites on Thursday afternoon, spreading instantaneously across many blogs and Twitter posts.

The report was discovered to be untrue within minutes of the news being posted.

B.C. Fiedler Management, Lightfoot's concert tour promoters, put out a quick statement proclaiming Lightfoot "is alive and in good health" and that the report was "false and completely without merit."

"This is just an unfortunate prank," said promoter Bernie Fiedler.

In fact, the singer's 12-city spring tour of Eastern Canada, Quebec and Ontario kicks off at the end of March starting in St. John's.

Lightfoot has been beset by health problems over the past few years. He suffered a ruptured artery in his stomach in 2002.

One report of the fake death attributed the news to fellow singer Ronnie Hawkins.

Hawkins says he heard the rumour through his management firm in the U.S., which told him that they heard it by phone from someone claiming to be Lightfoot's grandson.

"Oh what a dirty, sick joke that is, but I'm glad it was a sick joke and not the truth," Hawkins said.


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2010/02/18/lightfoot-alive.html#ixzz0fvoGHJko


Kenyon called me early this afternoon asking if I knew if the rumour was true. He had heard thru the newswire (he's a journo here in toronto) that Lightfoot had died on Wednesday night. He had called EMP and was told that they had just talked to him 30 minutes earlier. I then called Mr. Fiedler...and thankfully it's all a horrible rumour.

[TC]

I'm just glad I heard about the hoax before I heard about the "death".

Delighted he's alive and well, but royally ticked at whomever needed to start such a rumour.

I had not heard this until just a moment ago. I agree with DJ about hearing about the hoax first. Much easier on the emotions.

TC

[charlene]

I had not heard this until just a moment ago. I agree with DJ about hearing about the hoax first. Much easier on the emotions.

TC

omigawd you have that right..i'm just now breathing properly...

[charlene]

from the web...

[BILLW]

Well I'm glad I missed that rumor! Thanks for the follow-up Char. Did I ever tell you that you're underpaid?

Bill :)

Long Live Lightfoot!!! (LLL)

[Gord H]

I just got wind of it myself.. what a bunch of sick jokers!!!! The Hamilton Spectator had a story that Grant Avenue Studios has been working with Lightfoot over the last few weeks making preparations to release a live CD from various concerts from Massey Hall. Hopefully this is indeed true, cuz I will take that if he's not going to put out a new CD of fresh material :)

[charlene]

Well I'm glad I missed that rumor! Thanks for the follow-up Char. Did I ever tell you that you're underpaid?

Bill :)

Long Live Lightfoot!!! (LLL)

i'll accept a raise in pay anyday..especially TODAY!!!
lol

[podunklander]

I'm visitng a friend -we had been out all day and back at her house @5pm. While I was in the kitchen -she was checking her email and voicemail. So I heard a voicemail message...that Gordon Lightfoot had passed away :(. Clutching my chest and in near shock...I walked into my friend's office and fortunately she had just read an email informing her it was a hoax...which she very quickly passed along to me before I passed out!

[gretschviking1967]

Man, my heart almost stopped when I was told of this. Good to know I can come here and be amongst friends!


Whew!!!!!!

[gretschviking1967]

"LLL"


Long Live Lightfoot!!!!


I love it!!!


:)

[fezo]

Yeah, I heard the report after i had already heard it wasn't true. Something like a headline GORDON LIGHTFOOT IS STILL ALIVE. Well, anything for a bit more airplay I suppose but what a sicko starting such a thing.

[charlene]

video clip - from tv today: (links stopped working -this is my camera video of the TV) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbj6QrSPQtY

Lightfoot very much alive, despite reports of death

CTV.ca News Staff
Published Thursday, February 18, 2010 6:35PM EST
Celebrated singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot was in his car on Thursday when he heard some curious news over the radio: Gordon Lightfoot was dead.

Contrary to the report, however, Lightfoot had just had a dentist appointment and was driving to his Toronto office.
"My phone was ringing off the hook in my office when I got there," said Lightfoot, who put the rumour to rest in an interview with CTV Toronto's Paul Bliss.

Not only did the singer, who is 71, have to field numerous calls and set the media straight, he also had to get in touch with his five children in the Toronto area and let them know he was okay.
"I just made it my business to get on the phone and jump right in there and let everybody know it isn't so."
Despite the severity of the situation, Lightfoot appeared to be taking it lightly.
"I was shocked of course," he said, joking that "it's the best day for airplay that we've had in weeks."
The rumour appears to have started on Twitter, and in turn was spread across the Internet when several Canwest media websites posted the news.
Lightfoot said he wasn't sure how the rumour began on Twitter.
"I'll just keep moving forward," he said. "I know it's going to sort itself out."
Lightfoot was born in Orillia, Ont., and has been a major musical force since the early 1960s.
He is considered one of Canada's best-loved musicians, gaining fame with songs such as "If You Could Read My Mind" and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

[bjm7777]

I just watched the CTV interview with Paul Bliss - had to laugh, that's for sure. But, any publicity is good publicity with the upcoming Spring tour soon underway.
Somebody on the CBC site wrote that Gord was "FAMILY". I thought that was well put.

[bjm7777]

...and I should know better than to look for stories on the internet when all I had to do is hit the links that our fine moderator has posted here for us. Thank you much...

[fezo]

How curious. The CTV site puts me through a commercial and then when teh actual content is to up pops a dialog box that says "Canada only." Swell.

[bjm7777]

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/767612--gordon-lightfoot-not-dead?bn=1

too bad the Lloyd Robertson rumour was a hoax...when he does pack it in (and move to FL or wherever) i hope he takes the entire CTV (Olympic) crew with him

Too funny, JJ!

[buzzard]

The CTV interviews were fascinating and very upbeat. Also you don't see him often speaking publicly with his specs. He looked very relaxed.

Brian

[Jenn]

Lll!

[charlene]

http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2010/02/18/12937261.html - video at link

Thursday, February 18, 2010
Joe Warmington
News of Lightfoot's demise greatly exaggerated
Last Updated: February 18, 2010 7:35pm

Click here to watch the videoGood thing Gordon Lightfoot has a sense of humour. Even about his own supposed death.
If only you could have read Gordon Lightfoot’s mind when he heard the news he was dead.
“I looked in the mirror in my car and said ‘I don’t look dead,’ ” the Canadian music legend said jokingly Thursday night.

But if you believe what you read, for several hours Thursday, the iconic singer was no longer with us.

Twitter said so.

So did many reputable media websites and news outlets.

“Canadian icon Gordon Lightfoot dead at 71,” was the typical headline posted.

Turns out reports of Lightfoot’s death were not just exaggerated but outright wrong.

“It’s crazy,” the Orillia-born superstar singer of such hits as The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, If You Could Read My Mind, Sundown and Rainy Day People said in an interview. “I don’t know where it came from.”

Lightfoot started his day by dropping into his office at Early Morning Productions at Yonge and Bloor Sts., and then drove to a dental appointment.

Then he got the shock of his lifetime.

“I was listening to Charles Adler on AM 640 when I heard him say I was dead,” said the 16-time Juno winner, member of the Order of Canada and Canada’s Walk of Fame. “I was stunned. I immediately went into the office and had them call, and then I went on with Charles to let everyone know I am here.”

It was great radio for the nationally syndicated Alder, who so far is the only media person to admit his error. “What a relief said host with egg on face,” Adler said jokingly last night. “I have never been happier to be wrong about a story.”

Not every day you get a story wrong and a scoop in announcing that at the same time.

But this is the fast-paced media world that is Twitter and the like. You can’t blame a national radio host for going live on the air with something posted on news websites.

Some are calling it an Internet hoax, but that does not take off the hook the mainstream newspapers that went with the story — quoting Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins as the primary source.

Lightfoot said at first he thought it was humourous. But then came the reality that he has a young daughter in school. “She heard about it and was upset,” he said. “I had to reassure her I was okay.”

It shows how dangerous news-by-tweet can be.

One call to Early Morning Productions put the false report to rest — which is what the Sun’s music writer Jane Stevenson did. “I’m fine, thank you,” Lightfoot told her. “The whole thing is a hoax. I’m in great health. I’m doing fine. I’m running around right now, doing my errands.”

Yet the rumours persisted on line.

Gordon is so strong and such a battler, it would be hard to imagine him going down without a fight. His survival from a 2002 stomach aneurysm, and his comeback to touring, is stuff of legend.

“When I got the call about the report I didn’t believe it because my wife, Carol, and I just had dinner with him and he looks great,” close friend George Bigliardi said. “But I have to admit for a few minutes there I was very upset that our country lost one of its greatest ever entertainers and a very special person. We are so relieved it was wrong.”

When I tracked down Gordon at a downtown office building yesterday he had a grin on his face and a gleam in his eye. Wearing a Canada pin and a yellow Support the Troops pin, he told me he had never had a stranger day.

“I am too busy to be dead,” Lightfoot said with a smile. “I have a rehearsal (Friday) and next week we are heading to the United States for 10 shows before coming back home to play at Casino Rama.”

He is very much alive and things are going great. Turns out the sun has not gone down just yet. “Heck,” Lightfoot said, laughing. “I haven’t had this much publicity and radio air-time in years.”

joe.warmington@sunmedia.ca
www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=23&v=4TbEcUA5BVY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TbEcUA5BVY&feature=youtu.be

[charlene]

http://www.charlesadler.com/2010/02/gordon-lightfoot-very-much-alive.html - audio on radio.
talking about daughter hearing news before he could get to her..

[byKimberly]

Geez... glad I heard about this bizarre situation post rather than during. Can't even imagine how one would take the news knowing that they are breathing at the same time...
Kimberly

[charlene]

Ronnie Hawkins talks about the rumour:
http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100218/gordon_lightfoot_100218/20100218/?hub=MontrealHome

[ColoradoSue]

There was also an internet rumour today about Whitney Houston dying &/or dead as well.

It aint true.

As for Gordy, wellllll....let me put it this way:


"Cockroaches, as a group, have been around far longer than man, over 200 million years, and they are survivors. They can withstand extremes in heat or cold, lack of food, lack of water, and even extremes in radiation. The last has been studied. At a research station operated by Oregon State University (http://water-oceanography.helium.com/topic/4273-oregon-state-university), various species of cockroaches were subjected to radiation many times higher than the lethal amount for humans. Not only did they survive, they multiplied.
This means that in the event of a nuclear war, man may be wiped off the map, but the cockroaches would probably continue to survive."

....and Gordy will probably outlive the cockroaches--which is fine with me!


"I am not afraid of death, I just dont want to be around when it happens"

Woody Allen

[Jesse Joe]

Watch & listen to all those little video & audio clips here this morning, all very interesting & informative.

"I was shocked of course," he said, joking that "it's the best day for airplay that we've had in weeks." ~gl~ (lol ! pretty cool !)


The Legend lives on ! :)

[Dave, Melbourne,Australia]

I'm also glad I heard the correction before the rumour. I haven't heard anything about Gord in Australia's media this week. (They might have been more cautious after falling for recent hoaxes saying Jeff Goldblum had died and Van Morrison had had another child at the age of 64.)

Some interesting comments added by readers of those newspaper reports about the Lightfoot hoax:
"Now he just needs to make a hit song based on this."
"C'mon Gord ... There's got to be a song in this!"

If it's true that Grant Avenue Studios have been working with Gord over the last few weeks on a possible record from his many concerts at Massey Hall, that song (recorded in a studio or in an upcoming concert anywhere) would be a popular bonus track.

[charlene]

Toronto Sun:

[charlene]

YouTube- CP24 - Lightfoot dispels death rumour-feb.18-2010

YouTube- Ronnie Hawkins talks of phone call telling him Gordon Lightfoot had died-Feb.18,2010

[imported_Next_Saturday]

and from the NY Times:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/19/arts/19gordon_cap/19gordon_cap-articleInline.jpg
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/gordon-lightfoot-lives/?scp=1&sq=gordon%20lightfoot&st=cse
February 19, 2010, 9:57 am
Gordon Lightfoot Lives!
By DAVE ITZKOFF
Reuters The singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.

If you could read Gordon Lightfoot’s mind right now, what a tale his thoughts would tell. On Thursday, the Canadian news media (not to mention the general population of the Twitterverse) was abuzz with apparent news that Mr. Lightfoot, 71, the smooth-voiced singer-songwriter of “Sundown” and “Carefree Highway,” had died while on tour. But like the man sang in “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” the legend lives on: Reuters reported that Mr. Lightfoot called into Toronto’s CP24 news station to say he was very much alive. “It seems like a bit of a hoax,” Mr. Lightfoot said. “I was quite surprised to hear it myself.” He added: “I feel fine.”

The mistaken report of Mr. Lightfoot’s death, which appears to have originated on Twitter, was carried by the Canwest News Service as well as the Web sites of the Vancouver Sun, Ottawa Citizen, and Calgary Herald newspapers, all of which have since corrected their stories. Mr. Lightfoot, meanwhile, has walked away like a movie star who gets burned in a three-way script, whatever that means.

[fezo]

Thanks for posting that. Couldn't get it here in the states.

That newswoman is annoying! Kept stepping on Gord's lines. If you are interviewing someone it would eb nice to let them talk...

[formerlylavender]

OMG! I had a meeting this morning, so I didn't check in first thing like I normally do. I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad this isn't true. This fine Friday would have turned into a Black Friday for sure. LLL!

[charlene]

YouTube- CTV - Gordon Lightfoot talks about the rumour that he had died. Feb.18,2010

[jj]

... a post by Meredith...
"Have you ever loved someone so much that you get tears in your eyes whenever you think of them? I love you, Daddy... <3"


that's a beauty, kate...i'm struggling with placing those words coming out of the saucy, young gal with the multicoloured mohawk hair, but i should know better than to judge a book by it's cover:)

i love some of the other quotes and info in this thread also

- Gord, too busy to be dead....lol, true, this is no time to croak, there's some interesting olympic hockey games coming up...love that he's got his canuck and troop support pins happening

- thanks for all the links char and for that new live CD update, gordh

- dave, you're right...a new fun tune about this all, something like "no hotel"... maybe "no funeral home"?

- bj, just having fun with Lloyd and all...some irritate me for sure but i do dig williams and laflamme...pierre mcguire, agh

maybe GL was in on the hoax and it's a publicity stunt for his new cd...i am going to play his last CD backwards and listen for any muddle "I'll bury gord" message :cool:

good health to Gord and God bless Mer

[Auburn Annie]

Well holy moly I haven't checked corfid in a few days and what do I find but this! Seems to have been confined mostly to the greater Toronto area - hadn't seen it in US reports, amazingly enough, either reports of his "death" or corrections. And from TWITTER???? Geez Louise, such is the state of "journalism" these days.

Welcome "back" - again, Gord.

[charlene]

it was all over the place Annie but it's all been pulled from the internet..
just as fast as it was sent out it disappeared..
wowza..

[GJA]

Just heard about this awful rumor today. Thank goodness it wasn't true. I love you, Gord!

[formerlylavender]

Ronnie Hawkins is too cute and funny! What a nice friend Gord is to call him on his birthday.

Thanks for posting all the links, Char.

[fezo]

I saw that Ronnie lost his cousin Dale Hawkins - the guy who wrote Suzy-Q - this past Saturday.

[Robby Lake]

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/gordon-lightfoot-lives/
free meda coverage...ya' cant beat that!

[charlene]

and it just gets weirder:
this guy has a pic of Ron as Gordon Lightfoot:

http://www.mediastyle.ca/category/blog/

original tweeter rebecca fleming is a friend of ronnie hawkins wife..and there she goes!

Reporter david akins blog - and comments are below.
http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2010/2/18/4459652.html

http://www.threeseven.ca/2010/02/gordon-lightfoot-is-not-dead-heres-what.html

[Auburn Annie]

it was all over the place Annie but it's all been pulled from the internet..
just as fast as it was sent out it disappeared..
wowza..

Well serves me right for spending my time updating my publications list (zzzz - bo-ring but necessary). I'm surprised one or other of my kids didn't call me with the non-news. Just as well. I'd love to know who it was who called Ronnie posing as Gord's grandson with the news; I suspect a lot of Gord's people would like to know, too. Jerk!

[jj]

and it just gets weirder:
this guy has a pic of Ron as Gordon Lightfoot:

wow, i wonder if ron will chuckle or be really pissed off...he looks the latter

[charlene]

photo from Joe Warmington, Night Scrawler, Toronto Sun. Thanks Joe!\
Lightfoot checking his pulse...Thur.Feb.18, 2010. (and wearing a snazzy new plaid scarf...)
;)

[Jenney]

I do believe we now have the definition of kerfuffle.

Like many others here, I'm so glad I became aware of this after it was determined that it was a hoax.

[charlene]

I saw that Ronnie lost his cousin Dale Hawkins - the guy who wrote Suzy-Q - this past Saturday.


http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2010/02/19/2010-02-19_dale_hawkins_susie_q_singer_dies_at_age_73_his_ only_major_hit_still_holds_up.html

[charlene]

he's a true Canadian - he knows the meaning of kerfuffle and how to live thru one!
lol

I wish I'd heard about it afterwards...

[RM]

I saw that Ronnie lost his cousin Dale Hawkins - the guy who wrote Suzy-Q - this past Saturday.

Are you sure that's true ? "Is there something I can believe in".

This has to be one of the greatest Corfid threads ever.

[charlene]

and I read online somewhere today - "being a polite Canadian, Gordon Lightfoot has apologized for not being dead"...

oh dear.

I feel bad for Ronnie to hear that news about his longtime friend and then get sucked into this hoaxhell.
Wanda Hawkins had no idea what would happen...BUT a quick phone call to the proper sources by the media folks would have ended the rumour in it's tracks...

the source of the phone call with the news needs to be sussed out.

[Dan O'Malley]

SICK BASTARDS!! he ain't ready to go yet!

[fezo]

Back a couple of years ago I met Gord after a show. During that show he told the Elvis doing EMR and changing the line to "cold and drunk as I might be." I asked him how about the change from "where the cold winds blow" to "where the pavement never grows." His initial answer was "was it ever where the cold winds blow?" and I assured him he once recorded it with those words. His next answer, my favorite, was priceless - "I have no idea!" He thought about it a second and finally said "That must have been Ronnie Hawkins. Peter, Paul and Mary used those words and Ronnie's the guy that introduced the song to them." His fondness for Ronnie was obvious which makes this fiasco - OK, kerfuffle - all teh more unfortunate.

[Wheels]

Gord should have a lot of years left being that he has that great disposition and sense of humor. Thanks for the good news!

[brina]

Wow I am so glad the report was not true. Known Gordon Lightfoot since the 60's . I worked for his dad. We only lived a couple blocks from each other. I can't believe someone would start a rumor like that. Takes all kinds.

[Unsettled 1]

I've always thought the change was to "with a pain that ever grows". I could be wrong though. Anyway, I'm just happy it was all a mistake, and Gord will go on forever.

[DawnsMinstrel]

I always thought it was "with a pain that ever grows" too. And that the earlier recording was "Where the cold wind blows."

And for even more off topic business - how about the change in Steel Rail Blues from "with my hat in my hand" to "with my head in the sand." The former always made more sense to me.

Back to on topic - I'm also very glad I learned of the hoax before I heard anything else about it at all. I sure wish Journalists would remember that they're supposed to confirm stories before they publsh them.

[jj]

I wish I'd heard about it afterwards...

oh, poor char...that is awful (but i guess there must have been a euphoric moment along the way:) )

i was behind on the news that day (most of the week actually) so heard the correction long before the error...not as behind as the wife though, just last night (ie. 48 hours later!) she came home and said, I am sorry to hear about Gordon Lightfoot

[fezo]

Just to keep life interesting I've found all three posted as lyrics....

When I sing it I mumble there just to be safe.

[charlene]

[QUOTE=jj;159090]oh, poor char...that is awful (but i guess there must have been a euphoric moment along the way:) )

i was behind on the news that day (most of the week actually) so heard the correction long before the error...not as behind as the wife though, just last night (ie. 48 hours later!) she came home and said, I am sorry to hear about Gordon Lightfoot[/QUOT


LOL!!! Poor Mich...

At least Gord knew right away the whole thing wasn't true!!!...I had about 10 minutes of sheer panic ... it still takes my breath away. I think I aged 10 years in those 10 minutes.
I am now a senior citizen...
lol

[johnfowles]

[QUOTE=jj;159090]I am sorry to hear about Gordon Lightfoot[/QUOT
At least Gord knew right away the whole thing wasn't true!!!...I had about 10 minutes of sheer panic ... it still takes my breath away. I think I aged 10 years in those 10 minutes.
I am now a senior citizen...
lol
and I bet your hair turned grey too
http://www.focusdep.com/images/Joan_Baez_1167309611122827.jpg
http://shirleybassey.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/joanbaez.jpg?w=298&h=424

[Robby Lake]

What a sense of humour!

[podunklander]

http://www.charlesadler.com/2010/02/gordon-lightfoot-very-much-alive.html - audio on radio.
talking about daughter hearing news before he could get to her..

In this interview, Gordon mentioned there had once been a false rumor @Paul McCartney's death -which reminded me of when this happened to Joe DiMaggio...a couple of years before he passed away. A newspaper had prematurely released his obituary (which, as with many notable persons, are pre-written).

Early last year I was doing a search for "Gordon Lightfoot" via MSN and on the side bar for 'related searches' @Gordon, the 1st listed was "Gordon Lightfoot Death"...and for a moment, I became alarmed! Before Massey, while doing the same search...it was still there! I just looked again and it's still there. Anyone seeing that for the 1st time might wonder or take it more seriously.

[podunklander]

I've always thought the change was to "with a pain that ever grows". I could be wrong though. Anyway, I'm just happy it was all a mistake, and Gord will go on forever.

Right about the lyric change -but when I 1st heard him sing it in concert "pain that" sure did sound like 'pavement' to me. And he did not pronounce the "v" in 'ever' so I thought he used the contraction, e're. But then wondered if it could be "ere" as well.

Next time, again he didn't pronounce the "v" but two distinct syllables, for sure I was certain it was e're. But then I did pick up that he sang "pain that" and not pavement...but that imagery has always stuck with me and that's how I sing it. Since then too, I've heard him sing "ever"...with the "v".

[Jesse Joe]

Search for someone dead or alive, just type in the name of the person in the bar. :eek:


http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.Nsf/lnames-nf/Lightfoot+Gordon

[timetraveler]

Ya know, I think that I'd just LOVE to get close enough to the fat headed twits who started the friggin' rumour & give them not just a slap in the face, but a well deserved kick in the seat of the pants & a major wedgy to boot! It really does seem that bean heads like that have no life beyond scaring the wits out of people. I'd almost be willing to bet that when they were children, they used to drown ants or use magnifying glasses to fry them. Anything to get a stir going. Barbarians!!!

[podunklander]

Search for someone dead or alive, just type in the name of the person in the bar. :eek:


http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.Nsf/lnames-nf/Lightfoot+Gordon

Creepy...but it works :p http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.Nsf/bnames-nf/Bush+George+W

[charlene]

National Post - week in review - Cartoons
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/02/20/gary-clement-s-week-in-review-feb-14-to-feb-20-2010.aspx

[vlmagee]

Lightfoot never recorded it with "pavement" but he definitely sang it that way for a short time in the 60s. There is at least one live recording that definitely has "pavement" and "never grows". It's one of 4 GL songs on a strange MP3 compilation of "country, blues and western classics":

www.gordonlightfoot.com/LiveLightfootCutsfromthe1960s.shtml (http://www.gordonlightfoot.com/LiveLightfootCutsfromthe1960s.shtml)

I love that version of the lyrics!

[charlene]

Globe and Mail:


Murder by Tweet: The great Lightfoot blackout of 02/18

Blame bounced back and forth between new and old media on Thursday as each accused the other of starting false reports that musician Gordon Lightfoot had died.

The rumour began as a prank phone call to musician Ronnie Hawkins’ manager. As Ottawa media consultant Ian Capstick explains, Mr. Hawkins told his wife, Wanda, who spread the news by phone, Facebook and even fax. It hit Twitter mid-afternoon with the post “RIP Gordon Lightfoot” from the (now-deleted) Fleminski account, which belonged to Ottawa resident Rebecca Fleming.

According to Mr. Capstick, CanWest News Service called Ms. Fleming, who pointed them to Wanda Hawkins’ Facebook page. A CanWest reporter confirmed the mistaken belief with Ronnie Hawkins by telephone and CanWest issued an in-house news alert, which reporter David Akin relayed to his roughly 2,500 Twitter followers: “Gordon Lightfoot has died, sources close to the singer say.”

Tweeters at Roots Music Canada tried to quell rumours by posting: “Gordon Lightfoot was on the phone and fine half an hour ago.” But the shipwreck had already happened. Over the next two hours more than 3,000 new Tweets spread the false news. Meanwhile, CanWest newspaper websites had run with their story and before long Gordon Lightfoot was listening to radio reports of his death while driving to a dentist appointment in Toronto.

Roughly an hour after his initial post, Mr. Akin Tweeted that Mr. Lightfoot’s manager had denied the rumour. Media retractions followed, and the tide of false Twitter posts gave way to relief, media commentary, and, of course, snappy one-liners.

The Twitter reaction:

“What a day for Canada, 3rd GOLD medal won in Olympics & Gordon Lightfoot un-dies. Who says Canada is boring?”

“Blaming Twitter for spreading the false news of Gordon Lightfoot's death is like blaming trees 4 incorrect newspaper article.”

“This just in: Gordon Lightfoot among 6 billion humans NOT dead.”

“If You Could Read My Obit: Gordon Lightfoot comeback song.”

“I'll never forget where I was when I heard Gordon Lightfoot was alive.”

“It might have been more believable if Gordon Lightfoot had tweeted about the National Post’s demise. Just sayin'.”

“Headline: Canada media still learning Twitter. In related news: Gordon Lightfoot still not dead.”

“Does this mean Lent is over? The resurrection of Gordon Lightfoot – bring on the choco bunnies.”

“Gordon Lightfoot's condition upgraded to ‘alive.’ “

“I just learned that Gordon Lightfoot is still alive before I had even heard he had died.”

[johnfowles]

BTW - has anyone noticed the resemblance between Char & Joan Baez in the pic Sir John has posted? Hair, eyes, smile. Wow.
I of course did and I purposely chose those two pix to make my point, never having seen a picture of Char before she went grey,Unless that is, like me she started going grey when very young
At school aged about 13/14 I well remember being set upon by class "mates" who were intent on pulling all my newly emerging grEy hairs out, no doubt helping their proliferation? Note that at no time did my hair turn grAy!!

[Yuri]

A letter to the editor I came across in the Toronto Sun newspaper sums it up for a lot of us here

Canada’s best singer

Re “Singing from the grave” (Joe Warmington, Feb. 19): As a huge Gordon Lightfoot fan, it hit me like an 18-wheeler when I heard he had died. I was devastated and totally depressed. Then, shortly after, came the best news I had heard in years — Lightfoot is alive. I have even forgiven Canwest because our beloved Gord is still with us. Charles Adler summed it up best — “I have never been happier to be wrong about a story.” Canwest should realize there are losers out there who use the Internet for scurrilous agendas. I hope this is never repeated. Long live the greatest Canadian singer ever.

Harry S. Anchan

Calgary

(What could the agenda possibly be for saying Lightfoot is dead when he’s not?)

[Bill]

Glad I missed the rumor!

[charlene]

no agenda - just stooopidity....

[podunklander]

New York magazine article places Gordon in the "I saw my own obituary" club:

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/02/gordon_lightfoot_and_the_i_saw.html

Probably, we'll never know the identity of the prankster who called Ronnie Hawkins' management office...that's bizarre for someone to call like that and of course, not funny in the least.

But Gordon's response for sure in good form with his humor. And some comments I read in blogs, etc:

http://www.canada.com/health/Singer+songwriter+Gordon+Lightfoot+dead/2582156/story.html

[jj]

...that's bizarre for someone to call like that and of course, not funny in the least.


unimaginable (and unlikely) that any child of Ingrid or Fred (or Galen?) would do that...odd that Ronnie would think the family would delegate the 'notifying family and close friends call' duties to a grandchild

i wonder if they ever got that call traced...could have come from a booth i suppose....btw, ever noticed how hard it is to find a booth these days...not everyone has a cell phone, eh

[fezo]

Lightfoot never recorded it with "pavement" but he definitely sang it that way for a short time in the 60s. There is at least one live recording that definitely has "pavement" and "never grows". It's one of 4 GL songs on a strange MP3 compilation of "country, blues and western classics":

www.gordonlightfoot.com/LiveLightfootCutsfromthe1960s.shtml (http://www.gordonlightfoot.com/LiveLightfootCutsfromthe1960s.shtml)

I love that version of the lyrics!

Good to know I am not losing my mind. Well, not on that issue anyway.

[Moosedog]

Many of the blog comments I've been seeing are comical. Some posters seem to have turned it into a "competition" to see who discovered it was a rumor first. I'm pretty sure there is no prize. LOL Oh wait...the prize is the fact that it was just a rumor. :)

[podunklander]

unimaginable (and unlikely) that any child of Ingrid or Fred (or Galen?) would do that...odd that Ronnie would think the family would delegate the 'notifying family and close friends call' duties to a grandchild

i wonder if they ever got that call traced...could have come from a booth i suppose....btw, ever noticed how hard it is to find a booth these days...not everyone has a cell phone, eh

In the interviews, Ronnie does say it struck him as odd. Had he received the call directly, I'm sure he would have questioned the caller further. Once I saw the word 'prank' used...made me think that someone he knew either thought it would somehow be funny, or it was intended to be malicious. Doesn't seem to be the work of Ashton Kutcher.

Last time I saw (and used) a booth lol was at a gas station on the outskirts of Hamilton. Our cell phones don't work in CA. No phonebook at the booth or inside the station.

[podunklander]

Many of the blog comments I've been seeing are comical. Some posters seem to have turned it into a "competition" to see who discovered it was a rumor first. I'm pretty sure there is no prize. LOL Oh wait...the prize is the fact that it was just a rumor. :)

LMAO
Did you read the one where someone jokingly wrote that they thought Gordon had died on the Edmund Fitzgerald? But there were a few out there who seriously didn't know Gordon was still alive.

oh geez, a competition to see who was the 1st to squelch the rumor? How lame is that!

[fezo]

Hmmm... Pam comments on the previous posts but not the one about losing my mind. That tells me all i need to know.....

I did like the comment that said his condition had been upgraded to alive.

[charlene]

in the spirit of the Olympics: Lightfoot - 1 / Grim Reaper - 0

lol

[jj]

in the spirit of the Olympics: Lightfoot - 1 / Grim Reaper - 0

lol

lol. i hope degree of difficuly was taken into account


ok, joking aside (but still an uncomfortable topic), do you think GL has a plot reserved at some place in Toronto like Mt Pleasant or perhaps a spot up by his mom and dad...or ratehr where would an appropriate place be to scatter ashes?

"I will do my final number, by Lake Couchiching"

[Borderstone]

Well , like the rest of you here ....I too was relieved at this news. (That it wasn't true.)

I only saw this story on my local news,thankfully,after it had already cleared up as a hoax.

I fortunatley had not heard,seen or read anything about him being gone,If i had I would have bawled like I did for MJ.

Godon's stickin' with us until he's 100! ;) Strange part is ,just the day before i had played one of my Songbook CDs! :eek:

[Auburn Annie]

"...do you think GL has a plot reserved at some place in Toronto like Mt Pleasant or perhaps a spot up by his mom and dad...or ratehr where would an appropriate place be to scatter ashes?"

in the lee of Christian Island? where the green dark forests are too silent to be real? Beyond the wild misty mountain,within the valley so free? And of course: when I get my final slumber, when I pawn my diamond ring,
I will do my final number, by Lake Couchiching...

[podunklander]

Hmmm... Pam comments on the previous posts but not the one about losing my mind. That tells me all i need to know.....

I did like the comment that said his condition had been upgraded to alive.

oh well, that's because it's nothing new :p

[Yuri]

I didn’t kill Gordon Lightfoot

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/i-didnt-kill-gordon-lightfoot/article1481522/

Many people blamed me last week when rumours of his death arose. I just happened to be the first to tweet about it

Rebecca Fleming

From Friday's Globe and Mail Published on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010 4:33PM EST Last updated on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010 8:45PM EST

The un-news was short-lived. On Feb. 18, the media had legendary Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot dead, then un-dead, within the span of about an hour. That was pretty easy for Mr. Lightfoot to clear up, from his car on the way to the dentist.

But my own good no-name, not so much. I, Rebecca Fleming (heard of me? Didn't think so), have been identified by several news sources as ground zero for the rumour. I, a full-time biologist with two little kids recovering from gastroenteritis, apparently have nothing better to do on a Thursday afternoon in quarantine than to start celebrity death hoaxes.

The idea is kind of appealing in principle – having the time, free headspace and lack of conscience to dream up twisted schemes like this. Not to mention having that kind of clout and credibility. Can you imagine? Move over, Perez Hilton.

But alas, my sole claim to infamy is that I, @fleminski, was the first to tweet “RIP Gordon Lightfoot.” I had heard the news from a mutual friend of Ronnie Hawkins (who, incidentally, introduced my parents to each other). Someone claiming to be Gordon Lightfoot's grandson started the whole business with a prank call to Mr. Hawkins's management. But nobody seems to be interested in him. He used the telephone. And dude, that's just so 20th century.

If you want to spread things fast, Twitter is your friend. Or your enemy, as the case may be.

I was a Twitter nobody with a mere 100 followers, tweeting just for fun, a molecule in the Twitter sea. But 10 minutes after I posted that seemingly innocent tweet, I got a call from a CanWest reporter. I pretty much had the feeling of floating above my body when I realized the magnitude of what I had done. But my first thought wasn’t, “What if it isn't true?” It was, “What if his family doesn't know yet?”

The reporter assured me she had heard the rumour elsewhere and needed a source, so I spilled. Then I set about protecting my tweets in a vain attempt to stop the spread of the news. Not long afterward, I got a tweet from @rootsmusicanada, who had confirmed that Gordon Lightfoot was alive and well. After a brief moment with my head between my knees, trying to maintain consciousness, I posted an apologetic retraction, which went out to, well, nobody, because my tweets were protected.

Around the same time, I started seeing “RIP Gordon Lightfoot” everywhere. On Facebook, on Twitter and, oh my gosh, in the news. I panicked. I deleted my Twitter account outright (RIP @fleminski) and turned off my computer in the hope that it would all just go away.

It didn’t.

By the time I went back online, Gordon Lightfoot was officially undead (phew!) and the witch hunt was on (uh-oh!). Media guru and sleuth Ian Capstick was hot on my trail, and even had my picture and the dreaded tweet in question on his blog. Commenters were gleefully posting personal information about me: my full name, where I lived, whom I worked for. So I did what anybody in my situation would do. I opened a bottle of wine, and began to drink.

Meanwhile, Ronnie Hawkins, Gordon Lightfoot's production company and the media were unable to make any kind of connection between the phone-call hoax and my tweet, and nobody was quite sure which came first. Of course, @fleminski was nowhere to be found. But never mind that.

In reality, my tweet was a pop rock compared to respected CanWest journalist David Akin’s atomic bomb. He innocently tweeted, to his many journalist followers, a CanWest alert: “Gordon Lightfoot has died, sources close to the singer say.” Kaboom.

You can figure out the rest.

In the wake of Lightfoot's good-humoured resurrection, a huge blamestorm blew through the media and blogosphere, and few seemed to be able to get the story straight. People largely blamed Twitter and lack of journalistic integrity. And they blamed little old me.

Hardly anybody seemed to care about the prankster who started this whole thing with a call to Mr. Hawkins's management. But I'm betting even he is surprised at the magnitude of the outcome.

I think this all boils down to the fact that we're human. It's not unusual for people to die. And we're inherently gullible, especially when we have no reason to doubt the story or the source. Ronnie Hawkins believed his management. CanWest and I believed Ronnie Hawkins. David Akin believed CanWest. The rest of the media believed David Akin. Thankfully, Gordon Lightfoot didn't believe the radio, or he wouldn't have made it to his dentist appointment.

Though I wasn't the origin of this hoax, I know that I acted as a significant and unwitting catalyst, and for that I am deeply sorry. I am glad that Gordon Lightfoot lives on to sing about the things that make us all human. Our passions, our fears and, most of all, our mistakes.

Rebecca Fleming lives in Ottawa.

***23 Comments to date - go to link at top to view

[charlene]

It was pretty clear almost immediately that she wasn't the source... I feel for her..

David (Roots Music Canada) tweeted he had contacted EMP after finding out it was a rumour with them and I phoned B. Fiedler at the same time and let Kenyon (who called me with the news he saw on the news wire) know all was well..
Ronnie Hawkins was on the radio and tv talking about the phone call from a grandson so it was clear that a tweet didn't start it. A Tweeter just innocently took erroneous info, and passed it on. Tweets are a lot faster way to pass info on than years ago and the audience is much larger.

The culprits are the originator who made the call and the media person who did not complete due process in confirming such a serious story with the proper sources.

They owe me 10 years..

;)

[buzzard]

Interesting article. Makes me wonder where we're going with news reporting and verification of sources. I thought Lightfoot took the whole thing with very good humour. I also thought the illustration in today's Globe was particularly unflattering.

Brian

[charlene]

http://mitchellshannon.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/gordon-lightfoot-3-grim-reaper-0/
February 28, 2010
GORDON LIGHTFOOT 3, GRIM REAPER 0
Gordon Lightfoot, a folksinger and a preeminent cultural figure up here in Canada, last week suffered the unkindest death of all, which is the widespread assumption by his audience and countrymen that he had died. The phony news of his expiration was spread via Internet-borne rumors. Ersatz-death, where is thy dignity?


Rompin` Ronnie: Tell me, wha'd I say
A couple of idiots who get paid by large news organizations to know better reported the baseless gossip as fact on their newspaper and TV websites, and somehow managed to get Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins, the merry old rockabilly character, to confirm the faux-report. The Hawk is like a current-day Gabby Hayes, the kind of fellow whose opinion you might seek if you were looking for an incoherent response along lines of, “Dad-gum the dasted durn ding-dong!” His confirmation, if that’s what it was, of his friend’s death made the tragedy true, but only for as long as it took Lightfoot to receive word that he had croaked. (I use ‘croak’ here in a colloquial sense, to mean ‘died’. I did not intend to draw attention to the singer’s long-diminished vocal prowess, but we’ll need to raise this unfortunate aspect in due course.)

Lightfoot claimed to be just leaving his mid-town Toronto office when he learned of his death. Artists in other places work out of garrets, but I love that folksingers in Canada have mid-town offices. “Miss Stitt! Take some dictation: ‘Sundown, you better take care, comma, if I find you been creepin’ round my back stairs.’ Make two copies, and then get me Cisco Houston on line four.”

As it happily turned out, Lightfoot wasn’t deceased in the slightest, to paraphrase Michael Palin’s landmark dead-parrot sketch. The singer was as vital — and outwardly amused by the incident — as you would expect from any plucky septuagenarian stroke-victim with a precarious medical chart.
Like many, I found Lightfoot’s close brush with death to be unsettling. I have longstanding ties to the Canadian music scene, having once been beaten up as a child attending Danesbury Public School by Murray McLaughlin, the famously sensitive songwriter who lived on the other side of Lyon Avenue. I forgave McLaughlin years after the incident when he recorded “On the Boulevard,” a fine song about workingmen killing time on Lakeshore Blvd. in Etobicoke, the street where Lightfoot once earned a DUI citation after catching Adam Timoon‘s pub gig at the Seaway Hotel. (Adam Timoon these days occasionally entertains the residents of the veterans’ nursing home where they’re looking after my dad. Small world, ain’t it?)
Critics of the newspaper industry are making much out of how the incompetents at Global News obliviously circulated the misinformation, because, you know, the only thing lower than an employee of those olde-timey media corporations is a self-described Internet-based critic of same. These blogospheric nudniks would use the undead Lightfoot to make a point about how the New Media are cleaning the clocks of the old, but this is like the naturopath celebrating when the oncology surgeon fails to fully remove someone’s tumor. Call it unseemly. The lesson to be gleaned is that all you consumers of news and information should paste a warning sticker that reads ‘caveat-freaking-emptor’ to your I-pads.

The main thing is that Lightoot is okay. I took in a Jimmy Buffett concert back in November -– uneasily stuck in the middle of 16,000 or so rabid, exceedingly moist and garrulous parrotheads –- and, from the stage, Mr. Buffett announced between songs that he’d rather be attending the Gordon Lightfoot gig that was taking place across town, but, sadly, he “had to work.” It seemed like an unguarded comment to offer to your paying audience, but give Jimmy full marks for honesty.

Taking his point, when we got home, my wife found a pair of decent seats for the final night in Lightfoot’s annual series of shows here in his hometown of Toronto. He draws a far smaller and less raucous audience than Buffett, and the crowd was rapt to a fault, which is understandable with the man’s grandchildren in attendance. There was a striking contrast in the styles of ‘70s singer-songwriters, I must observe: Buffett onstage barefoot in what looked like bathing trunks; Lightfoot, post-aneurysm surgery, post-mild stroke, wearing the atavistic costume of a geriatric elevator-operator in a budget-friendly mid-Manhattan tourist hotel. He looked too much like Seymour Cassel in “The Royal Tenenbaums.”

Lightfoot, who underwent a tracheotomy a few years back, seems to have appropriated the recent phrasing and vocal approach of his chum Bob Dylan, making the most of his new rasp, and using muted whispers to a powerful effect. When the 71-year-old crooner, absent his baritone, sang my favourite of his songs, “The Watchman’s Gone,” well, you have to know it was an emotional moment:

“If you find me feedin’ daisies/Please turn my face up to the sky
And leave me be/Watchin’ the moon roll by
Whatever I was/You know it was all because
I’ve been on the town/Washin’ the bullshit down.”

That is telling them. Those incandescent lyrics, written when Lightfoot was 36, half his current age, foresaw the defiance of a man late in his life still able to sum up the grit and the vocabulary to tell the big cruel world to go screw itself. Hank Snow may be dead; Wilf Carter is gone, but Lightfoot and Lenny Cohen and Stompin’ Tom Connors are all still around to tell you what it is you need to know: Keep moving on, folks. Love calls you by your name, on a Sudbury Saturday night.

Lightfoot earns last word, this time, a perquisite of genius. “You’d better take care,/Knowing the watchman’s always there.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oFnTZX6Cag

[lighthead2toe]

The thing that really freaked me about this was the fact that in Sept. 2002 I had taken the "red eye" (overnight flight) from Vancouver, landing the next morning in Ottawa to be greeted with the news that Gordon Lightfoot was in a coma and in the process of being air lifted to a hospital in Hamilton, Ontario for treatment.

On Feb 17th, 2010, I took the "red eye" from Vancouver to arrive next morning in Ottawa to news that Gord was dead followed by an emergency phone call telling me that it was a hoax.

It's got to be something about that "red eye" that's for sure.

Time to step into that tent and have the palm read I guess. This is all too freaky.

RJ.

[patybear]

The words I can think of to describe the person who originated this rumor aren't publishable,so I'll use these:JERK! IDIOT! MORON!
Ok,I'm fine now that I've 'shouted across the ocean to the shore'.
patybear

[imported_Next_Saturday]

I don't remember seeing this, so please forgive me if it's a repeat:

http://www.hour.ca/music/music.aspx?iIDArticle=19567
http://www.hour.ca/_images/montreal/1813/texte/mu_lightfoot_1813.jpg
Dead man walking
Richard Burnett



Lightfoot has stayed in touch with the widows of the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Gordon Lightfoot wants you to know that rumours of his death are greatly exaggerated

If you could read Gordon Lightfoot's mind right now, what a tale his thoughts would tell. Except I don't have to because I got the Canadian music icon on the phone a couple days after Canwest reported on Feb. 18 that he had died.

"I was in my car driving from the dentist with the radio on when the DJ said I was dead!" Lightfoot explains. "It became an obituary. Then they played a strain of If You Could Read My Mind. It gave me a bit of a shock. I put my foot on the gas and got to [my] office and the phone was lit up like a Christmas tree! It was also weird for my kids - my eldest daughter got very emotional that night."

Despite some serious health problems over the years, today Lightfoot is healthier than he's ever been. "When I gave up alcohol [in 1982] the gym became my substitute."

Lightfoot famously got his start when Ian Tyson introduced him to rock's first great manager, NYC-based Albert Grossman, in 1964. Grossman also managed Bob Dylan, The Band and Janis Joplin. "I'd see Bob Dylan in the office. And Janis was in a corner reading a book."

Lightfoot was a favourite of Johnny Cash ("We did a duet on his TV show") and his songs have been covered by rock royalty, including Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Bob Dylan. And Lightfoot explored his relationship with his former lover Cathy Evelyn Smith - famed for her drug connections to The Rolling Stones and John

Belushi - in his number one Billboard hit Sundown. "She came to see me in concert in Vancouver six months ago and looks healthy and happy."

So does Lightfoot.

"I am happy," he says. "Today I have control of my own destiny."

Gordon Lightfoot
At Place des Arts, April 8

[timetraveler]

I can only imagine what a terrible shock that had to be for him to hear his own obituary.

[jj]

http://www.thestar.com/videozone/910373--year-in-a-minute-canada


the Year in a Minute

.... including Gord's fifteen, stiff, minutes of fame...

[charlene]

[

.... including Gord's fifteen, stiff, minutes of fame...

I watched the Olympics...I missed that event !
lol

[Lisa J]

Wow, I watched the Olympics too, (in part hoping gordon would be mentioned,) and I didn't see that clip either. Bummer!

[formerlylavender]

Very cool, jj.

[loveabiggibson]

In that still of Gord--it looks like he's had his Martin D-18 refinished. Are there any other recent pix of that guitar? I loved its old beat-up patina...

[Melissa]

That's the "other" D-18. He was playing it a lot a few years ago but is now back to playing the "well-worn" one - the one we all know and love. :)

Melissa

[charlene]

Three years ago today - what a scare...!! http://www.corfid.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=20780&highlight=rumour+death

[charlene]

AUDIO - didn't see this in the previous pages. http://www.680news.com/2010/02/18/listen-now-gordon-lightfoot-called-680news-to-confirm-that-hes-in-fact-alive/

[charlene]

TWITTER tried and YOUTUBE is taking a kick at it now: (thanks Gwen!)

ROCK AND ROLL HEAVEN 1 RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS - YouTube

[Affair on Touhy Ave.]

Why are we reviving this 3 year old thread?

[johnfowles]

Why are we reviving this 3 year old thread?
A silly and IMHO quite unnecessary question
OK in response Touchy I am probably not alone in wondering why you did not bother playing the youtube video that Char presented when you could have seen had you not already guessed that at aboot 2:22 whoever made the video included a picture of Gord amongst the roster of late singers
see the attached screenshot
this grievous error was made by whoever made that video
presumably it was the originator of the web site
http://adhdrecords.com/rockandrollheaven/?s
"Robby Rockman" who apparently uploaded the video in April 2011 but who had not checked the facts about the previous year's tweeting properly!

[johnfowles]

Not only that but to celebrate the third anniversary Char also showed a link to the page that contains a recording of Gord's bemused phone call to the radio station

[charlene]

from the video producer: yes just a mix up with the software and photo batch i had ... it showed different pictures under wrong names, Sorry Gordon!

[charlene]

just because I am thankful that it was a hoax I've brought this forward again to mark 4 years and he's still out there because as he says, "we love the work!"
lol ..(As well as for those who may not have seen it when it happened.)

[Affair on Touhy Ave.]

How long are we gonna drag this on?

If he saw this site and this thread he's probably think something's wrong with you.


Let it go for pete sakes! That was 4 years ago!

[Patti]

I'd have never heard of the hoax if it weren't for corfid.

Feb. 18th again...my ex-husbands birthday. I'd have been married 30 years last Nov.,:clap:.... but thank God I didn't stick around for the applause.

[charlene]

LOL Patti!!

Gordon himself is still milking this topic - "Hi, I'm Gordon Lightfoot and the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.".. he said it at many concerts just a few weeks ago..

[Borderstone]

Sure doesn't feel like 4 years.

Glad I didn't hear theinitial reports when I woke
up that day,I'd have freked out and then been bummed out all day!

I heard the news "after" he'd squashed the rumor. :)

[johnfowles]

Let it go for pete sakes! That was 4 years ago!

Touchy
well the man himself is certainly regurgitating it at many concerts and most interviews mention it too!!

Pete

[dray7austin]

You're right Sir John. He mentioned it on stage in Austin last week. And although he received laughs for the comment, the reality of someday knowing that awaits him as it does all of us, I just don't want to think about anything happening to him. Especially when he is there singing live in front of us. That being said, it does make me reflect on the fact that here in front of me is a mortal man whose music is immortal. And I intently listen even harder knowing that I need to appreciat even more his life and the sacrifices he makes to continue to please each and every one of us by traveling to our towns and leaving a piece of himself behind. For our hearts and memories to cherish long after the wheels of his buses roll out of town.

[Seven_Islands]

Well, I recently felt forced to comment on a newish Amazon (UK) review of 'Sundown' that referred to him as 'the late' Gordon Lightfoot, so it seems the rumours persist in certain quarters!

[charlene]

5 years ago!!!!!!!!!!!

[charlene]

6 years and still going strong!

[charlene]

11 years...

[Affair on Touhy Ave.]

Come on let's stop reviving this thread.

If Gordon saw this he'd think there was something wrong with you all.

[charlene]

No different than family putting an In Memorium every year in the local newspaper. I think Gordon would think it is nice that we remember and make it known that we do.

[paskatefan]

No different than family putting an In Memorium every year in the local newspaper. I think Gordon would think it is nice that we remember and make it known that we do.


that's the spirit in which I take it, Char. :biggrin: