R.I.P Gord

[Rob1956]

https://torontosun.com/entertainment/music/canadian-legend-gordon-lightfoot-dead-at-age-84

Canadian legend Gordon Lightfoot dead at age 84
Author of the article:
Jane Stevenson
Published May 01, 2023 • Last updated May 02, 2023

Gord’s gone.

Canadian folk icon Gordon Lightfoot — arguably one of the greatest songwriters our country ever gave to the world — died Monday night at the age of 84, according to his tour publicist.

The Orillia, Ont.-born Lightfoot, known for such hits as The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald and dozens more dating back to the ‘60s, had recently cancelled all of his North American tour dates due to “health issues” that weren’t specified.

The publicist would only say he died of natural causes at Sunnybrook Hospital.

Lightfoot’s family released an official statement late Monday night.

“It is with profound sadness that we confirm that Gordon Meredith Lightfoot has passed away. Gordon died peacefully on Monday, May 1, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. He died of natural causes. He was 84 years old.”

Lightfoot, who lived in a mansion in Toronto’s Bridle Path with his third wife Kim Hasse, had been a rigorous health nut (aside from smoking) for the last two decades with daily workouts since recovering from a September 2002 stomach aneurysm in Orillia while preparing for the second show of a two-night stand there.

He is survived by his wife, six children — Fred, Ingrid, Eric, Galen, Miles and Meredith — as well as several grandchildren.

In my last interview with Lightfoot in December 2022, he said his entire career was launched by fellow Canadian singer-songwriter Ian Tyson, who died last year at the age of 89 in Alberta, when Ian and Sylvia covered his tune, Early Mornin’ Rain.

“He was the first person to record a Gordon Lightfoot song and that was Early Mornin’ Rain,” Lightfoot told me.

“The next thing I knew I was getting launched into the music business. I’ve always been eternally grateful to (then folk duo) Ian & Sylvia for getting me started in this business.”

Lightfoot, who was subsequently signed by A-list manager Albert Grossman, whose stable of talent included Bob Dylan, first saw Tyson, the composer of the Canadian folk classic Four Strong Winds, performing in Toronto’s then-vibrant Yorkville folk scene in the early 60s which Lightfoot also frequented.

Other Lightfoot-penned Canadian folk classics included Carefree Highway, Sundown, 14 Karat Gold, Beautiful, Baby Step Back, and If You Could Read My Mind.

Lightfoot’s songs were covered by dozens if not hundreds of artists — everyone from Elvis Presley to Dylan.

Along the way he got married three times and had a half-dozen children and was even the subject of a 2010 death ho

I last saw Lightfoot perform on Nov. 26, 2021, during the second of a three-night stand at Massey Hall, which had been recently renovated and was nicknamed “Gord’s room” long ago because he played there so often.

Lightfoot had been the last performer at the venue in July 2018 and before his first show on Nov. 25, 2021, he received the key to the city on the newly christened Allan Slaight stage commemorating the troubadour’s 170th performance at the venue.

“It was an emotional experience for which I am deeply honoured,” tweeted Lightfoot afterwards.

The singer-songwriter and his four-man band delivered an efficient 70-minute set consisting of just 15 songs after he broke his wrist that August during fall at home.

He told me in an November 2021 interview promoting the Massey Hall gigs: “It became my place for me to worship the crowd. Not for them to worship me.”

But worship Lightfoot we did.

[3pennies]

I'm gonna find me a smilin' angel
Yes Lord to lead me home
I'm gonna get me a smilin' angel
Yes Lord to lead me home
And when he takes me by the hand
I know the Lord will understand
I'm gonna get me a smilin' angel to lead me home

[charlene]

i was called an hour after his passing and this is the OFFICIAL RELEASE from the office; Official Statement

It is with profound sadness that we confirm that Gordon Meredith Lightfoot has passed away. Gordon died peacefully on Monday, May 1, 2023 at 730 p.m. at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. He died of natural causes. He was 84 years old.

He is survived by his wife Kim Hasse, six children– Fred, Ingrid, Eric, Galen, Miles and Meredith, as well as several grandchildren.

[horizonfound]

I'm gutted....I loved Gordon and his music so much. He gave us everything he had ....;and, like Don Quixote, he bravely and honorably titled at windmills, the real and the imagined,
'till he could no longer....

R.I.P Gordon....

[OldDan]

Very sorry to hear of Gordon's passing. I've been a fan of his since 1970 after hearing the song "Poor Little Allison" on local AM radio. Later "If You Could Read My Mind" would become the big hit off the "Sit Down Young Stranger" album. I had the opportunity to meet him after shows a number of times over the years. I had seen him in concert at the Rialto Square Theater in Joliet, IL back in September and I wondered then if that would be the last time I would see him in live performance. Sadly, it was. Gordon Lightfoot's music was the soundtrack of my life and his 'legend' will live on through all the wonderful music he has left to the world. Rest In Peace, Gordon.

[Gunter]

RIP, Gordon! I heard this sad news first on my home from work on the radio here in Sydney, Australia. Strangely, Richard Glover, who runs the drive show, chose a song not by Gordon to go with the story. Afterwards he explained: It was a song Keith Potger of "our" Seekers had composed and written, a tribute song for GLs 82nd birthday:
https://soundcloud.com/seekerfant/the-troubadour-master-mix-04-for-soundcloud

[Gunter]

Thank you, Charlene!

[Dave, Melbourne,Australia]

I heard it from my sister a few hours ago. I have since seen articles on websites of Australian newspapers The Herald Sun (Melbourne), the West Australian and our national capital's Canberra Times:
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8179871/canadian-singer-songwriter-gordon-lightfoot-dies-at-84/


I'll think of more to say later. I was already dealing with the loss of a 62-year-old friend on Apr17 (attending funeral May3) and my favourite Australian musician Broderick Smith on Apr30. It's all so sad.

[imported_Ordinary_Man]

I've been preparing for this ever since all his 2023 shows were canceled. I saw him for the last time May 2022 in Columbia MO, a show that had been rescheduled at least 3 times. I've seen him about 40 times in nearly 50 years all around the midwest.

First heard him on the radio in 1971 with If You Could Read My Mind and was hooked. Been my favorite songwriter/musician ever since.

Rest in Peace to the Minstrel of the Dawn.

[ellen]

I heard the news last night, and the grief for the stilling of this eloquent voice is deep. Memories play like a film of concerts shared with old and new friends, of chances taken, chances failed, lovers won and lost, life goes on as it must.
So much time spent on the newsgroup and Corfid - pick a potato...;)
Saving my babysitting money so I could run buy the newest album.
Convincing our high school French teacher to take our class to a concert so we could hear "Nous Vivons Ensemble" live.
Posting setlists in a Lightheaded haze.
Driving my mother crazy playing albums over and over.
Listening late at night to the college FM radio station playing deep cuts long after I should have been asleep.
Over half a century of following the music has been intertwined with life's events.
I'm grateful for this tribe of Lightfoot lovers and for the people who have given us places to share this devotion. My thoughts turn to those who made the music: the band members whose tenure was short or long, and all those who worked behind the scenes.
"Time passes, love remains." So does the music. Thank you, Gordon, we love you.

[BILLW]

Rest In Peace Gordon. I believe you know how much you touched your fans lives and we are all eternally grateful to have had you and your music in our lives.

To everyone here at corfid, those I've met at concerts and shared meals with and those I've only met online here. may Peace Be With You. Until our paths cross somewhere in the future please take care of yourself and others.

Peace,
Bill :(

[JohninCt.]

I will miss seeing Gordon every couple years. MY condolences to the Band, to Kim and his children. He was one of a kind and really cared about his fans. Fortunately he left us so much great music to listen to. RIP Gordon.

[charlene]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/arts/music/gordon-lightfoot-dead.html?fbclid=IwAR3NPVJI4409ZlmjRGlfBwkwJwS6WFw BYh5iS270UV3rwPyX3HBB-I6UUa0

Gordon Lightfoot, Hitmaking Singer-Songwriter, Is Dead at 84

His rich baritone voice and songs like “Sundown,” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “If You Could Read My Mind” made him a top artist of the 1970s.

By William Grimes
Published May 1, 2023Updated May 2, 2023

Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian folk singer whose rich, plaintive baritone and gift for melodic songwriting made him one of the most popular recording artists of the 1970s, died on Monday night in Toronto. He was 84.

His death, at Sunnybrook Hospital, was confirmed by his publicist, Victoria Lord. She did not specify a cause, but Mr. Lightfoot had had a number of health problems in recent years.

Mr. Lightfoot, a fast-rising star in Canada in the early 1960s, broke through to international success when his friends and fellow Canadians Ian and Sylvia Tyson recorded two of his songs, “Early Morning Rain” and “For Lovin’ Me.”

When Peter, Paul and Mary came out with their own versions of those songs — their “For Lovin’ Me” was a Top 40 hit — and Marty Robbins reached the top of the country charts with Mr. Lightfoot’s “Ribbon of Darkness,” Mr. Lightfoot’s reputation soared. Overnight, he joined the ranks of songwriters like Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton, all of whom influenced his style.

Mr. Dylan in turn held Mr. Lightfoot in high regard. He once said, “I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don’t like,” adding, “Every time I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever.” Mr. Dylan included a version of “Early Morning Rain” on his 1970 album “Self Portrait.” (Among the other singers to have covered that song is Elvis Presley.)

When folk music ebbed in popularity, overwhelmed by the British invasion, Mr. Lightfoot began writing ballads aimed at a broader audience. He scored one hit after another, beginning in 1970 with the heartfelt “If You Could Read My Mind,” inspired by the breakup of his first marriage.

That song — which begins with the memorable lines “If you could read my mind, love,/What a tale my thoughts could tell./Just like an old-time movie,/’Bout a ghost from a wishing well” — reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has been covered by Barbra Streisand, Johnny Mathis, Johnny Cash and numerous others.

In quick succession he recorded the hits “Sundown” (his first and only No. 1 single), “Carefree Highway” (“Let me slip away, slip away on you”), “Rainy Day People” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” which he wrote after reading an article about the sinking of an iron-ore carrier in Lake Superior in 1975, with the loss of all 29 crew members.

For Canadians, Mr. Lightfoot was a national hero, a homegrown star who stayed home even after achieving spectacular success in the United States and who catered to his Canadian fans with cross-country tours. His ballads on Canadian themes, like “Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” pulsated with a love for the nation’s rivers and forests, which he explored on ambitious canoe trips far into the hinterlands.

His personal style, reticent and self-effacing — he avoided interviews and flinched when confronted with praise — also went down well. “Sometimes I wonder why I’m being called an icon, because I really don’t think of myself that way,” Mr. Lightfoot told the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail in 2008. “I’m a professional musician, and I work with very professional people. It’s how we get through life.”

May 2, 2023

Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. was born on Nov. 17, 1938, in Orillia, Ontario, to Gordon and Jessie Vick (Trill) Lightfoot. His father managed a dry-cleaning plant. As a boy, he sang in a church choir, performed on local radio shows and shined in singing competitions. “Man, I did the whole bit: oratorio work, Kiwanis contests, operettas, barbershop quartets,” he told Time magazine in 1968.

He played piano, drums and guitar as a teenager, and while still in high school wrote his first song, a topical number about the hula hoop craze with a catchy last line: “I guess I’m just a slob and I’m gonna lose my job, ’cause I’m hula-hula-hoopin’ all the time.” His attempts to sell it were unsuccessful.

After studying composition and orchestration at the Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles, he returned to Canada. For a time he was a member of the Singing Swinging Eight, a singing and dancing troupe seen on the television show “Country Hoedown.” But he soon became part of the Toronto folk scene, performing at the same coffee houses and clubs as Ian and Sylvia, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen.

He formed a folk duo, the Two Tones, with a fellow “Hoedown” performer, Terry Whelan. The duo recorded a live album in 1962, “Two Tones at the Village Corner.” The next year, while traveling in Europe, he served as the host of “The Country and Western Show” on BBC television.

As a songwriter, Mr. Lightfoot had by then advanced beyond the hula hoop, but not by a great deal. His work “didn’t have any kind of identity,” he told Irwin Stambler and Grelun Landon, the authors of “The Encyclopedia of Folk, Country and Western Music,” published in 1969. When the Greenwich Village folk boom brought Mr. Dylan and other dynamic songwriters to the fore, he said, “I started to get a point of view, and that’s when I started to improve.”

In 1965, he appeared at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island and at Town Hall in New York. “Mr. Lightfoot has a rich, warm voice and a dexterous guitar technique,” Robert Shelton wrote in The New York Times. “With a little more attention to stage personality, he should become quite popular.”

A year later, after signing with Albert Grossman, the manager of Mr. Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary, Mr. Lightfoot recorded his first solo album, “Lightfoot!” The album, which included “Early Morning Rain,” “For Lovin’ Me,” “Ribbon of Darkness” and “I’m Not Sayin’,” a hit in Canada in 1963, was warmly received by critics.

Real commercial success came when he switched to Warner Bros., initially recording for the company’s Reprise label. “By the time I changed over to Warner Bros., ’round about 1970, I was reinventing myself,” he told the Georgia newspaper Savannah Connect in 2010. “Let’s say I was probably just advancing away from the folk era, and trying to find some direction whereby I might have some music that people would want to listen to.”

Accompanying himself on an acoustic 12-string guitar and singing in a voice that often trembled with emotion, Mr. Lightfoot gave spare, direct accounts of his material. He sang of loneliness, troubled relationships, the itch to roam and the majesty of the Canadian landscape. He was, as the Canadian writer Jack Batten put it, “journalist, poet, historian, humorist, short-story teller and folksy recollector of bygone days.”

His popularity as a recording artist began to wane in the 1980s, but he maintained a busy touring schedule. In 1999 Rhino Records released “Songbook,” a four-disc survey of his career.

Mr. Lightfoot, who lived in Toronto, is survived by his wife, Kim Hasse, six children — Fred, Ingrid, Miles, Meredith, Eric and Galen — and several grandchildren. His first two marriages ended in divorce. His older sister, Beverley Eyers, died in 2017.

In 2002, just before going onstage in Orillia, Mr. Lightfoot collapsed when an aneurysm in his abdominal aorta ruptured and left him near death. After he spent two years recovering, he recorded an album, “Harmony,” and in 2005 he resumed his live performances with what was billed as the Better Late Than Never Tour.

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He suffered a minor stroke in 2006 that temporarily affected his ability to play guitar, but he continued touring. Ten years later he performed 80 concerts and told The Canadian Press, “At this age, my challenge is doing the best show I can.” But just last month, he announced that he was canceling all his scheduled concerts for health reasons.

In an interview with the CBC in 2004, Mr. Lightfoot said he wanted to be like Willie Nelson and other veteran performers: “Just do it for as long as humanly possible.”

[charlene]

OBITUARY:

LIGHTFOOT, GORDON MEREDITH (World Renowned Singer, Songwriter, & Entertainer) passed at Sunnybrook Hospital, Toronto, Ontario on Monday, May 1, 2023 in his 85th year. Gordon Lightfoot, of Toronto and formerly of Orillia, beloved son of the late Gordon & Jessie Lightfoot is predeceased by his elder sister, Beverley Lightfoot Eyers.
One of the most celebrated singer-songwriters of his generation, Gordon is remembered for a decades long career that saw him achieve international renown. A national treasure, his songs have become part of the Canadian cultural fabric, earning him legions of fans at home and around the globe.
He is survived by his cherished wife Kim Lightfoot, children Fred, Ingrid, Eric, Galen, Miles and Meredith, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The late Gordon Lightfoot will rest at the St. Paul's United Church, 62 Peter St., N., Orillia. The public is invited to pay their respects at St. Paul's United Church on Sunday, May 7, 2023 from 1 P.M. until 8 P.M. Memorial donations to the United Way (Simcoe County Area) would be gratefully appreciated and may be made at the Mundell Funeral Home, 79 West St., N., Orillia Ontario L3V 5Cl (705 325-2231). Messages of condolence are welcome at

www.mundellfuneralhome.com

[3pennies]

Thanks Charlene

[DellroyGM]

Thanks so much, Charlene. The lyric that comes to mind might be from Gord's point of view:
"All is well
I made my peace, my highways never end.
Yesterday's a memory, today is just a friend..."

RIP, Gord. You blessed us with so much music, thoughts...even your own "sillyosophy".

[charlene]

VIDEO AND PICTURES AT LINK:
https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/waterloo-s-ed-peewee-charles-ringwald-looks-back-on-16-years-of-making-music-with-gordon-lightfoot-1.6382903?fbclid=IwAR1RSUsn0_RE6YYLEckxIF77xERVBbU JRGL2yb1tqZif6-Mtd-NcB08nzzU

Waterloo’s Ed 'Peewee Charles' Ringwald looks back on 16 years of making music with Gordon Lightfoot

A wall of gold and platinum records paint a wall inside Ed Ringwald’s Waterloo home.

The pedal steel guitar player, known musically as “Peewee Charles,” never could’ve imagined that level of success. He already had it pretty good playing on the CTV-produced Ian Tyson Show.

Then the call came. Gordon Lightfoot wanted Ringwald to play on an upcoming album.

“‘Would you like to be part of it?’ And I was like uh yeah, I think so,” Ringwald said, laughing.

He clearly left an impression because he was later asked to join the band. It’s where he sat behind the strings for 16 years.

The steel guitar is known for its sound of loneliness in country music rather than folk. But Lightfoot didn’t care.

“He was a great guy to work for and he taught us all so much about music. Me playing steel guitar, I had to play a different style of music,” said Ringwald.

That style worked for them, leading to the highest of accolades in the music world. And they never forgot to have some fun along the way, especially when it came to music videos.

“Blackberry Wine … we were all dressed up. I was dressed up as Caesar,” Ringwald said. “And then the one we were playing poker, all the smoke I was telling you about. We had to smoke cigars, I was green after the video take.”

So when Ringwald’s wife told him his former front man had died, all the memories came flooding back, saying it didn’t feel real.

“She said that Gord had passed away and my heart just sunk. I know some day it happens to all of us but you never expect it,” Ringwald said, listening to old performances with Lightfoot.

Now, all Ringwald is left with is the memories. But some of the moments he holds closest are performing in his hometown of Kitchener, alongside the Canadian folk legend.

“He was the first act to open Centre In The Square when it opened. And I remember that. It was quite a long time ago,” said Ringwald.

Last month, Lightfoot’s health issues led to the cancellation of his entire 2023 tour. The only Canadian stop was set for Kitchener’s Centre In The Square. It’s just one many cities where Lightfoot left his footprint – imprinted on Canada’s identity forever.

[charlene]

From Kenyon..
TEXT: Photos at website.. https://www.thestar.com/entertainmen...star_web_ymbii

Those stories and that voice. Why Gordon Lightfoot’s music hit home for me and so many Canadians
Lightfoot’s gifts created devoted, decades-long fans around the world, but for Kenyon Wallace, the emotional connection — forged early — was even closer.
Kenyon Wallace
By Kenyon WallaceInvestigative Reporter
Mon., May 1, 2023
When I was five years old, like many kids that age, I was obsessed with trains.

Many a Saturday morning was spent with my father and brother down at Toronto’s Cherry Street railway bridge beneath the switching tower, watching passenger trains come and go from Union Station.

So intense was my obsession that my dad even made me mixtapes of songs about trains (this was 1985, before CDs appeared).

One of those tapes had three Gordon Lightfoot songs with locomotive references: “Steel Rail Blues,” “Early Morning Rain,” and “Sixteen Miles (To Seven Lakes).”

I must have listened to that tape hundreds of times while falling asleep at night, and I can only assume that the stories in those songs, and the voice of the man singing them, worked their way deep into my unconscious mind.

As I grew up, I became aware that this voice was the same one often coming from the radio or my dad’s record player, filling the air with beautiful melodies and words that somehow spoke to me, even if I didn’t fully understand them.

Over time, it began to occur to me that many of the songs were about where we lived: the Great Lakes, maritime waters, rivers, streams, forests, mountains, autumn hills and even my hometown of Toronto. The way the words and the melodies weaved together seemed to paint pictures of the Canadian landscape like no other music did.

The songs were about us, too: miners, truckers, sailors, rich men, poor men, old soldiers, down and out ladies, fortune tellers and lovers, lost and won.
CBC
Gordon Lightfoot in his own words
14 hours ago 2:10
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Legendary folk singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot dies at 84
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Lightfoot had that rare gift of being able to take the struggles, triumphs and emotions of people from all walks of life — our stories — and articulate them in a relatable way with a voice that, at its peak, was unmatched in popular music, in my humble opinion.

His was a voice that just seemed to always be there, accompanying us through life, a source of comfort, and, in the tradition of all great troubadours, teaching us lessons about the hubris of humankind.

Consider the captain of the American steamship Yarmouth Castle, who left in a lifeboat as the ship burned with 87 passengers still on board while en route from Miami to Nassau in 1965. Lightfoot wrote about the disaster, still one of the worst in North American waters, in his 1969 masterpiece “Ballad of Yarmouth Castle.”

Or recall the tanks ordered by U.S. president Lyndon Johnson to go rolling in against Black demonstrators during the Detroit riot in the summer of 1967, resulting in 43 deaths and more than 1,000 injuries. The riots were chronicled by Lightfoot the following year in “Black Day in July,” a song that was banned by several U.S. radio stations for being too controversial.

Picking up the guitar as a teenager, I was immediately drawn to Lightfoot’s intricate fingerpicking style, the rhythmic, pulsating strumming of that signature, booming Gibson 12-string and his deceptively simple arrangements adorned by always talented sidemen. I voraciously learned as many songs as I could.

Then there were the lyrics. Oh, the lyrics.

The Canadian writer Peter C. Newman once told me that he believed Lightfoot was, at heart, a poet. I’m inclined to agree.

Reading the lyrics of Lightfoot’s songs, one realizes that even if he hadn’t put them to music, they stand as brilliant works of poetry on their own.

Take this line from the 1976 chart-topper “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”:

Does anyone know where the love of God goes

when the waves turn the minutes to hours.

Or this line from “Peaceful Waters,” the last song on his flawless debut album “Lightfoot!”:

The dead leaves of autumn that cling so desperately

Must fly before the cold October wind

Their simple life is ended

Must they be born to die again?
part 2-next post

[charlene]

part 2
Or this line from the tender ballad of unrequited love “The Last Time I Saw Her Face” from his 1968 Grammy-nominated album “Did She Mention My Name?”:

The last time I saw her face

Her eyes were bathed in starlight and her hair hung long

The last time she spoke to me

Her lips were like the scented flowers inside a rain-drenched forest

But that was so long ago that I can scarcely feel

The way I felt before

And if time could heal the wounds

I would tear the threads away

That I might bleed some more.

Or this line from “Restless,” the opening song from his underappreciated 1993 album “Waiting For You,” that evokes the coming of the winter:

The lake is blue, the sky is grey and the leaves have turned to gold

The wild goose will be on her way, the weather’s much too cold

When the muskie and the old trout too have all gone down to rest

We will be returning to the things that we do best.

I could go on. But you get the picture.

Listening to how Lightfoot married these words rich with imagery and feeling to equally beautiful and original melody lines was a revelation, at least to my teenage brain.

Now in the mid-1990s, when I was in high school, Gordon Lightfoot wasn’t exactly considered cool. I often wonder where all the fans who are my age now were when I seemed to be the youngest person lining up outside Massey Hall in 1998.

It wasn’t until the year 2000 when I stumbled upon an internet discussion group of Lightfoot devotees — many my age — from around the world that I found my kindred spirits. The next year, a convention organized by Connecticut fan Jenney Rivard brought more than 60 of these fans to Toronto from as far away as Austria, England, Ireland, Australia and the United States, for Lightfoot’s four-night Massey Hall residency. One afternoon, we all found ourselves at the home of Whitby fan Charlene Westbrook, profiled in the Star by my colleague Amy Dempsey in 2014, for a barbecue. Inevitably, the guitars came out and people from around the world who had scarcely known each other a few days before started singing Lightfoot songs for hours into the wee hours without missing a beat. Many lifelong friendships were forged that night. https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/gordon-lightfoot-superfans-cherish-every-show/article_b2392b68-4ecb-5f83-91f6-01d22dbb8a40.html

It was a microcosm of the crowds that gathered at Massey Hall or wherever in the world Lightfoot played, and a testament to his unique ability to sing and write about where he was from and simultaneously achieve mass appeal.

Before CanCon rules dictated in 1971 that 30 per cent of radio airplay here be devoted to Canadian music, Lightfoot managed to find the sweet spot between singing about our hard-scrabble land with the trials and tribulations we all face, and commercial success, especially south of the border. He arrived in the mid-1960s when a national cultural identity was burgeoning in Canada and he found a way to incorporate what many felt into voice and song, without being boastful.

Indeed, it was Lightfoot’s reserved disposition and shyness that endeared him to many fans. (He was never known for his onstage banter; the songs do the talking.) His stage show was free of artifice and gimmickry generally; just a man and his guitar tastefully backed by band of top-tier musicians. The audience always got the straight goods.

He was one of us, a small-town kid who conquered one of the planet’s most competitive businesses, and unlike many of his Canadian contemporaries such as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, Lightfoot stayed in this country.

When the song “Sundown” and album of the same name simultaneously made it to No. 1 on both the U.S. Billboard singles and album charts in the summer of 1974, Lightfoot was quietly managing his career from Toronto, his home since the early 1960s.

Here was a guy from Orillia who sang about the Rocky Mountains, the Plains of Abraham, Yonge Street, Georgian Bay and the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, as well as the universal themes of love and regret, and was adored by millions around the world for it.

In doing so, he proved for countless Canadian artists to come that you could make it as a pop star without having to live in New York or Los Angeles.

“He sent the message to the world that we’re not just a bunch of lumberjacks and hockey players up here. We’re capable of sensitivity and poetry and that was a message that was delivered by the success of Gordon Lightfoot internationally. People were more willing to listen to someone from Canada because someone of such enormous talent had paved the way,” says Rush’s Geddy Lee in the 2019 documentary “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind,” directed by Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni.

When Massey Hall’s long-overdue renovations finally came to an end in the fall of 2021, the only natural choice to reopen the 128-year-old Grand Old Lady of Shuter Street was the man who since 1967 performed at the venue more than 170 times, the most of any popular artist. (Lightfoot had also closed the iconic venue down in the summer of 2018 before its three-year makeover.)
Toronto Star reporter Kenyon Wallace and Canadian music icon Gordon Lightfoot are pictured back stage at Massey Hall on June 30, 2018.

In one of those strange ways that life has of coming full circle, I managed to get tickets to opening night and took my 75-year-old dad, who got me started on Lightfoot in the first place. We had the pleasure of seeing then-mayor John Tory present the key to the city to the songwriter and declare Nov. 25 Gordon Lightfoot Day in the city.

Opening for Lightfoot was his old friend, the American folk singer Tom Rush. In another uncanny coincidence, my dad had included one of Rush’s train songs, “The Panama Limited,” on the same mixtape from my childhood with the Lightfoot tunes. There were goosebumps.

Then, in what was more of a love-in than a concert, for an hour and 15 minutes Lightfoot played us the carefully crafted songs that had become the soundtrack of our lives — tales about riding the rails, a soldier returned from war, life on the road, the triumphs and defeats of personal relationships, a shipwreck, the longing for the hands of a lover on a long winter’s night, and the pain of being stuck in the grass in the early morning rain, homesick for the ones we love.

To be sure, the face was gaunt, the voice weathered, betraying the toll of years of touring and the bottle. But the emotion, sensitivity and musicianship were still there. At 83, he retained the ability to reflect our collective experiences and make you feel as though he was singing especially for you in a living room full of friends.

We shall not see the likes of Gordon Lightfoot again. But the music he gave us — our music — will play on.
Kenyon Wallace
Kenyon Wallace is a Toronto-based investigative reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @KenyonWallace or reach him via email: kwallace@thestar.ca

[charlene]

I have many more thing to post..Just been inundated with messages, e-mails, texts etc.


VIDEO:
Musicians pay tribute to Gordon Lightfoot - YouTube

[charlene]

video prior to last nights LEAFS game.. Gordon would be quite chuffed... he and I spoke often about our fandom - bleeding blue for our team..
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https...r5ayxCj0ic4WGb

https://twitter.com/i/status/1653543592126824450

http://twitter.com/i/status/1653543592126824450

[charlene]

BILLY JOEL:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CrvjCtvg...H90xQ84Sx-rSNY

[charlene]

STEVE MARTIN:
https://twitter.com/unrealbluegrass/...Q0IxJRLY-7bBko

[charlene]

MARINER'S CHURCH - ringing the bell 30 times in honour of Gordon..

At 3 p.m. Tuesday, the bells at Mariners’ Church rang out again — now chiming 30 times to honor those perished sailors along with the artist who famously memorialized them in song. Lightfoot made the Detroit church bells famous in "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Today they chimed an additional time to mark his death.
Mariners’ Church of Detroit honors Gordon Lightfoot with Tuesday ringing of bells - YouTube

[charlene]

BURTON CUMMINGS

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https...sq9pVwtujMKif3

[charlene]

VIDEO-PICS at link
https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/there-was-something-in-the-atmosphere-gordon-lightfoot-s-last-ever-show-played-in-winnipeg-1.6380133

'There was something in the atmosphere': Gordon Lightfoot's last ever show played in Winnipeg

Gordon Lightfoot fans who attended the iconic folk singer’s concert at Club Regent Event Centre last October didn’t know they had witnessed history.

“He played Club Regent a couple of times before. That was his last show at our venue, and that was his last show,” Kelly Berehulka, Club Regent’s entertainment program manager told CTV News Winnipeg by phone.

The singer-songwriter died Monday in Toronto of natural causes, his publicist confirmed. He had suffered numerous health issues in recent years.

He was 84.

Berehulka emailed his condolences to Lightfoot’s manager, who confirmed the Winnipeg concert had been his last.

Berehulka spent some time with the then-83 year-old backstage. He recalled him taking great care to tune his guitar and signed countless autographs with pristine penmanship.

When he took the stage, his presence was palpable.

“There were three standing ovations through the night, so really well deserved for a Canadian icon, music legend, really the spirit of Canada. Just amazing the aura that he brings into the room,” Berehulka said.

'CANADA LOST A LITTLE BIT OF ITSELF'

Brenda Morrisseau was one of the lucky audience members who got to witness the performance. She came to his music later in life, frequently hearing him on an oldies radio station on her morning drive to work.

“I really enjoyed his music,” she said. “’Oh So Sweet’ – it’s a very lovely farewell song. It chokes me up to hear the words.”

Morrisseau went by herself to see the show, and quickly made friends with other fans who were equally excited to see a living legend perform.

“There was something in the atmosphere that showed that honour and respect for him,” she recalled. “It wasn’t just about hearing the old hits. It was about seeing the man that he is and getting a glimpse of the young man that he used to be.”

Susan Phillips has been a Gordon Lightfoot fan since she was a girl. His records were in constant rotation at her childhood home.

“I probably learned every word to every song, so that just kind of carried with me my whole life,” she said.

Phillips first saw him perform in the early 2000s at Pantages Theatre, and then again in October 2022 at Club Regent. While both were special, she is honoured to have been in the crowd for his last show.

“When he talked, everybody listened. You could hear a pin drop. He was very cordial. He talked about his early career and he made jokes,” she said.

“I really feel that Canada lost a little bit of itself last night.”

Lightfoot was one of the acts on Brian Gilchrist’s live music bucket list.

“There are people that you have to see in concert at least once in your life. He was one of them,” Gilchrist said in a phone interview.

He scooped up tickets to the Lightfoot show at Club Regent, which was originally scheduled for 2020 and then moved to 2022 because of the pandemic.

He said Lightfoot sat for most of the concert and used an inhaler during breaks.

“It didn’t distract from the show at all. You could tell he loved to be out there.”

Morrisseau says she is forever thankful to have seen his final performance. Tuesday, she put on the t-shirt she bought at the concert to mark his passing.

“All over the world, people are singing his songs,” she said. “He was a storyteller.”

Berehulka too sees Lightfoot’s death as an immeasurable loss to Canadians and the world.

“Everyone will be playing Gordon Lightfoot songs today, for sure.”

RADIO PERSONALITY RECALLS MANY MEETINGS WITH LIGHTFOOT

Veteran radio personality Beau Fritzsche has a long history with Gordon Lightfoot.

Fritzsche got his start in radio in the ‘70s, in an era when Lightfoot rose to prominence with hits like “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “If You Could Read My Mind.”

Their paths didn’t cross until the late ‘80s, however, when Fritzsche had an unexpected guest join his table at a Juno Awards after party in Toronto, Ont.

“All of a sudden, here comes Gordon. He comes in, grabs a beer, sits across from us, and he starts chatting like we're old friends,” Fritzsche recalled.

The two spent most of the night talking.

In 1993, the two met again backstage at Lightfoot’s show at the Centennial Concert Hall.

Fritzsche took his wife Sharon, a fellow Lightfoot fan, and his then-nine-year-old son with a fitting name.

“We actually did name him - not just for Gordon Lightfoot. My wife's dad, his name was Gordon as well, but we named him for both of them - Gordon and Gordon.”

Fritzsche counts Lightfoot as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, and cherishes the time they spent together over their decades-long careers.

“I don’t think there will ever be another Gordon Lightfoot.”

TWITTER PICTURE - https://twitter.com/Concert_Hall/status/1653531483087183872/photo/1

- With files from the Canadian Press

Winnipeg, Manitoba
Club Regent Casino
October 30, 2022
Winnipeg, MB

The Watchman's Gone
Sweet Guinevere
Did She Mention My Name
Ribbon Of Darkness
Sundown
Carefree Highway
14 Karat Gold
Make Way For The Lady
If You Could Read My Mind
I'd Rather Press On
Beautiful
Song For A Winter's Night
Fine As Fine Can Be
Cotton Jenny
The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
Early Morning Rain
Rainy Day People

[charlene]

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/2023/05/03/sylvia-tyson-remembers-gordon-lightfoot-as-shy-reserved-and-a-meticulous-songwriter.html

Sylvia Tyson remembers Gordon Lightfoot as shy, reserved and a meticulous songwriter
DF
By David Friend The Canadian Press
Wed., May 3, 2023

TORONTO - Sylvia Tyson saw something special in a young and unknown Gordon Lightfoot on the night she caught one of his sets in the mid-1960s.

He was in the midst of an extended run of shows at Steele’s Tavern on Yonge Street in Toronto, a series of performances a newspaper advertisement summed up as “Gordon Lightfoot: folk singer — ballads, etc.”

Yet it was immediately clear to Tyson, one half of Yorkville folkie duo Ian & Sylvia, that Lightfoot wasn’t just any old balladeer.

“We recognized him as a great songwriter,” she recalled in a phone interview from her Toronto home.

“It was a small room. He performed alone. He didn’t have a band. So really, it was all about his voice, the guitar playing and the songs.”

That night, Sylvia, her soon-to-be husband Ian and Lightfoot struck up a friendship that would last for decades. Lightfoot died Monday at age 84 of natural causes.

Back in the 1960s, Toronto’s music community was a tight-knit place, which meant one act’s success would often trickle down or be shared with others, Tyson said.

For instance, the respect Ian & Sylvia had for Lightfoot’s work led them to record covers of “Early Mornin’ Rain” and “For Lovin’ Me. The latter Lightfoot song would inspire another take by U.S. trio Peter, Paul and Mary that became a stateside hit.

“Gordon always joked that he knew it was our version they’d listened to because we used a minor chord that he didn’t,” Tyson chuckled.

The U.S. exposure gave Lightfoot’s career a boost, helped further by Ian & Sylvia connecting him with their New York manager Albert Grossman, who took the singer under his wing and got him a record deal.

All of that wouldn’t have been possible without Lightfoot’s sheer talent, undeniable work ethic, and skill for storytelling, Tyson noted.

“He sweated blood over those songs,” she said.

“It’s a very special skill to be able to put an entire story into a (three-and-a-half) or four-minute song. You learn a certain economy of language.”

Ian & Sylvia saw their own careers blossom shortly before Lightfoot’s took off. Their trajectories sent them on different paths.

“We didn’t see each other that much, since we were both on the road very busy. You might meet in an airport,” she said.

“But because we’ve been friends you could sort of pick up where you left off even over a year later.”

Knowing Lightfoot as long as she did, Tyson said there were a few things most listeners probably didn’t pick up on.

“One of the common misconceptions about Gordon was that because his songs were so articulate, he was a great conversationalist,” she said.

“He actually was very shy and reserved in that respect.”

Tyson also described Lightfoot’s tendency to be a “workaholic,” which was most apparent to outsiders with his consistent tour dates that continued up until last year when he fell ill.

“He even had separate studio space for many years that was strictly for writing,” she said.

Tributes to Lightfoot continued to roll in this week.

Fellow Yorkville folk musician Buffy Sainte-Marie said in a statement there was a “freshman class in heaven with Harry Belafonte.”

Neil Young called him “a great Canadian artist. A songwriter without parallel” in a message posted on his website, while Toronto-raised actor Kiefer Sutherland tweeted: “Canada lost part of itself. And I lost a hero.”

Amid these reflections, Tyson considered a generation of folk memories that are slowly fading, even if the music isn’t.

In December, she lost her ex-husband and singing partner Ian Tyson, who Lightfoot described as “the older brother I never had” in an interview with The Canadian Press at the time.

“One of the things that one realizes as one gets older — and I’m 82 at this point — is that you start to lose people at a rather more rapid rate,” Sylvia Tyson said.

“And that one of the things you mourn, as much as the person, is the loss of a shared experience.

“Never again will I be able to say, ‘Do you remember that?’ Because the person you’ll be talking to is much younger than you are. And they won’t remember it at all.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 3, 2023.

[charlene]

https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/huge-event-orillia-prepares-to-say-goodbye-to-gordon-lightfoot-6954286?utm_source=Villager&utm_campaign=Content&utm_medium=Facebook_Graph&fbclid=IwAR0VP2W8kiiI1yih8BiAus89EG4OvRrhWVjoxv-5WdWcFqv-GHQcQu1lCiU

'Huge event': Orillia prepares to say goodbye to Gordon Lightfoot
Special service, open to the public, expected to draw thousands, will be held Sunday at St. Paul's, where Lightfoot's legendary career began when he was a choir boy

A final send-off for Canadian folk music legend Gordon Lightfoot, Orillia’s favourite son, will be held Sunday at the church where the choir boy’s career was launched.

St. Paul’s United Church, now known as St. Paul’s Centre, where Lightfoot was a soprano in the boys’ choir, will host a public service this Sunday from 1 to 8 p.m. All members of the public are welcome pay their respects.

Peter Street will be closed to traffic between Coldwater and Neywash streets in anticipation of thousands of expected guests.

“This is a very huge event, not just for St. Paul’s, but for Orillia, and I would say this is going to be a very singular and momentous event for both,” said Katrina Hunt, facilities administrator at St. Paul’s.

“We are expecting, probably, numbers in the thousands, so it’s going to be pretty busy here in Orillia on Sunday.”

Hunt said members of the public will be able to line up and enter the church from its Peter Street entrance. They will then be guided into the church’s sanctuary, where Lightfoot’s coffin will be, to pay their respects before leaving through the west atrium.

“Anybody from the public who wishes to pay their respects and say a last goodbye will be able to come through St. Paul’s building, visit (Lightfoot’s coffin) very briefly … keep their feet moving, and then go out through the sanctuary and exit,” Hunt said.

Church members have been working hard to prepare for the event.

“We’ve been preparing ever since we found out on Tuesday afternoon that this would be his final spot to have a goodbye, and we’ve been working closely with Mundell Funeral Home, who has been working with (his) family,” she said.

“It’s been a lot of our time and energy, along with lots of volunteers in St. Paul’s, who have been happily spending their time contributing to this, but I know that everybody is very much willing to contribute. They look upon Gordie, as many of us do, as a Canadian idol, as an icon for our country, and we’re happy to have him coming back.”

Blair Bailey, organist/choir director at the St. Paul’s since 1984, said Lightfoot’s roots in the church run deep.

“His family attended St. Paul’s United Church and, all those years, he was right through in the Sunday school, and he was always in the choirs and the children’s choir in there,” Bailey said. “We still have photos of him in his choir gown, singing in the children’s choir at the church.”

His experiences in the church choir were important developmental steps in Lightfoot becoming a world-renowned singer, Bailey said, highlighting how the church’s previous organist, Ray Williams, entered Lightfoot in the Toronto Music Festival.

“He won first prize there in the Toronto Music Festival and got asked to sing at Massey Hall in their final concert, and that was his first performance in Massey Hall, as a boy soprano, before his voice changed,” Bailey recalled. “He had all that training as a boy.”

Throughout his life, Bailey said, Lightfoot kept in touch with not only his hometown, but the church as well.

“We invited him to come back for the St. Paul’s congregation’s 175th anniversary, and that was in 2006, and he accepted our invitation. He did an afternoon of performing some of the songs; he brought two of his band mates with him — Rick Haynes and then his other guitarist,” Bailey said.

“That was a wonderful afternoon in 2006, (and) one of the things he said (was), ‘This is where it all started.’”

Bailey said the church is busy putting together a fitting celebration of Lightfoot’s life.

“It has been said, continuously, since the news of his passing came out, we’ve lost a great Canadian. It’s very touching and moving for us that he has indicated that he wants this to be in his hometown and in his home church growing up,” he said.

“We just hope that this will be able to be a wonderful celebration of a great Canadian figure, so (we are doing) everything we can, hopefully, to make that possible.”

Coun. Ralph Cipolla, who grew up with Lightfoot, said it is no surprise to see him return to his roots for his final goodbye.

“Gordon Lightfoot put Orillia on the map. He came back for every (Mariposa) Folk Festival — just about every one — and he’d wander around in the audience ... He loved Orillia; he really did,” Cipolla said.

“He also donated back to Orillia whenever he did a concert, and he contributed to the opera house and to Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital, and he donated the bust just outside the opera house.”

Cipolla spoke highly of Lightfoot’s character, recalling childhood memories when Lightfoot — who was several years older — would stick up for him in the neighbourhood park.

“Some of the older kids would bully us, and Gord would come and protect us and tell the older kids to bug off,” he said. “In our neighbourhood, he was highly regarded. He was a good guy.”

Those qualities shone through his whole life, Cipolla said.

“He was one of the celebrities that it wasn’t about him — it was about the people that knew him, and about people that asked him an for autograph, asked him for a picture,” he said. “I had a lot of respect for him, and I go back a long, long time with memories of him.”

Following Sunday’s service, Lightfoot will go to his final resting place with his family.

“He’s going to be, ultimately, cremated and going to be resting with his mom and his dad and his sister, who predeceased him, just up the hill at St. Andrews’s-St. James’ Cemetery,” Hunt said.

[charlene]

https://www.villagereport.ca/village-picks/orillia-mourns-loss-of-legend-small-town-boy-who-made-it-big-6941920?utm_source=OrilliaMatters&utm_campaign=78a54b1031-DailyORI&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_36208ee662-78a54b1031-318369853



Orillia mourns loss of legend, 'small-town boy who made it big'
'Today in Orillia, our community is mourning together along with the rest of the world,' mayor says, calling Lightfoot 'an incredible artist'
Greg McGrath-Goudie Greg McGrath-Goudie

The morning after folk music legend Gordon Lightfoot’s death, people from around his hometown of Orillia have begun paying tribute to him and mourning his loss.

Local fans left bouquets of flowers at his Tudhope Park monument and at the bust outside the Orillia Opera House. They recounted their personal experiences with Lightfoot and his effect on Orillia, Canada and the world.

“He’s a big deal (here), but I think he means more to Canada than he does to just one town — a small-town boy who made it big and represents the country really well,” said Orillia resident Al Byrnell, who was outside the opera house taking photos of Lightfoot’s bust Tuesday morning.

“He’s an icon in the country itself. Elvis Presley performed his songs, (as did) lots of other people, Bob Dylan — just everybody had tremendous respect for him and his ability to write music.”

Byrnell, a lifelong fan, recalled studying in university when the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior in 1975, and how well Lightfoot captured the tragic loss of the 29 souls on board.

“I remember the night when that happened because I was in university, and I was sitting at my desk with the radio on and they kept announcing the situation that was happening out on Superior,” he said. “Then he wrote the song afterwards and it was so appropriate, like he really nailed it.”

Although Lightfoot achieved international fame in his illustrious career, he carried an approachable demeanour and made a point of acknowledging and helping out his hometown, residents recounted.

“For someone of his stature to always acknowledge that he came from Orillia is huge. A lot of performers don’t do that,” said Orillia Opera House general manager Wendy Fairbairn. “A lot of performers don’t look back on their cities and acknowledge them like he has. As part of his CBC interviews — everything — he’s always acknowledged the fact that he’s from Orillia.”

Fairbairn recalled the last time Lightfoot performed at the historic downtown venue in the main auditorium that is named after him.

“He celebrated his 80th birthday (the) last time we had him here at the opera house, which was just a beautiful ceremony,” she said. “He came out and stood up on stage and performed, and we all sang Happy Birthday to him in the audience. It was just a lovely event, and he’s just such a lovely man.”

Although the crowd sang Happy Birthday to him, it was Lightfoot who gave the city gifts that year.

“Fifty per cent of the ticket sales went to the Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital and 50 per cent went back to the opera house for restoration purposes, so he paid for his band to be here. He paid every cent. (He was a) very, very generous man … and he loved his city. He loved Orillia.”

Resident Don Cook, similarly, recalled how Lightfoot supported the city.

“He would show up for these things,” Cook said. “We had Hockey Night in Canada come up here … and they put up the statue in front of the (opera house). Sure enough, he was there for that. He showed up for these things every day, and just didn’t mail in a video or something — he showed up in the city.”

Cook noted Lightfoot was not a scheduled performer at the Mariposa Folk Festival in his twilight years but would often show up to give a surprise performance.

“I remember about five years ago, they were doing a tribute … and Gord just comes waltzing in with his guitar,” he said. “He comes walking up on stage and these young performers are singing Gordon Lightfoot covers, and he says, ‘Do you mind if I join you?’”

Lightfoot did not want to steal the tribute band’s thunder, so he sang one song with the group before sitting down to enjoy the festival.

“That was just the type of guy he was,” Cook said. “He didn’t want to take over their performance. He just wanted to be there and enjoy the crowd.”

For Jocelyn Coleman, all it took was meeting Lightfoot to make her a lifelong fan.

“I walked into McCabe’s one day and he was at a birthday party, and his nephew was playing at the same time, and I just got introduced to Gord that way and I’ve been following his music for a very long time,” she said.

“He was a great guy: funny, nice, charming. His music has held me up since I found out about his music ... and he’s been a legend and a very lovely guy around here.”

Lightfoot was born Nov. 17, 1938, in Orillia, and he is often referred to as Canada’s most gifted songwriter.

His publicist announced Monday night Lightfoot had died of natural causes at a Toronto hospital at 7:30 p.m. He was 84.

The Orillia Opera House has set up a guest book for residents to sign in memory of Lightfoot. It is available until 8 p.m. Tuesday and 12 to 8 p.m. Wednesday.

“You get an opportunity to stand on the stage that Gordon has stood on, write your thoughts, your stories, your history, what you feel for Gordon and how he’s contributed to your life,” Fairbairn said. “Just come in and be here. We have this piano from his school teacher, who donated it to us a number of years ago, and it’s on stage. Although it’s not play-worthy, it’s still on stage as part of his history.”

On Thursday and Friday, the book will be at the Orillia City Centre.

Mayor Don McIsaac referred to Lightfoot as “an incredible artist.”

“Our community is deeply saddened to learn about the passing of Gordon Lightfoot. Mr. Lightfoot was highly regarded in his hometown of Orillia and has had an immense impact on our community,” he said in a statement.

“His deep roots in our city are woven into the fabric of Orillia with tributes from the Gordon Lightfoot Auditorium stage and his bust at our iconic Orillia Opera House, to the Lightfoot Trail and to the Golden Leaves series of bronze sculptures within J.B. Tudhope Memorial Park.

“Many of us who knew him will remember his soft-spoken demeanour, generous personality and infectious laugh.

“Today in Orillia, our community is mourning together along with the rest of the world.”

The city has lowered its flags to half-staff in honour of Lightfoot.

A Lightfoot tribute concert will take place at the opera house Saturday, with tickets available through its website.

[charlene]

https://www.cbc.ca/music/in-gordon-lightfoot-s-songbook-art-is-for-everyone-1.6827145?fbclid=IwAR1GTDrXTK61hs7sDyluVoJJPncQPGO t5TXGg6jouTuoMeeMzYhitegrVcc

In Gordon Lightfoot's songbook, art is for everyone

How the songwriter’s utilitarian approach to inspiration proved beauty belongs to all of us
Andrea Warner · CBC Music · Posted: May 02, 2023 1:14 PM EDT | Last Updated: May 2

For Gordon Lightfoot, there was never a right or wrong way to draw inspiration. He was a prolific, award-winning songwriter who made meaning out of the mundane and observed the macro and micro of everyday in his lyrics and lines. He turned a commission into a Canadian classic, a breaking news story into the "best song" he ever wrote, and a stolen glance at an Arizona road sign into a hit song.

"You can start with a title if you want, or go fishing for words in a magazine, like People magazine or something, you'll see an ad with some fancy language to it," Lightfoot told CBC Music in 2013. "I've done that, honestly, I've even gone into a paint store and picked up the titles of paint samples."

'Golden forever': musicians and fans react to Gordon Lightfoot's death

Gordon Lightfoot's life in 10 songs

Lightfoot was not an overly precious writer, a cultured aesthete wrenching words and phrases from a head stuffed full of canonical greats. Instead, Lightfoot's omnivorous approach to creation made him an accidental disrupter of the highbrow, a brilliant songwriter subverting the vaunted purity of divine artistic genius.

"I'm a fairly normal sort of person," he said in a 1975 interview. "I'm not particularly smart and I'm not particularly stupid. Maybe it's the general normality of it, with a touch of art."

Lightfoot may not have set out to democratize the playing field with his unpretentious approach to music, but the staying power of his songs acts as radical permission for other aspiring writers and artists. The source of the inspiration doesn't matter; it's what you do with it that counts.

Lightfoot died on May 1, 2023. This year also marks the 65th anniversary of Lightfoot's foray from Orillia, Ont., to Los Angeles to study music composition and the beginning of his "official" music career (even though he'd been singing and performing since his youth). Lightfoot wrote his first song in 1955 but it would be a full decade of playing and performing before he shifted to sets comprising mostly his own tunes. "I didn't have to rely on my own material at the beginning," Lightfoot told American Songwriter in 2008. "There were so many good songs around that I kept learning them."
Rain, planes and trains

But in 1965, that all changed. Lightfoot began performing his own songs, and other bands began recording them. By the time he released his debut album, Lightfoot!, in 1966, the record's biggest success, "Early Morning Rain," had already been a hit for Ian & Sylvia and Peter, Paul and Mary. Lightfoot once called it "the most important song I've ever written," and estimated that it was nine years in the making. The inspiration came years earlier during his time in Los Angeles when, in a fit of homesickness, he went to the airport to watch the planes come and go. It was in the morning, and, yes, it was raining.

In the early morning rain with a dollar in my hand
With an aching in my heart and my pockets full of sand
I'm a long way from home and I miss my loved ones so
In the early morning rain with no place to go

Lightfoot abided by a key rule of good writing: "Show, don't tell." He didn't specifically say he was broke and lonely in L.A., but the "dollar in his hand" and "pockets full of sand" and "no place to go" conveyed his situation perfectly.

On his second record, 1967's The Way I Feel, Lightfoot showcased his ability to thrive creatively under commission. CBC tasked Lightfoot with writing a song that would celebrate the history of the country for the Canadian Centennial, which would kick off with a televised event on New Year's Day, 1967. According to scholar Chris Hemer, since Lightfoot had already written a couple songs about trains at that point, CBC suggested something on the Canadian Pacific Railway and recommended a book from the CBC library on William Cornelius Van Horne, who designed Canada's first transcontinental railway. Lightfoot wrote "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" in just three days, and it quickly became one of the country's most celebrated folk songs, though its legacy has been recontextualized over the years.

Given the source material and the purpose of the commission, it's not surprising that "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" embraces a certain kind of nationalism. Lightfoot does reference the lives lost in the building of the CPR, but the lack of specifics contribute to Canadian myth-making. There's no mention of the settler-colonial violence inflicted on Indigenous people who were displaced and whose lands were stolen, nor the more than 15,000 exploited Chinese migrants who helped build the railroad — and an estimated 600 of whom were killed on the job. In a video essay about the song, journalist Nick Lefevre acknowledges the CPR was "a feat in engineering and it did change the country, but from a humanitarian perspective, it was a tragedy and a crime."
Love undone

Lightfoot also mined his own relationships and love affairs for inspiration and catharsis.

"In some cases the songs are autobiographical; some events and traumas that have to get handled, one way or another, go into the tunes," Lightfoot said in a 1998 interview. "And it's easier and cheaper than going to a shrink."

"If You Could Read My Mind" is one of those songs, written in the midst of the breakup of his first marriage. He had a new home on a small farm in the country, a new record label, and he was drinking "quite a bit." (He quit in 1982.) The song is a series of devastating lines that capture the haunted longing and bittersweet aftertaste of a breakup.

If I could read your mind love, what a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel, the kind the drugstores sell
When you reach the part where the heartache come
The hero would be me, but heroes often fail
And you won't read that book again because the ending's just too hard to take

It's a song written from the perspective of a narrator not quite ready to contend with their own accountability, who masks his willful ignorance in a performance of vulnerability. But Lightfoot's own child called him on this early on. "There's a line in the song that goes, 'If you read between the lines, you'll know that I'm just trying to understand, the feeling that you lack.' My daughter, who was just a girl at the time, heard the song and asked me, 'Don't you lack any feelings, daddy?' She got me to change the line to 'the feelings that we lack.' She said I was putting the whole onus of the divorce on her mother."
PART 2 - next post

[charlene]

The title track of his 1974 album, Sundown, is another song inspired by Lightfoot's volatile love life. The music has a darkly rhythmic groove, irresistible and insistent, and the words convey an urgency and tension that skew toward the sinister.

I can see her looking fast in her faded jeans
She's a hard loving woman, got me feeling mean
Sometimes I think it's a shame
When I get feeling better when I'm feeling no pain
Sundown you better take care
If I find you been creeping 'round my back stairs

The "muse" behind "Sundown" was Lightfoot's then-girlfriend Cathy Smith. According to Lightfoot, one night Smith went out partying with her friends, leaving him home alone, restless, jealous and watching the sunset. He channelled his frustration into writing "Sundown." But according to several publications, including the Globe and Mail, Lightfoot's jealousy turned to violence at least once when he allegedly broke Smith's cheekbone during a fight.

Within the first decade of his solo career, Lightfoot released 10 studio albums. During this time, his record labels also released six compilations of his greatest hits and best songs. The most successful, by far, was 1975's Gord's Gold, a sprawling double vinyl featuring 22 of his most popular tracks. Many of these songs are considered foundational to the Canadian music canon. But one of the biggest and most surprising hits of Lightfoot's career was still to come.

Lightfoot released "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" in 1976, a re-telling of the tragic real-life sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior, Nov. 10, 1975, which claimed the lives of all 29 people on board. "I saw the story on TV, about five hours after it happened, so I collected every newspaper for the next couple of weeks and the song came out," said Lightfoot, who wrote and recorded the song in a rare one-week burst. "It's basically a straightforward account of how the events actually unfolded."

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck saying
Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in, he said
Fellas, it's been good to know ya
The captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Writing: a life's work

Most of Lightfoot's songs were written over months, sometimes years, and he devoted decades of his life to the practice. In a 2010 interview, Lightfoot assigned a numerical value to his songwriting process, telling the Montrealer that it was "15 per cent inspiration and 85 per cent perspiration. I will stand by that — it's hard work. Writing is a solitary process, and it can be exciting and draining at the same time. I wrote songs under contract for 33 years, and now I can relax a little and focus on our performances."

In another 2010 interview, Lightfoot described recording 20 albums under contract as "pretty rough work… That caused a lot of the bumpiness too, because it caused me to be isolated and cut myself off from my people and my kids, so I could work on the songs. I wanted to do it because by that time I was supporting a band, was supporting a crew, and had acquired two or three children. But I don't regret any of it."

Lightfoot was under contract and writing was his job. I have always appreciated his matter-of-fact honesty about spending 33 years and 20 albums doing that work and the effort that he put into it, that it was thrilling, isolating and exhausting. It was also labour. He couldn't afford to be too high-and-mighty to turn up his nose at People magazine or to make a trip to the paint store to find what he was looking for in "Bitter Green" (just a guess on my part).

But in that work, in these songs, we see how beauty — or the illusion of it — can be coaxed from violence and tragedy, the mundane, the everyday and the unexpected. For 65 years, he showed us how beauty belongs to all of us, not just the classically educated or the affluent and cultured. Art is for everybody in the landscape of Gordon Lightfoot's greatest hits.

[charlene]

https://globalnews.ca/news/9667091/rip-gordon-lightfoot-heres-why-he-mattered-so-much/

RIP Gordon Lightfoot. Here’s why he mattered so much.
By Alan Cross Corus Radio
Posted May 2, 2023 7:46 am
Updated May 2, 2023 10:51 am

When I first heard the news last night (May 1), I wrote this on my personal website. It’s reprinted here. -AC]

By now you’ve heard the news of Gordon Lightfoot‘s passing at the age of 84. There’s also a good chance that you’ve been moved to review Lightfoot’s insane accomplishments. No? Let me school you.

First, for those who may not be a fan (or if you’re a younger music fan): This is every bit as sad as the death of Gord Downie. Without that first Gord, there would have been no Gord Downie.

For everyone else, Lightfoot is revered as one of the world’s greatest singer-songwriters. His songs have been covered by Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Barbra Streisand, Neil Young, Glen Campbell, The Grateful Dead, Nico, Olivia Newton-John, Jimmy Buffett, Sarah McLachlan, John Mellencamp, Johnny Mathis, Paul Weller, The Tragically Hip, Jim Croce and about a dozen other big names.

The biggest, though, was Bob Dylan, the greatest singer-songwriter of the 20th century. I quote Zimmy: “I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don’t like. Every time I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever … Lightfoot became a mentor for a long time. I think he probably still is to this day.”

Yes, Lightfoot was considered a mentor by BOB DYLAN.

Sidebar: In 1987, he sued songwriter Michael Masser, accusing him of stealing 24 bars of If You Could Read My Mind for The Greatest of Love of All,” which had just been recorded by–wait for it–Whitney Houston. The case was settled out of court; the settlement did not include Lightfoot’s name being added to the writer’s credits. Still, given the success of the single (top 10 in a dozen countries and sales of over 2.5 million copies PLUS the royalties derived from its parent album, which sold somewhere north of 25 million), the settlement must have been pretty sweet.

Meanwhile, for a guy who wrote a lot about trains and shipwrecks (and peppered his songs with Canadianisms), he sure sold a lot of albums. Millions of them globally. There were all the hit singles that climbed to the top of the American charts: “Early Morning Rain” (also a hit for Elvis), “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway,” “Rainy Day People,” and the masterful “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

Lightfoot was given just about every honour a Canadian could receive including a couple of doctorates, the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, induction in the Songwriters Hall of Fame plus the Canadian Music Hall of Fame (Dylan did the induction), and a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal.

There was even a whiff of Hollywood scandal. Back in the early 70s, he got himself into an entanglement with a Toronto scenester named Cathy Evenlyn Smith. Gordon knew there was something dangerous about her and wrote both “Sundown” and “Rainy Day People” about her. Smith made her way to Los Angeles in 1976 where she became a drug dealer who listed both Keith Richards and Ron Woods as clients. She later became infamous as the person who helped John Belushi inject that fatal speedball in March 1982.

Years ago when I was on a walkabout between jobs, I auditioned for an on-air position at the CBC. It had to be in-person during the same hours I’d be working if I got the job. I’d been allowed to prepare for the audition as if it were a real radio show, so I was in control of everything.

Halfway through, the woman conducting the audition broke in. “Okay, now let’s see how you think on your feet. I’m going to give you a scenario and you just go with it, okay? Here it is: Gordon Lightfoot has just died. Break the news.”

Wow, I thought to myself, That’s the most CBC thing EVER.

Tonight, though, it’s real. Gordon Lightfoot has passed away at the age of 84. Fans had a feeling last month when all dates on his 2023 schedule were canceled.

Lightfoot had been in frail health for years. In 2003, between shows in his hometown of Orillia, his aorta suddenly ruptured in his abdomen. He was airlifted to Hamilton’s McMaster Medical Centre and spent the next six weeks in a coma. Imagine the doctor who had to perform the tracheotomy on the neck that contained one of Canada’s most-treasured voiceboxes. It was three months before he could go home and a full two years before he returned to normal. It was something of a miracle he pulled through.

He returned to work, writing songs, recording albums, playing gigs, and even appearing on Canadian Idol. But then on September 14, 2006, he suffered a minor stroke in the middle of a show, leaving him unable to use the middle and ring finger of his right hand for a while and necessitating that another guitarist sub in for his parts.

We thought he was dead a second time in February 2010 when a Twitter hoax declared him dead. He heard about his demise on the radio on the way back to his hotel the dentist while in Winnipeg. Gordon had to call up Charles Adler, a talk show host on CJOB, to prove that he wasn’t dead yet and was actually feeling much better.

The next years were among Lightfoot’s most productive, playing dozens of shows including the 100th Grey Cup, Canada’s 150th birthday celebration, and tours across North America and the British Isles. The worst health scare he had was an injury while working out in the gym in the middle of a tour (To stay as healthy as possible, he put in gym time six days a week.) That was enough to pull a couple of shows.

Then came COVID. Lightfoot, frail and in his 80s, still managed to put out his 21st studio album in 54 years. And then on December 18, 2020, he performed a paid live stream at a quarantined El Mocambo in Toronto. There was a bonus segment of that concert. After it was over, fans were able to purchase a little overtime with Gord in a sit-down interview with me. His frailty was even more apparent up close, even though he’d seemed in strong voice during the show. But he was determined that no matter what–not even a Global pandemic–was going to stop him from fulfilling his touring obligations which began the following May. And as far as I remember, he played as many of those shows as COVID restrictions would allow. But then earlier this year, ahead of another ambitious tour schedule, every show was canceled with no promises of make-up dates. That was a sure signal that something was very wrong. The four-metre bronze statue of Gord in his hometown of Orillia will see a lot of visitors for the next while. And what’s to become of Massey Hall without the traditional Lightfoot residencies? It’s unimaginable that they won’t happen anymore. Some of his last words were to his manager, Bernie Fiedler: “We had a good run.” Yes, Gord, you did. A very good run.

I have sent a correction to the site regarding the location of Winnipeg when the TWITTER hoax happened. He was in Toronto not Winnipeg.

[charlene]

https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2023/05/05/gordon-lightfoot-remembered-julie-wittes-schlack?fbclid=IwAR35UaxeE4YYaMubhYtn42uGYC9Q3pNH8 9mClVZi3FMEXmMAla8PT--ONiU

Commentary
In Gordon Lightfoot’s lyrics, I still hear the sounds of home
May 05, 2023

Julie Wittes Schlack

Gordon Lightfoot made me appreciate men. Not romantically — I’d had crushes on boys well before I ever heard his music — but empathetically.

Though best known for his 1970s pop tunes like “Sundown” and “If You Could Read my Mind,” the Canadian singer-songwriter who died a few days ago was rivaled only by John Prine in his ability to animate the stories of ordinary working-class men doing extraordinary things. His characters were the men I didn’t know but wanted to. The drowned sailors of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” The railroad “navvies” of “Canadian Railroad Trilogy.”

The drunken marooned ne’er do well from “Early Morning Rain”

With a dollar in my hand

With an aching in my heart

and my pockets full of sand.

These were the people whose stories were all too rarely acknowledged, let alone told with both sympathy and dynamism.

My older brother brought home Lightfoot’s eponymous debut album in 1966. We played that record obsessively, the stylus of our mono record player deepening its grooves. The record’s spare, singable, but narratively rich tunes wore out the needle long before wearing out our imaginations.

Of course, some of the emotional power of these songs derived from the circumstances under which we listened to them. We were adolescents, filled with inchoate longing to be out in the big world, lost to the expectations of others. We wanted to be swingin’ the hammer, not studying for the quiz; to be hopping onto a freight train, not a school bus. We ached to abandon the insular comfort of our middle-class home even if, like the narrator of Steel Rail Blues, we didn’t have a destination.

I haven't found a place that I could call my own

Not a two bit bed to lay my body on

I bin stood up I bin shook down/I bin dragged into the sand.

We were also recent ex-pats, transplanted Montrealers who had only recently moved to the American Midwest and were still homesick, not just for the friends and family we’d left behind, but for Canada itself. And Lightfoot was profoundly Canadian.

The man could make you feel the ruthlessly damp, unforgiving city winter in your bones, as in this poignant song about a forlorn old man stumbling “Home From the Forest:”

Oh the neon lights were flashin'

And the icy wind did blow

The water seeped into his shoes

And the drizzle turned to snow

His eyes were red, his hopes were dead

And the wine was runnin' low

But he could also paint a picture of winter’s brilliant hush with equal vividness. And Lightfoot could do romance without treacle. No chewing gum love songs or self-indulgent tunes about being sad or lonely or blue ever emerged from his pen. No, his love affairs ended with sorrow, regret, and sometimes self-recrimination, but always with lyricism. Softly is evidence of that.

Softly she goes

Her shining lips in the shadows

Whispers goodbye at my windo

Having immigrated to the most powerful country in the world as it waged the war in Vietnam, my brother and I longed for our homeland’s lack of imperial ambitions. In 1967, Canada’s population was only 20 million, an astonishingly low number for the world’s second largest country. But that created a spaciousness in the culture, a tolerance for a “cultural mosaic” that stood in contrast to an American melting pot that boiled away our differences.

To celebrate the country’s centenary, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBS) commissioned Lightfoot to write a song, and the resulting “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” captured that unique national spirit of optimism without jingoism.

But time has no beginning and the history has no bound

As to this verdant country they came from all around

They sailed upon her waterways and they walked the forest tall

Built the mines, mills and the factories for the good of us all.

Like the country he came from and returned to, Lightfoot was wry without being cruel, modest without any disingenuous self-effacement. In the 2019 documentary, “If You Could Read My Mind,” he ruefully acknowledges the sexism of some of his early songs. “I didn’t know what chauvinism was then,” he said. And when interviewed in 2008, he resisted the hagiography that surrounded him as a national hero and one of Bob Dylan’s favorite songwriters. “Sometimes I wonder why I’m being called an icon, because I really don’t think of myself that way,” he explained. “I’m a professional musician, and I work with very professional people. It’s how we get through life.”

I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of his work — I’ve never even listened to many of his later albums. But I know his first two albums, released in 1966 and 1967, like I knew my parents’ lullabies. They inspired me, soothed me, ushered me into dreams both sleeping and awake. In Gordon Lightfoot’s songs I heard the sun going down and rising again.

Open your heart, let the life blood flow

We got to get on our way 'cause we're movin' too slow

(Candian Railroad Trilogy)

[charlene]

Randy Bachman remembers:

When we were younger, Burton Cummings and I went to a Gordon Lightfoot concert. We sat there mesmerized the entire time at the way he sang and the stories his lyrics told. It was poetry, folklore, legend and music. Spellbound would be a good way to describe what we felt. Sending love to his family and friends today at his passing. I knew him a long time and he was a wonderful person.
AUDIO

https://dcs.megaphone.fm/CORU5057504803.mp3?key=de02ef2255559f3fb2aad6e716e 01809&request_event_id=b88249a7-5519-4d56-92aa-fb44d1eee1fb

[charlene]

BILLY JOEL pays his respects at MSG concert 5/5/2023

"Sundown (Gordon Lightfoot Tribute) & Downeaster Alexa" Billy Joel@New York 5/5/23 - YouTube

[charlene]

ED RINGWALD - Pee Wee - video at link - Ed at home

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/waterloo-s-ed-peewee-charles-ringwald-looks-back-on-16-years-of-making-music-with-gordon-lightfoot-1.6382903?fbclid=IwAR1RSUsn0_RE6YYLEckxIF77xERVBbU JRGL2yb1tqZif6-Mtd-NcB08nzzU

VIDEO LINK: https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2680313&jwsource=em

A wall of gold and platinum records paint a wall inside Ed Ringwald’s Waterloo home.

The pedal steel guitar player, known musically as “Peewee Charles,” never could’ve imagined that level of success. He already had it pretty good playing on the CTV-produced Ian Tyson Show.

Then the call came. Gordon Lightfoot wanted Ringwald to play on an upcoming album.

“‘Would you like to be part of it?’ And I was like uh yeah, I think so,” Ringwald said, laughing.

He clearly left an impression because he was later asked to join the band. It’s where he sat behind the strings for 16 years.

The steel guitar is known for its sound of loneliness in country music rather than folk. But Lightfoot didn’t care.

“He was a great guy to work for and he taught us all so much about music. Me playing steel guitar, I had to play a different style of music,” said Ringwald.

That style worked for them, leading to the highest of accolades in the music world. And they never forgot to have some fun along the way, especially when it came to music videos.

“Blackberry Wine … we were all dressed up. I was dressed up as Caesar,” Ringwald said. “And then the one we were playing poker, all the smoke I was telling you about. We had to smoke cigars, I was green after the video take.”

So when Ringwald’s wife told him his former front man had died, all the memories came flooding back, saying it didn’t feel real.

“She said that Gord had passed away and my heart just sunk. I know some day it happens to all of us but you never expect it,” Ringwald said, listening to old performances with Lightfoot.

Now, all Ringwald is left with is the memories. But some of the moments he holds closest are performing in his hometown of Kitchener, alongside the Canadian folk legend.

“He was the first act to open Centre In The Square when it opened. And I remember that. It was quite a long time ago,” said Ringwald.

Last month, Lightfoot’s health issues led to the cancellation of his entire 2023 tour. The only Canadian stop was set for Kitchener’s Centre In The Square. It’s just one many cities where Lightfoot left his footprint – imprinted on Canada’s identity forever.

[charlene]

https://broadview.org/gordon-lightfoot-orillia/

My good friend Gordon Lightfoot was also a friend to so many

The minister who is presiding over his memorial service shares her memories of the Canadian icon
By Karen Hilfman Millson | May 5, 2023
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On the evening of May 1,, when I heard of Gordon Lightfoot’s death, I experienced an overwhelming flow of tears. He was all the things people are saying about him: the soundtrack of our lives, a poet and storyteller who touched our hearts, a weaver of the threads of our lives creating a tapestry filled with our experiences, our humanity, and the joys and struggles of living. For me, amongst the many gifts Gordon shared was his incredible capacity to be present to people, making people feel special.

I remember the night he received The Heart and Vision Award from the Toronto United Church Council. The line to greet him was long. I stood back and watched as he made eye contact with each person asking them where they were from, often sharing a story of someone he knew from their community. People walked away, delighted at their connection.

The second time Gord came to St. Paul’s United in Orillia, Ont., while I was working there, it was for a worship service. Gord grew up going to St. Paul’s and he’s often been heard to say it was there that he got his start and learned about singing with emotion.

That day, he and I, along with my two colleagues, Blair Bailey and Fred Joblin, spent time together reflecting on his song “Sit Down Young Stranger” and how he gets inspired for his writing. He wanted two things to happen that day. He wanted to sing in the choir and step out from there to do his solo like he did as a young person and he wanted to have tea with the ladies after church. Even though he was a shy person and spent many hours in solitude as he crafted his lyrical and musical poetry, connections and relationships were a key theme of his life.

I first met Gord and his sister Bev in 1998 when their mom Jessie died and we met to plan her funeral. My favourite memory from that conversation was when Gord serenaded me with “Jesus Loves Me.” Several years later, I wrote to Bev to ask if she would pass on an invitation to Gordon to come for an interview to be part of the celebration of the 175th anniversary of St Paul’s. I’d almost given up hope that it would happen when several months later, I received a phone call at home late one evening. He was calling to say he could come to do an interview on Sunday afternoon, Dec. 4, less than a month away. I immediately said yes, not knowing what was happening in the church that day. He then started telling me about his life and why St. Paul’s was so important to him.

That was the first of many late-night conversations leading up to the interview. We would talk for an hour or two. I would never know when a call would come, but I loved every minute of him sharing his story as I frantically wrote down every detail. Those stories became the focus of the interview. Blair Bailey, our music director, and I would encourage him to retell the stories of our late-night conversations. The only question that he wouldn’t answer publicly was about his experience of coming close to death in 2002. He talked to me about it but when we came to that moment in the interview, he stood up and said it was time for another song.

part 2 in next post

[charlene]

After the interview, I told Gord that we hadn’t had a chance to ask him before we started if it was okay if we recorded our talk. I told him there were two copies and we would do what he wanted with them. Rick Haynes, his bassist of 37 years at that time, stepped up and said he should take a copy because it was the best interview he’d ever given.

While I did four public interviews with Gordon, plus umpteen private conversations for the purpose of preparing for interviews and writing an article about his childhood in Orillia, the one where Gord was most at ease, and we had the most fun, was at a United Church event called Worship Matters. The room was full of preachers, so I reflected with him on how his work aligns with the task of a preacher to name the realities of life so we can reflect on the kind of world we want to be creating. I also spoke with him about the theme of my life’s work, of the gift and power of authenticity, noting that being authentic, which he is, is a critical part of being able to touch lives. I shared with him that for me, he did that so clearly in “If You Could Read My Mind,” letting us into the recesses of his soul to discover ourselves.

My heart is warmed by the opportunity to fulfill his funeral plans in which I was named to be the minister for the private family service. The chance to be with the people who were intimately connected to his day-to-day life is a gift at this time when the world is grieving.

As I have read the ways people are eulogizing Gordon, I hear a recurring theme of being seen and heard by him. To me, that is what a good friend does. He will always be a cherished friend to me, but in so many ways, he was like a friend to people all across Canada and beyond as he lifted up our stories, our foibles and our connection to the land as a reflection of our reality, helping us to see ourselves more clearly and dream our dreams of the kind of life we want to create.

Rev. Karen Hilfman Millson is a retired United Church minister who was at St Paul’s United in Orillia for 17 years. She is a published author of The Mended Mirror with two new books coming called Pilgrimage with Cancer and a Collection of Poetry.

[charlene]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/06/world/canada/gordon-lightfoot-music-impact.html?unlocked_article_code=CmXxEhlrHyhjrInd iR86mu9VyEXR0mqVY5b0l2wyPC8_gQ3cLXLBgPHBkPzelyDulR u102P7H7fkK-Z4TEmp-Ru563fzXVATfZI_l2u3iQcz0O4hGqzbUv67pAJ-4ccxFYn7nVPaXTmUuxgqdm4ZvHLXlOpMenFdYezlYl1nofqF25 lA7C6atjscOwafTmtdy8UpjgfjVWQybtOPB4dDpfW3VhNKASLF uuNnIUyNsddazQVLQkTkAD-9qw6zLgSlMbRzqw2Tje_caSb8r2Czxgj53ME7QJmdjP9MCg8lF 2IWkH1LrQVECCMLk2iPNQUvDSlN_onXNfPf-P_WLFxoCh3gEXbRhGpi2nVp&smid=url-share&fbclid=IwAR00-r8BME_Szb50oZA8EZaVPnFApzojt-j_d2oms1xaal04G15pgFzUeSc

By Shawna Richer
May 6, 2023
You’re reading the Canada Letter newsletter. Back stories and analysis from our Canadian correspondents, plus a handpicked selection of our recent Canada-related coverage. Get it sent to your inbox.

When I was growing up, Gordon Lightfoot songs played on the living room stereo, on the radio in the kitchen and in the family car and on my dad’s guitar so continuously that it felt like the Canadian singer-songwriter, who died in a Toronto hospital on Monday at 84, lived with us.

I talked this week with my mom and dad, who are 82, about the musician who made the soundtrack to our lives. My father recalled the first time they saw Lightfoot, who had been making a name for himself in 1965 on the folk music scene in Toronto. He is near certain it was in a union hall in nearby Hamilton, a few years before I was born. Lightfoot was a part of my family before I was.

In the early days his 1966 debut record — “Lightfoot!” — lived on the turntable of our mahogany console stereo that took up nearly as much space as the couch, but was the far more essential piece of furniture.

As his popularity grew through the 1960s and ’70s, Lightfoot was prolific, releasing an album each year, and they stacked up at our place, leaning against the stereo and within easy reach. All the covers featured Lightfoot, sensitive and brooding. His good looks of the 1970s were lost on younger me. But Lightfoot was the one artist that my parents could always agree on playing any time at any volume. Saturday nights. Sunday mornings. Home alone. With a house full of company. It was always Lightfoot.

My dad learned to play his whole catalog by ear on an acoustic six-string.

Nature and the wilderness were central themes for Lightfoot, as they were for my mom and dad and for me and my younger brother. His sense of place made me curious about Canada beyond my backyard. His few political songs — particularly “Black Day in July,” about the Detroit race riots of 1967 — sparked a fascination with the United States.

“Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” a panoramic suite that tells the story of Canada’s founding in 1867, was a history class set to music. Lightfoot wrote perfect three-minute ballads and sweeping seven-minute narratives, what the American musician Steve Earle, in the excellent 2019 documentary “If You Could Read My Mind” called “story songs.”

A Gordon Lightfoot album was packed with intrigue: songs about trains, shipwrecks, forests, lakes and rivers, with a throughline of melancholy that was mysterious and irresistible to an introverted kid who spent most of her time reading and writing.

I loved his melodic guitar and supple baritone. But his simple, succinct songs were a master class in narrative storytelling and wordcraft. Lightfoot’s songs, precise and profound, read like poems and unfolded like three-act plays.

[charlene]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/public-visitation-gordon-lightfoot-1.6835196?fbclid=IwAR00-r8BME_Szb50oZA8EZaVPnFApzojt-j_d2oms1xaal04G15pgFzUeSc

video at link - caught me getting a hug from Carter.. !
2nd video is of Rick Haynes

Fans pay respects at Gordon Lightfoot visitation in Orillia, Ont.

The legendary Canadian artist died May 1 at the age of 84 from natural causes
David Friend · The Canadian Press · Posted: May 07, 2023 9:48 AM EDT

More than 2,400 fans poured through a public visitation Sunday in Gordon Lightfoot's hometown in central Ontario to say goodbye to the folk singer-songwriter.

As rain fell, a line grew on the street outside St. Paul's United Church in Orillia, Ont., where Lightfoot once sang as a choir boy.

Inside, each person had a moment with the late musical legend as the line slowly passed by his closed casket. It was adorned with a large bouquet of red roses, as well as a single pink one.

Within the bouquet, a card handwritten by his widow, Kim Lightfoot, read: "My heart's treasure." For the first hour, she greeted visitors near where they entered the building.

Throughout the visitation, which is to run until 8 p.m. Sunday, a continuous flow of Lightfoot's songs played over the sound system.

Two hours after it began, security for the event estimated nearly 1,700 people had gone through the church.
Members of the public line up to pay their respects at visitation for singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot at St. Paul's United Church, in his hometown of Orillia, Ont., Sunday, May 7, 2023. The legendary Canadian artist died May 1, at the age of 84 from natural causes.

Steve Porter and his wife, Diane Porter, were first in line at the church at 10:30 a.m., two and a half hours before the doors opened. Not knowing how big the crowds would be, they wanted to show up early to pay their respects.

"I feel like I'm honouring Gord in my own little way," he said while standing in line.

"I'm representing my family and my ancestors who are all gone and who loved him dearly."

Myeengun Henry travelled from the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation near London, Ont, with a gift of tobacco to honour Lightfoot.

He also carried an eagle feather in hand, which he said was a symbolic gesture of the highest-flying bird.

"It can see the farthest and I kind of relate that to Gord," he said.

"He could see things other people couldn't and the eagle feather is perfect for thinking about Gordon. [He] sent the truth to many people and so I have so much respect for his legacy."

Antonette Dinovo and her husband, Vince Dinovo, travelled a couple of hours from Markham, Ont., outside of Toronto.

Antonette said they planned to visit a local record store and walk through nearby Mariposa, home of the music festival where Lightfoot often performed.

"I think it's important to be here today," she said. "It represents the loss we feel and a celebration."

Many local establishments took those sentiments to heart. Several bars and one of the local record stores planned to recognize Lightfoot's influence through live music performances this weekend.

David LaBute, who drove four hours from Windsor, Ont., for the weekend with his friend, said the spirit of Lightfoot could be felt in the streets of the city.

"There are tributes all over the place," he said. "It's really nice to see a town take ownership of one of their own."
'An emotional day,' longtime friend says

Rick Haynes was Gordon Lightfoot's bassist, and a longtime friend. He said it was "an emotional day" for him.

"There's a lot of memories connected to Gordon around Orillia here today, as well as thousands of his fans, so … it's very surreal and poignant," Haynes told CBC News.

Haynes said he's reflecting on 55 years with Lightfoot "and all of the good times we had, and he has said 'it's been a great ride.'"

"It's been a real honour to have worked for Gordon all these years," he added.

Haynes described his friend as "a very humble man," an adventurer, a philanthropist and "a very shy person. Some people mistook that for being aloof or arrogant, but he wasn't aloof or arrogant at all. He was shy and humble."

At 2 p.m., church bells at St. Paul's rang 30 times, 29 for the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald and once in honour of Lightfoot.

After Lightfoot's death on May 1, Orillia residents began placing flowers on two monuments to the singer in the city.

On Saturday, a previously planned concert tribute to his career at the Orillia Opera House became a celebration of his life and career.

Elsewhere, a book of condolences can be signed at Toronto's Massey Hall, a venue where Lightfoot frequently performed throughout his career. It's to be available from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

A private funeral is to take place in Orillia, where he will be buried alongside his parents.

[charlene]

https://barrie.ctvnews.ca/lightfoot-s-impact-felt-in-his-hometown-of-orillia-ont-as-fans-mourn-and-celebrate-his-life-1.6382878

VIDEO at link.

Lightfoot's impact felt in his hometown of Orillia, Ont. as fans mourn and celebrate his life.

Fans of Gordon Lightfoot are mourning his death and revelling in his life in his hometown of Orillia, Ont., after news of his passing broke Monday evening.

Many stopped by Alleycats Music and Art record store on Mississaga Street to bask in the memories.

"When a musician passes away that people love, they want to talk about it," said Alleycats owner Mike Rothwell.

Across the street, local business owner Bill Cook turned an empty storefront into a tribute to Lightfoot.

"I just felt that we need to do a little setup on the street to have people stop and think about him," Cook said.

The storefront is adorned with memorabilia, and visitors have been leaving notes and flowers to grieve and celebrate the most beloved musician to ever come out of the Sunshine City.

"They almost have tears in their eyes, but they're also smiling because they're so happy to see various pictures of Gordon, and they all have good memories of him," Cook added.

The iconic folk musician made appearances at the Mariposa Folk Festival over the years, often performing without having been hired, to the delight of his fans.

Lightfoot headlined the festival several times, singing his famous songs, including "If You Could Read My Mind," "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," and "Sundown."

Alleycats record store, where Rothwell displayed only Lightfoot records on his 80th birthday, said his customers helped him realize how adored Lightfoot was to people of all ages.

"Sometimes it surprises me that people in their 30s and 20s would know about Gordon Lightfoot," Rothwell said. "So that helped me understand how important he was."

More than 500 people signed the Opera House's books of condolences.

"His name is synonymous with Orillia," said Cook. "I've been many places in the world, from Japan to Australia, and if I tell people I'm from Orillia, even the locals, they will say, 'Oh, that's where Gordon Lightfoot is from'."

Lightfoot will be laid to rest in his hometown of Orillia at St. Paul's United Church.

The public is invited to pay their respects on Sunday at the church on Peter Street North from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.

[charlene]

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2203500611510

video of RICK HAYNES at llink

Gordon Lightfoot was 'a loyal and good friend,' longtime bassist says
1 day agoNewsDuration 4:37

Rick Haynes, who attended the public visitation for his friend Gordon Lightfoot in Orillia, Ont., described the late Canadian troubadour as humble and shy, an adventurer up for any challenge and one of the greatest songwriters who ever lived.

[charlene]

pics - I went to Orillia with David Newland - artist and emcee at the HUGH'S ROOM trib shows and Jane Harbury - long time freined of Gordon and Bernie-Riverboat Jane - Jane Harbury.. One snap is of Meredith and David having a hug..
https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/visitation-for-gordon-lightfoot-captured-in-photos-6965513?utm_source=OrilliaMatters&utm_campaign=e55ae8e1f3-DailyORI&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_36208ee662-e55ae8e1f3-318369853

Visitation for Gordon Lightfoot captured in photos
Hundreds have come to Orillia to pay their respects to the beloved singer/songwriter who got his start as a choir boy at St. Paul's
Kevin Lamb

It has been a sombre Sunday afternoon in Orillia, punctuated by rain and a mix of emotions.

Hundreds have come to Orillia, the hometown of Gordon Lightfoot, to pay their respects to one of Canada's most iconic singer/songwriters.

A public visitation for Lightfoot, who died at a Toronto hospital May 1, began at 1 p.m. at St. Paul's Centre in downtown Orillia. People are welcome to come and pay their respects until 8 p.m. A private funeral for Lightfoot will be held in Orillia next week.

There has been an outpouring of affection for the beloved troubadour this week as people from all over the world have shared their love and passion for the gifted singer who began his career as a choir boy at St. Paul's.

[charlene]

https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/he-was-canadiana-lightfoots-music-humility-resounded-loudly-6965885?utm_source=OrilliaMatters&utm_campaign=e55ae8e1f3-DailyORI&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_36208ee662-e55ae8e1f3-318369853

'He was Canadiana': Lightfoot's music, humility resounded loudly
'I really loved how authentic he was and how real he was,' said Karen Hilfman-Millson, a former St. Paul’s minister, who will be officiant at Lightfoot's funeral

As hundreds of friends and fans made a pilgrimage to St. Paul’s Centre on Sunday to pay tribute to Orillia-born folk music legend Gordon Lightfoot, countless memories of friendship and fandom emerged.

Orillia residents, Canadians from far and wide, and travellers from the United States came to bid the folk music legend a final farewell during a public visitation that ran from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.. By three in the afternoon, more than 1,000 people had already paid their respects to Lightfoot, who died May 1. He was 84..

Karen Hilfman-Millson, a former St. Paul’s minister and long-time friend of Lightfoot’s, has been chosen as the officiant of his upcoming funeral, a private function for family and close friends.

“It feels like such a blessing because I have this deep sadness, and almost like a wound at his death,” she told OrilliaMatters. “To have the opportunity, to think about who he's been in my life and in the life of Canada and the life of Orillia, it means a lot. It really does.”

Hilfman-Millson, who served as St. Paul’s minister for 17 years, had the opportunity to interview Lightfoot on numerous occasions.

She said she loved how authentic and humble he was.

“I really loved how authentic he was and how real he was,” she said. “He didn't want to be a superstar – he wasn't particularly interested in that. He was a very shy person; he was a very humble person, but he was very committed to his craft and his musical lyrical poetry.”

Recalling how Lightfoot began his musical career at St. Paul’s in the choir, Hilfman-Millson said it means a lot to know how much the church meant to him, and she said it signifies the impact the church can have on people.

“The whole idea of him choosing to come home to here for his visitation means a lot,” she said. “It just warms people's hearts, that this meant so much to him, and I think we begin to see the difference we can make as a community, both the church community and the Orillia community.

“He walked through that door a lot, and it made an impact on his life, so it's, it's very touching to be reminded how much of a difference that makes when we welcome people and we encourage their gifts, and we celebrate who they are,” she said. “It's a good reminder that as a community, that's what we need to be doing.”

Just as the church impacted Lightfoot’s life, so, too, did he impact the hundreds of people who showed up for the public visitation.

Siblings Fred and Lisa Krohn travelled all the way from Minneapolis to pay their respects.

Fred said Lightfoot was a key part of building his career as a music promoter in Minneapolis.

“He was the first artist that I ever promoted as live entertainment ... He sold out shows, and I stayed in the business,” he said. “The guy is a legendary performer and probably the best songwriter that I've ever had … Lightfoot outclassed them all, as far as I’m concerned.”

Through their friendship, Lightfoot penned the foreword to Fred’s book, Standing in the Wings, and became a family friend, as well.

“Our mom used to … bring Gordon and the guys brownies, and he called our mom ‘Mom,’ and he's known our family through Fred for all these years,” added Lisa.

When not involved in music, Lightfoot would often take to adventure, and his old friend Ingo Schoppel spoke of numerous canoe trips the two had been on over the years.

“We have a canoe group out of Cambridge, all kinds of prominent people – prime ministers, and so forth – have been part of it, and he was very enthusiastic. I did a bunch of trips with him up north and (in the) Northwest Territories,” Schoppel said. “(There were) some very long trips, longest one I did with Gord was 1,000 kilometres long.”

When you spend weeks together in nature, Schoppel said, you get to know someone fairly well.

“Gord’s music is fantastic, and when you have stayed some five, six weeks together in the bush alone, you know, you get talking with him and you have a fantastic exchange,” he said. “He was very persistent, very strong, never gives up.”

Others had more humourous memories of the late folk legend.

Orillia resident Peggy Little came out to pay her respects to Lightfoot, as she went to school with him once upon a time.

“We both went to ODCVI, and a chap called Terry Whelan, who has a beautiful Irish voice, he and Gordy sang together. I always called them the ‘Two Timers,’ but it was the Two Tones, because they were two timers,” Little said, stirring plenty of laughter in the lineup outside St. Paul’s.

“I never went out with him.”

Jeff Day, former managing editor of the Orillia Packet & Times, recalled meeting Lightfoot numerous times in Orillia, as well as in his role as a journalist down in Hamilton.

“When Even Steven … came back to play after touring out west, Gord would come and listen to them at various bars in Orillia, including the old Howard Johnson's,” he said. “The most fun part I remember about him, was he came one night … with his mom, Jessie, and she was just a riot. We ended up sitting with her. What a light she was.

“I got to meet him several times when I went to Hamilton as the entertainment editor at the Hamilton Spectator, so he played there several times, and we got to meet him again,” he said. “He was Canadiana. He's just ingrained in what we do and how we do it every day.”

Orillia’s Andrea Town said her husband once gifted her a record of Lightfoot’s, and said she has been a fan for years.

“I listened to it all the time, and as I'm standing here in the rain, I'm thinking of "Early Morning Rain",” she said. “I don't have that record anymore, so I'm kind of sad about that, but I love his music. It's reflective. It's just a beautiful sound that he brings in every song.”

George Young, who travelled from Huntsville to pay his respects, said he became a fan of Lightfoot’s through his career in radio.

“Of course, when I started back in the ‘60s, he was one of the big singers of the time,” he said. “A lot of his stuff was local Canadian: history, people, personal, and he was unique in that way, and he wasn't afraid to sing it and express himself. I think that's what set him apart from some other singers.”

Edith Molnar, from Toronto, said she became acquainted with Lightfoot back in the ‘hippie’ days of the 1960s, as well.

“I was a hippie then, walking down Yorkville, and he was in the Riverboat Coffeehouse for 25 years, and he was like a staple down in the village,” she said. “We loved his music and I saw him at Massey Hall many, many times, and to me, he's like a Canadian icon.”

[charlene]

https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/a-community-a-nation-bids-heart-felt-farewell-to-gordon-lightfoot-6965184

A community, a nation bids heart-felt farewell to Gordon Lightfoot
'I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that Gordon Lightfoot put Orillia on the map,' longtime band member says as hundreds line up to say goodbye to iconic singer, songwriter

Fans, family, and friends flocked to St. Paul’s Centre Sunday to mourn the passing of Orillia’s favourite son, the internationally renowned singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.

Travelling from across Ontario, Canada, and the United States, people began lining up this morning, hours in advance, in anticipation of the public service that runs from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.

People, many sporting umbrellas during a brief rain shower, lined up outside the church entrance, up Peter Street to Neywash Street and then back and forth twice more on the closed street.

Just as a church bell long ago chimed at the Mariners' Church of Detroit for each of the 29 lost souls aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald, so, too, did St. Paul’s Centre toll its bell — a total of 30 times — capturing the loss of those sailors and the man who immortalized that harrowing wreck on Lake Superior 48 years ago.

Lightfoot, 84, died of natural causes at a Toronto hospital on May 1.

Both Lightfoot, the man, and Lightfoot, the musician, had an immeasurable impact on the hundreds that lined Peter Street to bid the folk legend a final farewell.

“He wrote some songs about the territory here, Lake Couchiching, and he's mentioned Indigenous things in his music,” said Myeengun Henry, who travelled from the Chippewa of the Thames First Nation, near London. “That really got people to learn about Indigenous history, so he's huge in the Indigenous world and we respected everything he did.”

Bernie David, a fan of over 50 years, drove from Toronto this morning to pay his respects to the man he credits for, in a way, introducing him to his future wife.

“In high school, she had tickets for Lightfoot, and I went, and I’ve loved him ever since,” recalled a misty-eyed David, who went on to marry his high school sweetheart.

“All my friends used to sit by the campfire and play the guitar, and every time he came out with a new album … I learned all the music,” said David.

For many, Lightfoot's music was the soundtrack of their youth.

“I grew up with it. I grew up singing to it, and my brother’s first guitar tunes were Gordon Lightfoot,” said Lisa Langill, who came down from the Muskoka area. “So we thought we’d come down. How can you not?”

Lightfoot’s longtime bassist credits the late musician with putting Orillia on the map, and remaining humble despite his fame.

“I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that Gordon Lightfoot put Orillia on the map, and he's also been a great supporter of Orillia as a philanthropist,” said Rick Haynes.

“He was a humble man considering his fame,” Haynes said. “He was very engaging, he was very caring, and he really had time for everyone. He really did.”

The visitation continues until 8 p.m. this evening. A private funeral will be held next week in Orillia.

[charlene]

https://en.newsner.com/celebrity/dog-curls-up-next-to-gordon-lightfoots-casket-during-memorial-service-gordon-loved-dogs/?fbclid=IwAR2g3q7QtSzWSjJ7TW_k_jFll-_jud6Whq00KemAqHSzl0WRDNxvh4sLWxQ


Dog curls up next to Gordon Lightfoot’s casket during memorial service: “Gordon loved dogs”

Kevin McCarthy

Last week, the legendary singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot died at the age of 84. One of the most successful folk artists of his era and a Canadian national hero, countless fans grieved at his passing.

A memorial service for the musician was held on May 7 — and in a heartwarming sight, one old friend gathered by his side.

Lightfoot, whose hit songs include “Sundown” and “If You Could Read My Mind,” was memorialized at St. Paul’s United Church in his hometown of Orillia, Ontario, Canada.

The singer, who stayed true to his Canadian roots even as he achieved international stardom, reportedly requested that his funeral be held at the Orilla church, where he sang in the choir as a teenager.

“He is the one that wanted it to be here, in this church that he grew up in,” St. Paul’s choir director Blair Bailey told CTV News.

Lightfoot’s funeral yesterday was reportedly a small, private affair with 50 close friends and family members attending, but local fans had an opportunity to pay their respects at a public visitation on Sunday.

Those who did witnessed a bittersweet moment as an unexpected mourner curled up by the late musician’s side: a dog named Taurus.

According to Lightfoot’s longtime publicist Victoria Lord, Taurus belongs to one of Lightfoot’s tour people, and they bonded while on the road together.

“He used to go on the road with him and wait for Gordon side stage,” Victoria Lord told Newsner. “Gordon loved dogs.”

It’s not uncommon for dogs, loyal til the very end, to lay by the graves or caskets of their departed loved ones — a heartbreaking, bittersweet tribute.

You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat animals. Taurus may not have been Lightfoot’s own pet, but it’s clear they had a real bond and the dog will miss him a lot.

Gordon Lightfoot died on May 1 at the age of 84. The news was first reported via the musician’s Facebook page; he reportedly died of natural causes.

Lightfoot achieved his greatest international success in the 1970s, with hits like “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Several of his albums went platinum.

One of his generation’s folk music superstars, Lightfoot was widely respected by his fellow musicians and regarded as a national hero in his native Canada.

“He is our poet laureate, he is our iconic singer-songwriter,” said Rush singer Geddy Lee in the 2019 documentary Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind, per CBC.

“I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don’t like,” Bob Dylan once said. “Everytime I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever…. Lightfoot became a mentor for a long time. I think he probably still is to this day.”

“Gordon Lightfoot captured our country’s spirit in his music – and in doing so, he helped shape Canada’s soundscape,” Trudeau wrote on Twitter after Lightfoot’s passing, calling him “one of our greatest singer-songwriters.”

Rest in peace to the incredible Gordon Lightfoot. He will be missed by so many — including loyal dog Taurus. ��

[charlene]

you can catch me at the end in the yellow coat..(and Trib.show emcee David Newland hugging Meredith on the other end of the casket as I walk by)

Gordon Lightfoot - Saying Goodbye - YouTube

[charlene]

https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/column-lightfoots-fingerprints-touch-all-of-our-lives-6964571

COLUMN: Lightfoot's fingerprints touch all of our lives
Writer's ties to 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' story still echo decades later, just as Lightfoot's music and lyrics continue to resonate today
Ian McInroy Ian McInroy
May 7, 2023 1:30 PM

Orillia and the rest of Canada are remembering Gordon Lightfoot.

His music triggers lots of memories and emotions for me, probably not unlike millions of other Canadians.

My first introduction to Lightfoot’s music was the "Canadian Railroad Trilogy," released in 1967. I remember listening to it in Grade 8 the following year (our teacher was a huge Gordon Lightfoot fan) and, along with my classmates, loved the story it told and how it was told through words and music. I would hear it a few more times later in high school where we dissected it even further.

Lightfoot’s next musical imprint on my teen brain later in 1968 would be political, poignant and hit a lot closer to home.

When "Black Day in July" — Lightfoot’s ode to the 1967 summer race riots in Detroit, Michigan — was released in 1968, I was living just a few miles away in peaceful south Windsor. The previous summer we’d been house hunting along the Detroit River: manicured lawns and suburbia to the right, billowing smoke and emergency lights across the river to the left.

The mile in between didn’t seem far enough.

Lightfoot’s song nailed that summer of discontent at least as well as any black or white American musical act did and he took quite a bit of heat for it. I liked the song immediately: it was revealing truths and made me think that music could have power.

I had the opportunity and pleasure to meet Lightfoot’s friend and longtime guitar player Terry Clements in 1989 during a photo shoot while I was working at a Newmarket newspaper.

Clements had been busy in Los Angles before he began playing with Lightfoot in 1971 after a lineup change in the band. His guitar is featured on Lightfoot’s most memorable work, including his solos on The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which spent 21 weeks on the U.S. Billboard charts.

There may have been gold records scattered around the walls of his home studio and guitars everywhere, but he was just a really nice guy. Easy to talk to.

He passed away in 2011 after a stroke — just weeks prior he was still rehearsing with Lightfoot — and was always remembered by Lightfoot as one of his best friends.

Whenever I hear "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and his amazing guitar, I think of him.

I also think of my father-in-law.

Hmmm.

Within months of the Edmund Fitzgerald going down, Jack Kennedy — the Canadian Coast Guard’s district manager in Parry Sound — got a call from Lightfoot, who wanted information around the ship’s sinking. The singer was renowned for his attention to detail (along with an appropriate amount of artistic licence) so a call up to ’The Guard’ for some background must have seemed in order.

“His name didn’t ring a bell to me,” says Jack with a grin. “I didn’t know who it was to tell you the truth. I just had a nice long chat with him and told him what I thought about different things. We talked back and forth about some other stuff, too.”

No need to be star struck.

“I came out of my office where the other staff were and said, ‘I just got a call from this Gordon Lightfoot fellow about the Fitzgerald. Who is he?’ They kind of laughed and said, ‘Don’t you know who Gordon Lightfoot is?’ And I said, ’No, I don’t.’”

But the musician went to the right place if he wanted some background on one of Canada’s most famous nautical disasters, with Jack spending 38 years in the Coast Guard, including 16 on the water. Starting as a deck hand, he worked his way up to captain, then became superintendent of lights, then superintendent of navigational aids and then district manager for about 10 years.

“In the meantime I did go on a steamship (laker, freighter) for a year-and-a-half and I actually ended up in a big storm similar to what the Fitzgerald encountered,” says Jack from his Bay Street home on Parry Sound harbour.

“We did the same thing. We had to go north of Cariboo Island and follow the shore and try to get away from the heavy seas. We really got racked up good,” he adds. “That was my biggest storm for sure and it was the same trip the Fitzgerald had made. They had to go along the Canadian shore to try to avoid the heavy seas.

“We didn’t figure we’d survive that night really. It was pretty horrendous.”

Lightfoot utilized his previously-mentioned artistic licence when drawing upon some of their conversations for the song, adds Jack.

“At first there were many different theories about what happened,” he says, “and there are a lot of presumptions because nobody survived.”

The musician’s original lyrics — ‘At seven p.m., a main hatchway caved in’ — was later disproven (Lightfoot altered the words in later performances) and also contained some possible, but not likely, scenarios, says Jack.

Another memorable line — ‘The captain wired in he had water comin' in. And the good ship and crew was in peril.’ — was also a little off the mark.

“The captain never indicated he was in peril. The last thing the captain said just before it went down was, ‘we’re holding our own’. Just prior to that he said, ‘we’re taking on water and we hope our pumps are keeping up’,” he says. “You don’t know if your pumps are keeping up or not. You can’t go down into a bilge and see how much water is in there.

“You can’t go outside. You just hang on for dear life. Anyway, she probably was sinking but you don’t know the boat is sinking if it’s loaded with iron ore because you’re really down in the water.”

Jack’s own theory is that the Fitzgerald was taking on water from a crack.

“A ship takes a lot of strain in heavy seas,” he says. “I can remember looking back aft from the wheelhouse when we were coming down the same area and you could see the whole boat twisting. So you could easily get a fracture in the hull doing that overtime.”

But when she did go down, she went down immediately, he adds.

“The guy was talking on the phone and then ‘boom’, he’s gone. So it didn’t take a long time; it was sudden.”

But one part of the conversation between the sailor and the song writer did come across in the tune.

What would you say to a group of sailors who could be hours or minutes away from dying?

“We talked about a lot of different things but that was definitely one of them,” Jack says. “He asked me specifically what the crew would say to each other, how they would act, that sort of thing. I said something like, ’So long boys. It’s been good to know you’.

“It was a cool song. I do recall hearing it and going, ‘oh, that’s the guy I had the talk with’.”

[charlene]

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/05/08/family-friends-gather-at-private-funeral-for-gordon-lightfoot-in-his-hometown.html?fbclid=IwAR1ZSSmnFlZ7F0eSYciM_gXK2ed Wgxpn9sgq4T-rvkL9mI17GRHQ8V9C0Zg

Family, friends gather at private funeral for Gordon Lightfoot in his hometown
Close friends and family of Gordon Lightfoot came together for a small, private funeral on Monday held at the Orillia, Ont. church where he was once a choir boy.
DF
By David Friend The Canadian Press
Mon., May 8, 2023

ORILLIA, Ont. - Close friends and family of Gordon Lightfoot came together for a small, private funeral on Monday held at the Orillia, Ont. church where he was once a choir boy.

A group of roughly 50 people assembled inside St. Paul’s United Church for the nearly two-hour ceremony that included a choir performance accompanied by an organ.

Underneath the virtually cloudless sunny sky, the local community went about the day as any other, with some doing yard work and a few curious onlookers wandering past the church to observe the activity.

One neighbour set up a lawn chair outside his house to see if Canadian rock royalty the likes of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young might pull up.

They didn’t seem to, however. Most of the visible mourners appeared to be Lightfoot’s extended family, band mates and others who worked with him over the years.

After the ceremony finished, Lightfoot’s casket was loaded into a hearse and left the church grounds as a small crowd of people gathered to observe the proceedings from across the street.

Lightfoot is to be laid to rest alongside his parents at St. Andrew’s and St. James’ Cemetery.

On Sunday, a public visitation was held at St. Paul’s United Church that drew more than 2,400 people, according to estimates from security for the event.

Elsewhere, a book of condolences could also be signed at Toronto’s Massey Hall, a venue where Lightfoot frequently performed throughout his career.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2023.

[charlene]

https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/column-rest-easy-mr-lightfoot-we-will-never-forget-you-6978662?utm_source=Villager&utm_campaign=Content&utm_medium=Facebook_Graph&fbclid=IwAR3MTJWjzonfBl6h5gBN9SeqERI1opH0rJhghTlUz UxLnYnHUIMz47v1xOc

COLUMN: 'Rest easy, Mr. Lightfoot. We will never forget you'
After an emotional week of tributes and rites, Orillia shifts gears, moves back into a 'whirlwind of arts and culture events,' says columnist
Anna Proctor

Well, it’s certainly been quite the week here in Orillia. Our hometown hero, Gordon Lightfoot, put us on the international stage this past week, no doubt about it. And Orillia, and St. Paul’s United Church in particular, did him very proud.

All of the arrangements were handled perfectly, and I have heard from more than one source, everyone was so very kind, respectful, and welcoming.

Lightfoot planned this 10 years ago, and he knew what he was doing. He knew Orillia and St. Paul’s was where he wanted to be, and where he wanted his loved ones to be taken care of with love and respect. Hats off to you, Orillia. You did good. Rest easy, Mr. Lightfoot. We will never forget you.

[charlene]

https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/behind-the-scenes-the-world-says-goodbye-to-gordon-lightfoot-6981022

BEHIND THE SCENES: The world says goodbye to Gordon Lightfoot
OrillaMatters reporter Greg McGrath-Goudie takes us behind the scenes as Orillia and the world bid adieu to Gordon Lightfoot
Village Media

The community of Orillia gathered at St. Paul's Centre Sunday to mourn the loss of their beloved favourite son, Gordon Lightfoot.

Fans, family, and friends from all over Ontario, Canada, and the United States lined up for hours outside the church entrance, braving a brief rain shower while paying their respects to the renowned singer/songwriter at the seven-hour-long public service.

As a tribute to Lightfoot's iconic song about the Edmund Fitzgerald, St. Paul's Centre tolled its bell 30 times, honouring the memory of the sailors lost and the man who immortalized their tragic fate on Lake Superior 48 years ago. Lightfoot, aged 84, passed away from natural causes in a Toronto hospital on May 1.

The impact of Lightfoot, both as a person and a musician, was immeasurable for the hundreds of mourners who lined the streets of Orillia to bid farewell to the folk legend. His songs resonated with people on a personal level, as he often incorporated local themes and Indigenous history into his music.

For many, Lightfoot's music was the soundtrack of their youth, evoking cherished memories and moments shared with friends and family.

Rick Haynes, Lightfoot's longtime bassist, recognized the profound impact the late musician had on Orillia. Haynes described Lightfoot as a humble and engaging individual who genuinely cared for others and always made time for them.

Fans, family, and friends of Canadian music legend Gordon Lightfoot gathered from all over the continent to attend his visitation in Orillia this past Sunday. OrilliaMatters reporter Greg McGrath-Goudie was present at St. Paul's Centre to capture the emotions and heartfelt goodbyes during the visitation, which drew more than 2,400 people who came to pay their respects to Orillia's favourite son.

Lightfoot had a profound impact on the attendees, evoking a mixture of sadness and admiration.

Many attendees shared personal connections and stories about Gordon Lightfoot. One woman, who had gone to school with Lightfoot and was a year younger than him, recalled their time together in a group called "The Two Tones."

Another attendee, a promoter from Minnesota, attributed his successful career to Lightfoot's influence and even wrote a book about his promoting career, which Lightfoot supported. There was also a gentleman from Cambridge who had gone on canoe trips with Lightfoot for several years. These stories reflected the impact Lightfoot had on people's lives, whether through his music, personal connections, or inspiring journeys.

Gordon Lightfoot's impact on his hometown of Orillia was profound and enduring. Unlike many famous musicians, Lightfoot consistently paid homage to his roots and remained connected to the city throughout his career. He generously donated the proceeds from concerts to causes such as Soldiers' Memorial Hospital, and he began his career as a choirboy at St. Paul's Centre. Lightfoot's desire to be buried in his hometown further emphasized his strong ties to Orillia.

[charlene]

https://en.prothomalo.com/entertainment/music/0xolk1htsw

Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian folk legend, dead at 84
AFP
Washington
Published: 02 May 2023,

Canadian singer and performer Gordon Lightfoot, who rose to international fame as a folk music star in the 1960s and '70s, died on Monday. He was 84.

"Gordon Lightfoot passed away this evening in a Toronto hospital at 7:30pm (2330 GMT)," a post on his official Facebook page read, as obituaries started pouring in from the Canadian press.

The immediate cause of death was not made public. "More info to come," read the post.

Lightfoot, born in Ontario, made his performing debut in 1943, at the age of five, singing "I'm A Little Teapot" at a local church Sunday school, according to his website.

He later found himself immersed in the Canadian and American folk scene, amid contemporaries like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.

While he is known as a folk and folk-pop star of the late 20th century, Lightfoot's popularity -- and continued songwriting -- meant he was touring internationally until just last month.

In April, the singer canceled his 2023 tour dates, citing unspecified health issues.

Lightfoot's songs -- dealing with everything from a failed marriage to the beauty of the Canadian countryside -- were covered by artists including Elvis Presley, Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan and The Grateful Dead.

The singer, known for hits such as "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," "Early Morning Rain," and "If You Could Read My Mind," was often hailed as a modern-day poet in his native Canada.

Dylan once called Lightfoot one of his favorite artists, saying "I can't think of any (songs) I don't like."

Lightfoot, on the other hand, was more reserved about his talents, once telling Canadian paper The Globe and Mail: "Sometimes I wonder why I'm being called an icon, because I really don't think of myself that way."

But his modesty was to no avail.

"He is our poet laureate. He is our iconic singer-songwriter," Geddy Lee, the lead singer of Rock band Rush, told a 2019 documentary about Lightfoot.

Lightfoot "was hailed as Canada's folk troubadour for his soulful music and stirring lyrics," broadcaster CBC wrote in its obituary.

Lightfoot is survived by his third wife, Kim Hasse, according to music publication Billboard.

[charlene]

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/2023/05/08/cummings-cochrane-among-musicians-who-say-theyll-play-lightfoot-tribute-friend.html

Burton Cummings, Tom Cochrane among musicians who say they’ll play Gordon Lightfoot tribute: friend
Plans for a star-studded night of music celebrating the legacy of Gordon Lightfoot are already taking shape, according to his longtime friend and concert promoter.
DF
By David FriendThe Canadian Press
Mon., May 8, 2023timer1 min. read

ORILLIA - Plans for a star-studded night of music celebrating the legacy of Gordon Lightfoot are already taking shape, according to his longtime friend and concert promoter.

Bernie Fiedler says several prominent Canadian musicians who counted themselves among Lightfoot’s friends, including Burton Cummings, Tom Cochrane and Murray McLauchlan, have already committed to performing at a tribute show.

Fiedler says while it’s too early to predict when the event might happen, he hopes it’ll take place at Toronto’s Massey Hall, a venue Lightfoot frequented.

He says he’d like the show to include Lightfoot’s original band as the accompaniment “if they’re willing.”

Fiedler outlined the details at a public visitation for the folk singer on Sunday in his hometown of Orillia, Ont., where an estimated 2,400 fans attended.

The “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown” singer died last week at 84.

“His last words to me were, ‘Bern, we had a great ride and I’m ready to go,’” Fielder told reporters alongside Rick Haynes, Lightfoot’s bassist.

Haynes, who worked with Lightfoot for 55 years, described the musician as being at peace in his final days.

“The last months were rough but Gordon was resolved,” he said.

“One of the things he said very recently was, ‘My life’s work is done and I’m ready.’”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2023.

[charlene]

VIDEOS at link:
https://everythingzoomer.com/arts-entertainment/2023/05/11/gordon-lightfoot-raised-awareness-great-lakes-maritime-disasters/?utm_source=EZ+Newsletters&utm_campaign=3114863401-ZoomerMagazine_5_11_2023&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ae5042faed-3114863401-587011821&mc_cid=3114863401&mc_eid=790cd0a653

Gordon Lightfoot’s Music Raised Awareness of Great Lakes Maritime Disasters
JACK L. ROZDILSKY | MAY 11TH, 2023

On May 1, the 84-year-old Canadian folk music icon Gordon Lightfoot died at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commented that Lightfoot’s legacy will live on in the dynamic Canadian soundscape he helped to shape.

In his over 500 songs, Lightfoot was one of Canada’s most beloved chroniclers. Upon his death, we can reflect on Lightfoot’s many impacts on Canadian culture and society.

Music Chronicles

One small aspect of Lightfoot’s broader impact was his skill as a purveyor of the popular culture of disaster through music.

One of his most recognized songs was the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. That 1976 folk ballad was a six-minute documentarian’s song about a tragic 1970s Great Lakes shipwreck disaster.

Lightfoot’s work popularized the Great Lakes bulk cargo shipping transport disaster through song, bringing the story of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald to millions of music fans. Without the song, that specific maritime disaster would not be as well known and might have faded into obscurity.

Lightfoot’s Disaster Music

Lightfoot is one of many Canadian musicians, albeit the most popular, who has carried forward the tradition of Canadian folk music providing a reliable narrative about disasters. Lightfoot’s contributions to disaster music include a well known and a lesser known ballad about contemporary shipwrecks, along with a song about a civil disturbance.

On Nov. 13, 1965, the SS Yarmouth Castle caught fire and sank, killing 90 people while en route from Florida to the Bahamas. The passenger ship — built in 1927 — had a wood superstructure making it dangerously susceptible to fire. In 1969, Lightfoot’s the Ballad of Yarmouth Castle detailed that maritime tragedy.

In June 1967, a police raid on an unlicensed bar triggered a series of racial grievances, leading to the Detroit Uprising. From the Canada side of the international border along the Detroit River, Windsorites lined the waterfront and watched the riot from afar as Detroit burned.

In his 1968 song, Black Day in July Lightfoot memorialized the civil disturbance with his music.

On Nov. 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald broke apart during a Lake Superior storm killing 29 sailors. Lightfoot was inspired to write the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald after reading an article in Newsweek called “Great Lakes: The Cruellest Month.”

This song was by far Lightfoot’s most popular disaster song. While he took some artistic licence describing the shipwreck, the song was factual and timely.

A Special Role

Lightfoot had a special role in contributing to the legend of the Edmund Fitzgerald. In a 2010 interview, he said of the hundreds of songs that he has written, he was most proud of that 1970s shipwreck song.

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, Mich., holds artifacts retrieved from depths of the Canadian portion of Lake Superior, including the Edmund Fitzgerald’s bell. The museum’s director stated that if it was not for Lightfoot’s song, awareness of the Edmund Fitzgerald would not be what it is now.

There is scant public awareness that historically 6,000 vessels have sunk in the Great Lakes, causing an estimated 30,000 deaths.

Lightfoot’s song also highlighted the role of Great Lakes shipping, which is taken for granted. Even in present day downtown Toronto, one can witness the unexpected sight of a bulk sugar carrier arriving from South America.

Bulk cargo carriers — servicing the North American industrial and agricultural heartland via the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway System — contribute to the $45 billion in economic activity from water transportation activities.

Increased Awareness

While shipwreck disasters in the Great Lakes are not frequent, bulk transport by lake is not risk-free. Lightfoot’s ballad highlights the fact that Great Lakes shipwrecks are not only events of the distant past, but they also can have significant human costs in modern times.

In addition to artistic merit, entertainment value, or adding to the list of Canadian disaster songs, Lightfoot’s contribution to increased public awareness of Great Lakes maritime disaster risk is invaluable.

So significant was his contribution that, upon his death, Detroit’s Maritime Church rang its bell in memorium. In the ceremony, the bell rang 30 times: one chime for each of the 29 sailors lost on the Edmund Fitzgerald, and one additional chime to honour the life and legacy of Lightfoot.The Conversation
Jack L. Rozdilsky, Associate Professor of Disaster and Emergency Management, York University, Canada

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

[charlene]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RwkDTxqHJk

Folk singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot dies at 84 - YouTube

[charlene]

VIDEO:
Pianist spends night at St.Paul's with Lightfoot casket.

https://barrie.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2685529&jwsource=em

http://barrie.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2685529&jwsource=em

[Andy T.]

RIP Mr Lightfoot. And thanks Char for the articles posted here.

Now, after a couple of weeks have gone by, I have not heard anything about the band members. A couple of quotes from Rick is about all.

In the case of Gordie, I'm sure he had disposition of his estate tastefully spread across friends and family. The particulars, really is none of my business. I'm not a gossip monger.

Having said that, from a business perspective, I do have to wonder as to who will be the caretakers of the Lightfoot Library going onward?

[Dave, Melbourne,Australia]

I'm still coming to terms with this news. One thing I've done is email relatives and friends who knew Gord's music with my favourite videos of an early live song performance and a late-years live song performance (like bookends of Gord's long, admirable career). The two I chose were as follows.

"Saturday Clothes" from BBC concert 1972:


http://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+gordon+lightfoot+saturday+clothes&oq=youtube+gordon+lightfoot+saturday+clothes&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64.14041j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:b98e0e77,vid:eJFHTutvv8E


"Ring Them Bells" from Mariposa Folk Festival 2012:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKJCf6kXdxc&list=RDqKJCf6kXdxc

Gordon Lightfoot - Mariposa Folk Festival 2012 - Ring Them Bells - YouTube

[charlene]

VIDEO:
https://barrie.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2685529&jwsource=em

[charlene]

I will have photos/video asap..
I spent time with Carter and Michael, Ed (Pee Wee) and Chuck the stage manager after the visitation...They were at the Sunday visitation as was Rick and his family. Barry was attending the funeral on Monday along with everyone else.. A small gathering - 50 or so people as well as a few long time U.S. promoters.

[charlene]

https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/remember-this-when-lightfoot-was-underestimated-6997054?utm_source=OrilliaMatters&utm_campaign=140a287825-DailyORI&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_36208ee662-140a287825-318369853

REMEMBER THIS: When Lightfoot was underestimated
Before Lightfoot became a musical icon, charging $60 to perform was 'far too expensive' for local business

Now lost among thousands of other comments, I once came across a social media gem that pointed to the fact we didn’t always know what we had in the person of Gordon Lightfoot.

Having had no luck in hunting down the original comment, I will have to resort to paraphrasing. Essentially, a contributor to my favourite Barrie-centred Facebook nostalgia group shared a telling nugget from a time when Lightfoot had not yet burst into fame.

The story goes that a larger business entity in Barrie was looking for some kind of musical entertainment for a company function when a staff member suggested Lightfoot. The idea was not well received.

“What? That Lightfoot kid? No way. He charges 60 bucks. Far too expensive. Forget it.”

By 1952, Lightfoot had appeared in Barrie on a number of occasions. He was becoming known locally but was far from being a household name at that time.

A notation in the local happenings section of the Barrie Examiner of June 2, 1952, mentioned a recent performance by the 14-year-old singer.

“Special soloist at the morning service at Collier Street United Church here yesterday was master Gordon Lightfoot of Orillia, boy soprano prize winner for the past two years at the Kiwanis Music Festival in Toronto. He was also soloist at the evening service at Essa Road Presbyterian Church.”

Lightfoot’s mother, Jessie Vick Trill Lightfoot, is credited with noticing her son’s natural talent and encouraging it. Lightfoot himself recognized his voice was a gift but his voice alone might not carry him through, so he began to teach himself to play a variety of musical instruments.

The next step was a formal education in music. Gordon moved far from small-town Orillia and travelled to Los Angeles, Calif., to attend the Westlake College of Music. For two years, the young musician supported himself with small gigs and by writing advertising jingles.

Most Canadian musicians who go to the United States never come back. Lightfoot was an exception. He’d had a taste of America, and it wasn’t for him, so he returned to the place he knew best, the source of so much of his lyrical inspiration.

1963 was spent travelling through Europe. The following year, Lightfoot returned to Canada and began to make the connections that would launch him into Canadian folk music prominence. American artists such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins and Elvis Presley were also eager to record his work.

Lightfoot appeared at the Mariposa Folk Festival for the first time in 1964. The event had originated in his hometown of Orillia but had been banished to Toronto the previous year after numerous complaints about large and unruly crowds at the Orillia venue.

The 1960s were breakout years for the lad from Orillia. Lightfoot toured nationally and, in 1967, became a big part of the Canadian centennial celebrations. It was a bit of a miracle, then, that Barrie North Collegiate managed to secure the rising star for a centennial concert of its own.

Somehow, the graduating class managed to gather Lightfoot’s fee of $1,750 and book him to perform at the auditorium at Central Collegiate.

Lightfoot did not disappoint. More than 1,100 people filled the auditorium to hear the songs and the stories of this down-to-earth local man who was surely going places. The next week, he was off to Expo 67 in Montreal.

In 1969, the students at Barrie North Collegiate attempted to book Lightfoot once again but were unsuccessful due to “financial reasons.”

By then, Lightfoot was becoming a much-sought-after musician, and the 1970s saw him become established as a folk music icon.

He performed until shortly before his death at the age of 84. At the time of his passing, he was booking performances for fees in the range of $40,000 to $75,000 a show. Sixty bucks sounds like a pretty sweet deal now, doesn’t it?

[charlene]

PHOTO at link"
https://www.saobserver.net/community/absolutely-wonderful-writer-tribute-to-gordon-lightfoot-added-to-salmon-arms-treble-clef/?fbclid=IwAR30OCnGcxdabAjOvieMkNJTjdzumotKlVxeWud9 dZOePFJWfXVWksmomhw

The treble clef at the end of Alexander Street in Salmon Arm has held a banner with the words “Our Musical Laureate - Gordon Lightfoot” since the Canadian icon’s death on May 1, 2023. The banner will be coming down during the weekend of May 13. (Martha Wickett-Salmon Arm Observer)
‘Absolutely wonderful writer’: Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot added to Salmon Arm’s treble clef
Visible reminder of iconic songwriter to come down this coming weekend
MARTHA WICKETTMay. 10, 2023 5:00 a.m.

Bill Laird, the man behind the huge orange treble clef at the end of Alexander Street in Salmon Arm, was met with a question first thing on the morning of May 2.

“Linda got up Tuesday morning and said, ‘You’re going to do something, right?’” explained Laird, referring to his spouse.

She was talking about iconic Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, 84, who died on Monday, May 1, in a Toronto hospital.


They talked about a banner and argued whether it should say ‘musical laureate’ or just ‘laureate.’

Then things got rolling.

“My wife gets the credit for the idea and everybody else gets the credit for pitching in,” said Laird, emphasizing his part was minuscule.

He reached Lew Dies and Jamie Walters at Spectrum Signworks, who immediately went to work creating a banner. He also contacted Joe Chartier at Shuswap Rentals, who provided a hoist. The banner was hung on the treble clef by 3 p.m. that day.

“I want to stress how much they helped,” he reiterated.

Read more: Legendary folk singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot dies at 84

Laird explained that Linda grew up in Ontario, where she and her brother Roger taught themselves to play guitar by listening to Gordon Lightfoot.

“Linda was playing Lightfoot before I met her,” he said, but Lightfoot songs soon became a common soundscape in their home.

The couple also went to see him perform a couple of times and to his hometown, Orillia, Ont.

Linda has been singing Lightfoot tunes steadily since his death, Laird said.

“He’s been a big part of our musical life. It is a big thing for Canada. He was absolutely a wonderful writer. Some of his ballads are amazing.”

This weekend, the “Our Musical Laureate – Gordon Lightfoot” banner will be coming down, but his musical creations won’t be soon forgotten, not at the Lairds’ home, nor, undoubtedly, in many others across the country.

more about the Treble Clef: https://www.saobserver.net/news/in-photos-and-video-the-worlds-largest-treble-clef-unveiled-to-a-crowd-of-500-in-salmon-arm/

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52987572529_57e62c55e3_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2oJkafH)32654147_web1_230517-SAA-treble-clef-lightfoot-640x432 (https://flic.kr/p/2oJkafH) by char Westbrook (https://www.flickr.com/photos/8539259@N07/), on Flickr

[charlene]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSKyYXPc7ro

For whom the bells tolled: Gordon Lightfoot - YouTube

[charlene]

May 17, 2023:
Linus Entertainment releases At Royal Albert Hall, a Gordon Lightfoot double live performance set recorded in May of 2016, on July 14. It will likely become a companion piece next to All Live recorded at Massey Hall and released in 2012. In 2002, Linus released Live in Reno, a 22-song video. The same label released Harmony, his last studio album, recorded in 2001 and released in 2004.

In the week following his death May 1, Lightfoot had the top three placements on Billboard’s Rock Digital Song Sales chart with Sundown, If You Could Read My Mind and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Carefree Highway placed 5th on the chart. Meantime, Linus Ent’s Geoff Kulawick reports that the Royal Albert Hall pre-order has been a Top 15 album overall on Amazon.com in the US and #1 Folk, outselling all other Lightfoot albums.
The same week, Luminate Ent. reported that Lightfoot's best-of album, Gord's Gold, debuted on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart at No. 6. and his best-of album, Gord's Gold debuted on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart at No. 6.

[charlene]

The Happy Camper: Remembering Gordon Lightfoot, Avid Canoe Tripper
by Kevin Callan /
May 8 2023

Over a dozen years ago I received a note from a Toronto film producer asking me to help with a documentary on all the wild places that legendary Canadian musician Gordon Lightfoot wrote and sang about. What a cool idea. I quickly answered back.

I can’t remember a canoe trip where Gordon’s songs weren’t dancing around in my head while paddling across a large lake or carrying a canoe across a lengthy portage. “Early
Morning Rain” was a given during a damp paddle. And who wouldn't have “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in their thoughts while paddling the expanse of Lake Superior? Even his not-so-famous song “Canary Yellow Canoe” was a favourite of mine to bellow out while J-stroking down some wild river.

“In my canary yellow canoe, my yellow canoe
I want to go tripping in my canary yellow canoe
The Eastmain, Coppermine, Back River too
In my canary yellow canoe…”

Gordon Lightfoot was a canoeist! He preferred the far North, paddling Canada’s wilderness rivers like the Nahanni, Coppermine and Back. He did annual trips throughout the 70s and 80s and his Canary Yellow Canoe he used is now on display at the Canadian Canoe Museum.

The film producer wanted to meet me for coffee in Toronto and browse over maps and such. He said he’d pay for the coffee, so I said yes. I was heading to the city anyway to do my syndicated CBC Radio show at the time, “The Happy Camper,” and the coffee place was just across the street. So, why not. Conversing about canoe tripping and Gordon Lightfoot goes hand in hand for me.

It was 6:30 a.m. when I walked into the coffee place. My CBC show was an early one, so the plan was simple: I would gulp down a decaf and pinpoint places on topographic maps where a film crew could capture Lightfoot moments on camera.

I sauntered in, groggy from the two-hour drive through city traffic, and noticed the producer waving his arm to indicate I was at the right meeting place. Leaving the table where the producer sat was Gordon Downie from The Tragically Hip. He walked past me, said, “Hi Kevin,” and calmly strolled out the front door of the coffee house.

Holy shit! It seemed I was in the big leagues when it comes to Toronto film producers trying to document a Lightfoot history. Gordon Downie also loved the canoe, and Gordon Lightfoot. He believed both were Canadian icons.

I attempted to stay cool about the Gordon Downie encounter during the meeting with the producer. But I failed miserably. I had the jitters the entire time I unrolled maps and showed possible logistics problems for his film crew.

The producer kept up to his promise and paid for the coffee, and then I moved on across the street to the CBC Radio building to do my show. The producer joined me. It seemed he was meeting others to chat about the documentary project. And there, standing in what’s called the “green room”—a meeting place for performers with cozy couches and refreshments—were a few more Gordon Lightfoot fans, all who also happened to be canoeists: Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo, the three members of the classic alternative band The Grapes of Wrath and… Gordon Lightfoot.

Again I tried to keep my cool. It’s not something I do well. I’ve met some legends in my time. Red Green was awesome, Pierre Burton was unforgettable, Farley Mowat was inspirational, Mark Brown from Monty Python was the highlight of my life. They all loved the canoe as well.

Gordon wasn’t saying much. He was just standing there listening to them go over the film project. So, I went over and asked him where his next canoe trip would be. That got his attention. He loved talking about canoe tripping. So did all the others.

What a privilege to have a friendly chat with a group of Canadian legends about the joy of wilderness canoe tripping.

You can’t get more Canadian than that!

Gordon Lightfoot passed away recently. He will be missed by us all. His songs truly characterized the Canadian identity—including his “Canary Yellow Canoe.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ-5brdqGrs&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.explore-mag.com%2FThe-Happy-Camper-Remembering-Gordon-Lightfoot-Avid-Canoe-Tripper&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ&feature=emb_imp_woyt

Gordon Lightfoot's Canary Yellow Canoe | The Stories They Hold - YouTube

[charlene]

https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/watch-gordon-lightfoot-never-forgot-his-orillia-roots-6994286?fbclid=IwAR1C-N9C9weh0fGB8PbVX47ZCIb0qiDCsZQ6rRbYcO2Wx7TeBrgJ6Ah XLcY

VIDEO at link

Gordon Lightfoot was a Canadian music icon who loved his hometown as much as it loved him back.

Lightfoot passed away on May 1 at the age of 84 and was laid to rest in Orillia, the city where his musical journey began as a choir boy at St. Paul's United Church.

Lightfoot's death triggered an outpouring of affection across the country and beyond — and countless memories of a man who was as humble as he was talented. In his case, the legend truly does live on.

This podcast features two long-time friends who knew Lightfoot better than most: Pam Carter, president of the Mariposa Folk Festival and Foundation, and Karen Hilfman Millson, a retired minister who was the officiant at Lighfoot’s private funeral (at his request, in the church where it all started).

They talk about the origins and life of this most "reluctant superstar" and remember a man who "has left a huge legacy for generations to come."

While his mark on the music world is immense globally, so, too, is the legacy he left in his hometown, its people and its institutions.

[charlene]

#TheMoment the Mariner's Church rang the bell for Gordon Lightfoot - YouTube

[charlene]

https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/breaking-canadian-icon-gordon-lightfoot-has-died-6937128

Gordon Lightfoot, Orillia's favourite son, a world-renowned singer/songwriter and folk legend, has died.

His publicist announced Monday night that Lightfoot had passed away at a Toronto hospital at 7:30 p.m. He died of natural causes. He was 84.

"I'm shocked," Pam Carter, president of the Mariposa Folk Foundation that is behind the hugely successful Mariposa Folk Festival, said Monday night.

Lightfoot's name was synonymous with the "grand old dame" of folk festivals. When it returned to Orillia in 2000, Lightfoot was the headliner and he performed for free.

"I think that speaks to his generosity and his humility and his love for Orillia," said Carter.

In the years since the festival returned to Tudhope Park, Lightfoot was ever-present and often took the stage. Last summer, he was inducted into the Mariposa Folk Festival Hall of Fame.

He was moved to tears during the tribute performed by Tom Wilson, Blue Rodeo and the Good Brothers.

"That meant a lot to him," said Carter. "I was in the golf cart with him to take him to the green room after and he was just so moved. He had a kind word for everyone and signed autographs. It was really beautiful."

Tom Wilson told OrilliaMatters following the induction ceremony at Tudhope Park that Gordon Lightfoot had a huge impact on the festival and the music industry.

“There’s been a lot of great artists that we have seen on this stage that impact us in so many ways, people that have opened up the doors of possibilities, but Gordon Lightfoot lives in our blood, he’s the soundtrack to some of our greatest and most beautiful memories as well as some of our biggest disasters and has comforted us in those times," Wilson explained.

"He lives in our blood, he’s a part of us and that’s what unites us a community here at Mariposa.”

Artists from far and wide joined in the tribute as video messages were played for Lightfoot and the audience, including heart-felt tributes from Julian Taylor, Sarah McLachlan, Ron Sexsmith, Judy Collins, Steve Earle, Don Mclean, and Andy Kim.

Carter said the death of the Canadian icon is a huge loss.

"He will surely be missed by the Mariposa Folk Festival, by his beloved fans, by Orillia and the world," said Carter.

A few weeks ago, Lightfoot cancelled his 2023 concert dates.

"The singer is currently experiencing some health-related issues and is unable to confirm rescheduled dates at this time," said a brief statement issued that day by Lightfoot on his Facebook Page.

Lightfoot was born on Nov. 17, 1938 in Orillia and is often referred to as Canada's best songwriter.

As a youth, Lightfoot sang in the choir of Orillia's St. Paul's United Church. The boy soprano performed periodically on local Orillia radio stations, performed in local operettas and oratorios, and gained exposure through various Kiwanis music festivals.

Lightfoot has never stopped performing since, with the exception of a health scare in September of 2002. In between sold-out concerts at the Orillia Opera House, Lightfoot suffered severe stomach pain and was airlifted to McMaster Medical Centre in Hamilton.

He underwent emergency surgery for a ruptured abdominal aneurysm and stayed in the ICU for several weeks. He was in a coma for six weeks and required four surgical operations.

Two months later, he was released and continued his recovery at home. All his 2002 concert dates were cancelled.

However, he made a full recovery and returned to live performances.

More recently, in 2021, he had a fall at his home that resulted in a fractured wrist.

[charlene]

https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/a-community-a-nation-bids-heart-felt-farewell-to-gordon-lightfoot-6965184

Greg McGrath-Goudie
May 7, 2023 2:45 PM

A community, a nation bids heart-felt farewell to Gordon Lightfoot
'I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that Gordon Lightfoot put Orillia on the map,' longtime band member says as hundreds line up to say goodbye to iconic singer, songwriter

Fans, family, and friends flocked to St. Paul’s Centre Sunday to mourn the passing of Orillia’s favourite son, the internationally renowned singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.

Travelling from across Ontario, Canada, and the United States, people began lining up this morning, hours in advance, in anticipation of the public service that runs from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.

People, many sporting umbrellas during a brief rain shower, lined up outside the church entrance, up Peter Street to Neywash Street and then back and forth twice more on the closed street.

Just as a church bell long ago chimed at the Mariners' Church of Detroit for each of the 29 lost souls aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald, so, too, did St. Paul’s Centre toll its bell — a total of 30 times — capturing the loss of those sailors and the man who immortalized that harrowing wreck on Lake Superior 48 years ago.

Lightfoot, 84, died of natural causes at a Toronto hospital on May 1.

Both Lightfoot, the man, and Lightfoot, the musician, had an immeasurable impact on the hundreds that lined Peter Street to bid the folk legend a final farewell.

“He wrote some songs about the territory here, Lake Couchiching, and he's mentioned Indigenous things in his music,” said Myeengun Henry, who travelled from the Chippewa of the Thames First Nation, near London. “That really got people to learn about Indigenous history, so he's huge in the Indigenous world and we respected everything he did.”

Bernie David, a fan of over 50 years, drove from Toronto this morning to pay his respects to the man he credits for, in a way, introducing him to his future wife.

“In high school, she had tickets for Lightfoot, and I went, and I’ve loved him ever since,” recalled a misty-eyed David, who went on to marry his high school sweetheart.

“All my friends used to sit by the campfire and play the guitar, and every time he came out with a new album … I learned all the music,” said David.

For many, Lightfoot's music was the soundtrack of their youth.

“I grew up with it. I grew up singing to it, and my brother’s first guitar tunes were Gordon Lightfoot,” said Lisa Langill, who came down from the Muskoka area. “So we thought we’d come down. How can you not?”

Lightfoot’s longtime bassist credits the late musician with putting Orillia on the map, and remaining humble despite his fame.

“I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that Gordon Lightfoot put Orillia on the map, and he's also been a great supporter of Orillia as a philanthropist,” said Rick Haynes.

“He was a humble man considering his fame,” Haynes said. “He was very engaging, he was very caring, and he really had time for everyone. He really did.”

The visitation continues until 8 p.m. this evening. A private funeral will be held next week in Orillia.

[charlene]

My time with Gordon Lightfoot - YouTube

[charlene]

PERTH, Australia:
https://www.perthnow.com.au/entertainment/music/canadian-singer-songwriter-gordon-lightfoot-dies-c-10522387

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot dies at 84
Steve Gorman and Dan WhitcombReuters
May 1, 2023 11:17PM

Canadian musician Gordon Lightfoot, the prolific singer-songwriter known for such folk-pop hits as "If You Could Read My Mind" and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," has died in Toronto aged 84.

He died in hospital on Monday of natural causes, his family said in a statement released by publicist Victoria Lord.

Known for his evocative lyrics and melodic compositions, Lightfoot received five Grammy nominations over the years and won 17 Juno awards, Canada's equivalent music honour.

Lightfoot achieved the height of his popularity in the 1970s, with songs from albums such as "Sundown," "Summertime Dream" and "Dream Street Rose" that built on his guitar-driven folk roots to produce more rock and pop-oriented songs.

He retained a loyal following in Canada and the United States through extensive concert touring.

Lightfoot's catalogue of compositions tops 200 songs, a number of them covered by such performers as Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Judy Collins, Barbra Streisand, Glen Campbell and Richie Havens. His "For Lovin' Me" and "Early Morning Rain" became hits for the folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary.

Lightfoot emerged from the folk music movement of the mid-1960s with signature tunes such as "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" and "Pussywillows, Cat-Tails."

In the 1970s, he picked up an electric guitar to pen pop ballads such as "Beautiful" and "I'm Not Supposed to Care."

Lightfoot's 1976 epic, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," about the drowning of 29 sailors when a freighter sank in a storm on Lake Superior, remains one of fans' most loved songs.

In it, Lightfoot coupled a soaring melody with poignant lyrics about the sailors' last hours.

He also topped the singles charts with such titles as the wistful 1974 song "Carefree Highway" and the ballad "If You Could Read My Mind," his first major international hit from 1971, about a dissolving marriage.

"If You Could Read My Mind" launched a successful run at Warner Bros Records, after Lightfoot defected from his previous label, United Artists.

He had been unhappy there in part over a lack of support he felt when many US radio stations banned his 1968 single "Black Day in July," about riots in Detroit the previous year, seeing it as too incendiary.

Two other major 1970s hits, "Sundown" and "Rainy Day People", were reportedly inspired by his volatile romance with backup singer and rock groupie Cathy Smith.

Smith died in 2020 after serving time in prison for injecting comic actor John Belushi with a fatal dose of heroin and cocaine in 1982.

Aside from writing lyrics and music, Lightfoot performed his songs in a warm tenor suited to ballads, though his voice grew thinner over the years, and he was known for his clear articulation as a vocalist.

He survived a major health crisis at age 63 in 2002, when he collapsed from severe stomach pain before a concert in his hometown of Orilla, Ontario, and had emergency surgery for abdominal bleeding caused by a ruptured aorta.

He endured weeks of hospitalisation and multiple operations before returning to the recording studio and live performances.

At the time of his illness, Canadian country singer and admirer Ian Tyson saluted Lightfoot as a national treasure.

"I don't think anybody before or since has, or will have, the impact on Canadian culture, through popular music or folk music, that Gordon Lightfoot had," Tyson told Reuters then.

Following news of his death, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that Canada "has lost one of our greatest singer-songwriters".

"Gordon Lightfoot captured our country's spirit in his music and in doing so, he helped shape Canada's soundscape. May his music continue to inspire future generations, and may his legacy live on forever," Trudeau wrote.

[Dave, Melbourne,Australia]

It's a pity The West Australian newspaper's Perth Now entertainment section just copied what they had seen on an overseas website rather than doing a little research into the local connection. Perth is apparently the most remote state capital in the world, being 1300 miles from Adelaide and 1600 miles from Darwin. For that reason, Perth's concertgoers often miss out on music events that tour the eastern two-thirds of Australia. That situation existed even more back in 1974 when Gord did his one Australian tour. But despite Sydney, Melbourne and the other big, travel-friendly cities only getting one Gordon Lightfoot concert, Perth was blessed with two on consecutive nights. (And Gord mentioned Perth in his later song "Ecstasy Made Easy", recalling a midnight boat cruise he did there straight after the first concert.)

[charlene]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2023/05/16/gordon-lightfoot-charts-back-to-back-posthumous-no-1-hits/?sh=4cbff45875e6

Gordon Lightfoot Charts Back-To-Back Posthumous No. 1 Hits

Gordon Lightfoot passed away on May 1 at the age of 84, leaving behind a remarkable body of work that continues to captivate fans. Since his untimely death, there has been a surge in the popularity of his music, a common occurrence when beloved artists depart. However, Lightfoot has accomplished a feat on the Billboard charts this week that is uncommon for any musical act, especially for artists who have left us.

In a remarkable achievement, the Canadian musician currently holds the top spot on Billboard's Rock Digital Song Sales chart this week. What makes this even more noteworthy is that Lightfoot has replaced his own hit with another. His single "Sundown" climbs to the coveted No. 1 position, while his former chart-topper, "If You Could Read My Mind," now settles for second place. The two titles trade places, with each taking a turn in the spotlight.

"Sundown" and "If You Could Read My Mind" are the only two songs by Lightfoot that have reached No. 1 on the Rock Digital Song Sales chart. This is not entirely surprising, considering the ranking was introduced long after his heyday.

Out of the five tracks that Lightfoot placed on the Rock Digital Song Sales chart, three only debuted after his death. This week, Lightfoot controls the top three positions on the purchase-only list. In addition to "Sundown" and "If You Could Read My Mind," his track "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" remains firm at No. 3.

While his three highest-ranking songs dominate the upper echelons of the Rock Digital Song Sales chart, another fan favorite, "Carefree Highway," has slipped from No. 5 to No. 11.

Lightfoot still has one more album coming, and since it’s set to drop shortly after his passing, it might produce more charting wins. Billboard reports that his live recording At Royal Albert Hall is due July 14.

[charlene]

https://sunonlinemedia.ca/2023/05/08/gordon-lightfoot-saying-goodbye/

Gordon Lightfoot – Saying Goodbye
May 8, 2023 Sunonline/Orillia

By John Swartz

Thousands lined up Sunday afternoon to pay respects to Gordon Lightfoot, who was lying in state at St. Paul’s Centre in Orillia. A light sprinkle turned to rain at about 1:30 p.m. but that didn’t stop many from joining the line. Many people reported the wait was up to one hour to get into the church.

At 2 p.m. the bells at St. Paul’s and St James’ Anglican Church across the street rang in his honour. Lightfoot’s family and close associates were present, though there wasn’t a formal receiving line and the public was not allowed to interact with them.

Some came from further afield than Simcoe County, with at least one person travelling from Ohio and another from British Columbia. Some travelled from other parts of Ontario, several of whom grew up in Orillia.

The funeral to follow at a later time is closed to all but family, so friends and acquaintances also took the opportunity to say goodbye. Mourners were ushered into St. Paul’s in groups of 20 and given a moment before Lightfoot’s casket to contemplate their reason for being present.

In the accompanying video are comments from fans, and a few who had a closer relationship, worked for Lightfoot, or as in the last segment, have an incredible tale to tell.

They are David Newland, who along with Jory Nash and Aengus Finnan organized a 15-year run of an annual Lightfoot tribute night at Toronto’s Hugh’s Room, and Ollie Strong, who played steel guitar on Lightfoot’s Old Dan’s Records album – notably featured on the hit You Are What I Am.

The last comment, from Timothy Crumb, sounds fantastical. He also said he went to school with Lightfoot’s wife, Kim and remained friends with the Lightfoots over the years. The information he provided is opposite to what is generally known about the song, If You Could Read My Mind, and the veracity of his story will never be able to be verified, but this reporter observed Crumb to be warmly embraced by Lightfoot’s wife, giving credence to at least some parts of the story.

(Photos and Video by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia) Main: Gordon Lighfoot’s Visitation at St. Paul’s Centre, Orillia, May 7, 2023.

https://barrie.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2685529&jwsource=em

Gordon Lightfoot - Saying Goodbye - YouTube

[charlene]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3PIHkqszoQ


Canadian singer-songwriter Murray McLauchlan remembers his friend - legend Gordon Lightfoot: - YouTube

[charlene]

https://www.monroenews.com/story/entertainment/music/2023/05/18/monroe-musician-tom-treece-gordon-lightfoot-edmund-fitzgerald/70225621007/

SUZANNE NOLAN WISLER The Monroe News
After returning from the Vietnam War, Tom Treece joined a band named Brussel Sprout.

One winter night in 1976, the Brussel Sprout band members were in Canada to record their first album when they met a music legend.

Gordon Lightfoot and his band also were recording at Toronto’s Eastern Sound Studio. Thanks to a game room with a back entrance, Treece got to watch the famed Canadian folk singer/songwriter record his hit song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Lightfoot died earlier this month at age 84. His famous song recounts the November 1975 sinking of the freighter the SS Edmund Fitzgerald during a storm on Lake Superior. All 29 men aboard died.

“Gordon Lightfoot was in the studio, just finishing the ‘Summertime Dream’ LP,” Treece, of Monroe, recalled. “He didn’t have enough time to finish the last song and asked us if we would consider letting him buy one day of our reserved time in the studio. Instead of letting him buy it, we asked if he could play on one of our songs as a guest artist.”

Lightfoot never sang on the Brussel Sprout’s album, but Treece witnessed music history that night.

“The rest of my band left. I stuck around and snuck into a side room. There was a game room all the artists waited in to record. I hung out there. It was dark, and nobody was around at all. I sat there silently. It was late in the evening,” Treece said.

Then, Lightfoot entered the recording room.

“I was 10 or 12 feet away from him. He didn’t know I was there. He would have kicked me right out of there. He was adamant, nobody in the studio. He turned out all the lights in the studio and got as far away from the glass as he could be. Just the overhead light was shining down on his paper, where the lyrics were scribbled on. You couldn’t have scripted it better,” Treece recalled. “I was silently watching through the window as he recorded the song.”

Lightfoot sang the final version of the nearly six-minute “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in just one take. Then, he noticed Treece.

“He showed me the ‘Time’ magazine and told me how he had written the song based on reading about the sinking of the ship. We had a half-hour discussion on that song. It was a wide-eyed young kid’s and songwriter’s dream to be able to sit there and just enjoy talking with one of the great songwriters of history,” Treece said.

Lightfoot even asked Treece to come to the band’s after-album party.

“He invited me to his house to hang out with him and his band,” Treece said. “There were gold records all over the walls and three grand pianos on the main floor. It was in downtown Toronto and was a mansion. It was just a magical time for me.”

The next day, back in the studio, Lightfoot played “Summertime Dream” for the Brussel Sprout band members and asked them which single he should release first to radio stations.

“The others said, ‘Summertime Dream,’ the title cut,” Treece said. “I was just enamored with ‘Edmund Fitzgerald.’ It was so haunting and so perfect. I said, ‘I think that’s the one.’ But it was long. Hit songs then were 3 minutes to 3 minutes, 20 seconds,” Treece said. “’Edmund Fitzgerald’ shouldn’t have been a hit."

Treece still enjoys hearing and singing Lightfoot's song.

“It was just a beautifully recorded and produced song. It certainly was one of his great songs and a real classic. It’s stood the test of time. It still gets played. I still get requests to play it,” Treece said.

Three weeks after the Lightfoot encounter, Brussel Sprout recorded its first and only self-titled album. The seven-man band also included fellow Monroe residents Roger Manning, who sang and played harp, and John Vass, who sang and played drums. Treece sang and played rhythm guitar.

“We toured coast to coast and in Canada. It was a great experience. We wrote all our own music. I just loved it. We got a recording contract with MCA Records. Our labelmates were Lynyrd Skynyrd, Elton John, Conway Twitty,” Treece said. “But our music never caught on. It was ahead of its time.”

Treece and his wife, Renee, went to several Lightfoot concerts through the years. Their last one was about six years ago in Toledo. Treece said Lightfoot didn’t seem well then.

“He was not in good shape. That he was able to continue playing at an advanced age and condition kind of shocked me. But he got up on that stage and cranked them out. We were able to go backstage and connect with him. I tried to remind him of our time together. He didn’t even remember it. He just wasn’t in a condition to remember it. He signed Renee’s shirt; she was all excited,” Treece said. “He sure loved singing and performing his songs. I think he couldn’t quit. It was in his blood, in his soul. I could almost see him doing what I want, having a heart attack and dying on stage doing what I love doing.”

About a year ago, Treece got a book in mail. It was a biography on Lightfoot. The author found Treece’s 2006 Monroe News column about meeting the music legend.

“He found my column online and used an excerpt in the book. He sent me an autographed copy. It said, ‘Tom, in appreciation for our shared stories about this amazing man,’” Treece said. “I was honored that he used some of my writing to describe Lightfoot in his book.”

[charlene]

https://flic.kr/p/2oERpbD

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52948206765_1c6a43f6cc_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2oERpbD)g&m - lightfoot-may 3 2023 copy 3 (https://flic.kr/p/2oERpbD) by char Westbrook (https://www.flickr.com/photos/8539259@N07/), on Flickr

[charlene]

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6831194?fbclid=IwAR1ClAV4wyZh5dsgjq1N0BGoD7ulFS7-NLt3bcTKjQuby15B7Ow_RE1k1n0

Prince Edward Island
Islanders join in celebration of Gordon Lightfoot's musical legacy

Lightfoot's songs are 'part of the Canadian landscape,' Catherine MacLellan says

CBC News

Posted: May 06, 2023

Gordon Lightfoot touched the hearts of many Canadians throughout his decades-long career. In light of his death earlier this week, some Prince Edward Islanders are among those sharing how the folk music icon's songs impacted their lives.

Lightfoot died at a Toronto hospital on Monday at the age of 84.

The Orillia, Ont.-born singer-songwriter has left behind a musical legacy that inspired generations of Canadian musicians.

In 2010, Summerside singer Catherine MacLellan was invited to perform at a Canadian Songwriter Hall of Fame event that featured Lightfoot and The Tragically Hip's Gord Downie having a conversation in which they reflected about their respective careers.

MacLellan said that performance was probably one of the most anxiety-inducing experiences she's ever had as a musician.

"They asked me to come and sing a couple of my own songs and to sing a Gordon Lightfoot song while both of them were on stage behind me — and it was terrifying," MacLellan said.

"I couldn't believe two of my greatest heroes [were] on stage behind me while I was performing. I was just so nervous that I was going to mess it up and just, I don't know — it's one of those moments I'll never forget."

MacLellan performed a song by Lightfoot at the event, along with some of her own music. She would go on to win a Juno Award in 2015 for her album, The Raven's Sun.

But 13 years ago, she was still a relative newcomer to the music industry. MacLellan said Lightfoot was sweet and very generous when they met that "terrifying" night — and offered her some career advice backstage.

You always got to give 'em a toe-tapper.
— What Gordon Lightfoot told Catherine MacLellan in 2010

"You always got to give 'em a toe-tapper," MacLellan recalls him saying.

"Anytime I got to see him perform after that, I realized he really meant it ... It might be a sad song or it might be these intimate songs that he would sing always, [but] people were always tapping their toes and having a great time listening."

Other Islanders agree with MacLellan.

"My wife and I saw him on the Confed Centre stage in 1989 as the 'surprise guest' on the old CBC-TV show Front Page Challenge," Mike Stratton said in reply to a CBC P.E.I. Facebook post asking people to share their memories of Lightfoot.

"Nobody in the Charlottetown audience knew he would be on the show and it was such a treat! Supposedly, Gord liked the venue so much, he arranged it to be a stop on his 1990 tour. My wife and I were lucky to get tickets to that as well. What a magical night that was ... I've been to many shows since, but Wendy and I agree that Gordon Lightfoot's concert that evening still ranks as the best."

Like MacLellan, Paul Pettipas wrote that he grew up listening to Lightfoot's music.

"It's so evocative. It transports me to different places and times," he said. "Only got to see him in concert once, sadly. But so glad I did. The older I have gotten, I have grown to appreciate his genius level more and more."

Other Islanders said they were very fortunate to have encountered Lightfoot in person.
"Had the privilege of meeting him in 2014 after his Summerside show. Just a class act," wrote D'Arcy Ellis.

"I met Gordon Lightfoot at a birthday party for Stompin' Tom that band Whiskey Jack throws every year since Tom passed," said Alan Dalton. "He liked the hockey jersey I was wearing and I talked to him about hockey for over 25 minutes.

"What a great man. Really made everyone he met feel special."
Still more Islanders shared the special occasions — and people — Lightfoot's music reminds them of.

"In the early '70s, his songs were all over the AM radio," Ed Terrell said. "We spent our summers on P.E.I. listening to these now-classic hits."
"Years ago I bought his music book with many of his songs in it," wrote Jane Wilson. "I learned to play many of them on my guitar ... Christian Island is one of many that I loved to play. A true legend whose songs and stories will remain with us."

Those songs are a part of the Canadian landscape.​​​​​
— Catherine MacLellan.

"Long drives coming home from my grandparents at Christmas time. My Dad would play Gordon Lightfoot as we dozed full of candy with gifts on our laps," Misty-Lynn Tomkins Caseley said.

"We played Gordon Lightfoot at my father's memorial. Hopefully they have met up on the other side."

MacLellan said she can't remember the first time she heard Lightfoot — but his music was always there for her.

"Those songs are a part of the Canadian landscape," she said. "I might not even have known that they were Gordon Lightfoot songs. They were just songs that were surrounding me."
With files from Mainstreet P.E.I.

[charlene]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/gordon-lightfoot-legacy-1.6829139

What made Gordon Lightfoot great: Remembrances from musicians, writers
Lightfoot's enduring songs, love for performing and a 'typically Canadian' humility are being praised.

Chris Iorfida · CBC News · Posted: May 02, 2023 12:28 PM EDT | Last Updated: May 2

Gordon Lightfoot's death at the age of 84 after six decades of songs that have resonated with Canadians and music fans worldwide has led to an outpouring of tributes.

Lightfoot led the way for Canadian performers to follow at a time when the music industry in Canada was in its infancy, legend Anne Murray told CBC's Q on Tuesday.

"He was a role model for people," said Murray. "He was really proud of the fact that he and I stayed at home and had international careers.

"Neither one of us wanted to go anywhere. He thought that was wonderful."

For Jim Cuddy, Lightfoot's music has been an inspiration for a half-century. The singer-songwriter remembers performing (That's What You Get) For Lovin' Me as a 10-year-old for family members, and his group Blue Rodeo contributed Go-Go Round to 2003's Beautiful: A Tribute To Gordon Lightfoot, an album also featuring tributes from Cowboy Junkies, Tragically Hip and Quartette.

"He showed us how to embrace our Canadian-ness and how to be ourselves," Cuddy told CBC News Network. "He was an inspiration in that right to his dying day."

Lightfoot's music has been part of the fabric for many Canadians, including musicians J.P. Cormier and Lori Cullen.

Cormier vividly recalls his brother buying the 1976 single The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald "the day it came out" and wearing out his own vinyl copies of Lightfoot records.

Lightfoot was the "only touchstone I needed to become a writer and performer," Cormier said.

Cullen's introduction to the music came when a Grade 3 teacher at her Mississauga, Ont., school strummed a version of Pussy Willows, Cat-Tails.

"To hear that song when I was so young and to immediately feel how authentic it was, it felt like a part of where I came from, even when I was that young," said Cullen.

Musician-author Dave Bidini wrote an entire book about the Canadian bard's music as connective tissue, in 2011's Writing Gordon Lightfoot: The Man, the Music, and the World in 1972.

"Everyone talks about how you provided a cultural bridge: how you bridged town to city, country music to folk, folk to pop, old to new, square to hip, Canadian music to hit radio, and, later, sixties sound to the seventies," writes Bidini. "Even now, when people see you or hear you, they see the past being bridged to the present."
Songs built to last and to be shared

Nicholas Jennings, author of 2016's Lightfoot, said whether it was as a chronicler of Canadiana through songs featuring the outdoors or trains, or on matters of the heart, Lightfoot "managed to write from a deeply personal place but make it universal in such a way that everyone … could relate to those songs."

Cuddy found that to be the case, as well.

"There are some perfect songs where you can't imagine any alteration of the melody, any alteration of the lyrics or any alteration of the performance, even though many people have done it. If You Could Read My Mind is one of those songs," said Cuddy.

To Cuddy's point, the adaptability and sturdiness of that particular classic has been proven through the years. In addition to faithful covers that hew closely to Lightfoot's 1970 original there was: Skeeter Davis's country weeper featuring steel guitar, a disco version by Viola Wills, a 90s house update performed by Stars on 54 that hit the pop and dance charts worldwide, and a number of instrumental versions — including an elegiac horn arrangement from Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass and a classical version by the Saint John String Quartet.

The roots musician Cormier, meanwhile, released The Long River: A Personal Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot, an 18-song collection featuring songs like Steel Rail Blues, Home from the Forest and Early Morning Rain.

While many terrific songwriters can put together enough work for a greatest hits compilation, Lightfoot compiled "an incredible catalogue of songs," said Jennings.

As such, in 2012 he became one of a select group of Canadian performers to be inducted into the U.S.-based Songwriters Hall of Fame, joining Paul Anka, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell.
A true craftsman

While songwriters often speak of channelling songs that come to them in a burst, Jennings said listeners should understand Lightfoot was more often than not a true craftsman.

"He struggled over them, he was such a perfectionist," said Jennings. "He laboured over the words, wanting to get every single phrase, every poetic turn right."

Cuddy chuckled at that trait, relaying a story of Lightfoot advising him of the exact beats per minute for a drummer to follow throughout if Blue Rodeo planned on tackling the seven-minute epic Canadian Railroad Trilogy.

"He didn't want us to be around that [tempo]; he wanted it to be exact," said Cuddy.

'Lived to perform'

While some older songwriters of his esteem could rest on their laurels or concentrate on studio work, Lightfoot endured the rigours of touring to continue to play his favourites before appreciative audiences. At the time of his death, he had upcoming shows on his schedule.

"Gordon Lightfoot lived to perform. He was known as a songwriter, but what he cherished most of all was his time on stage with his audiences," said Jennings.

Lightfoot was born and raised in Orillia, Ont., at a time when its population was about half the size of its current 33,000.

Jennings, who remained in touch with Lightfoot long after writing a biography, said the musician stayed a "small-town guy until the very end."

"He never really understood why people made such a fuss about him," said Jennings.

Murray agreed that Lightfoot was hardly effusive about his talents, describing the attitude as "typically Canadian."

"He really didn't think himself to be anything special at all, but he certainly was."

[charlene]

https://www.cbc.ca/music/gordon-lightfoot-s-life-in-10-songs-1.6809171

Gordon Lightfoot's life in 10 songs

From 'Early Morning Rain' to 'Sundown,' we look at highlights of the songwriter's prolific career
CBC Music · Posted: May 01, 2023 9:43 PM EDT | Last Updated: May 15

Award-winning singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot died on May 1, 2023, aged 84, ending a career that spanned more than five decades and included honours such as the Order of Canada and an induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

Lightfoot once called songwriting "15 per cent inspiration and 85 per cent perspiration," and penned iconic hits including "If You Could Read my Mind" and "Sundown." His musical catalogue is rich with songs that help illustrate his journey from a burgeoning Orillia-born talent to one of Canada's greatest musicians.

A veteran performer into his 80s, Lightfoot helped shape the canon of folk music with his heartfelt and historical songs that touched so many. He released 21 albums and numerous compilations, selling more than seven million records worldwide and earning a slew of awards, including 16 Junos and inductions into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, Canada's Walk of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Below are 10 songs that showcase how Lightfoot became one of the pioneering forces in Canada's music scene.

'Early Morning Rain'

This folk song was written by Lightfoot in 1964, but the seeds of inspiration for it were germinating years prior, according to an interview with American Songwriter. While watching airplanes on a rainy day, Lightfoot recalled the imagery of "an airplane climbing off into overcast," and five years later while watching his first-born child, the song finally took shape.

The famous tune would go on to be covered by artists including Ian & Sylvia, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins and even rock star Elvis Presley.

Early Morning Rain - YouTube

'Ribbon of Darkness'

Lightfoot released his debut album, Lightfoot!, in 1966, which included his single "Ribbon of Darkness." Although Lightfoot originally wrote the song and released it in 1965, it was covered that same year by Marty Robbins — and gave Robbins a No.1 hit on the U.S. Country Singles chart. Despite the song's cheerful melody and bright whistling, Lightfoot's lyrics told the melancholy story of a lost lover: "Oh how I wish your heart could see/ how mine just aches and breaks all day."

In later years, Connie Smith, Jack Scott and Bruce Cockburn also covered "Ribbon of Darkness," with the latter recording the song as part of a Lightfoot tribute album.

Ribbon Of Darkness - YouTube

'The Canadian Railroad Trilogy'

To commemorate Canada's centennial in 1967, Lightfoot penned what has become arguably one of his most iconic songs of all time. "The Canadian Railroad Trilogy" was commissioned by CBC for a New Year's Day broadcast, and mentions the Rockies, the Prairies and Gaspé. Through his vibrant lyrics, Lightfoot details the majestic beauty of nature and the climactic construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway: "For they looked in the future and what did they see?/ They saw an iron road runnin' from the sea to the sea."

"The Canadian Railroad Trilogy" won a special award from the Canadian Railway Hall of Fame in 2003, and seven years after that it was transformed into an illustrated book.

Canadian Railroad Trilogy - YouTube

'Black Day in July'

In July 1967, the Detroit race riots began after a police raid of an illegal after-hours drinking club. The resulting protests and confrontation between the city's Black residents and the police force lasted five days, and resulted in 43 deaths and numerous injuries. Lightfoot wrote "Black Day in July" to recount the bloodshed, with vivid lyrics illustrating the destruction: "And the people rise in anger and the streets begin to fill/ and there's gunfire from the rooftops and the blood begins to spill."

"Black Day in July" was released around the same time as the assassination of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, causing many radio stations in America to ban the song.

Black Day In July - YouTube

'If You Could Read My Mind'

One of Lightfoot's biggest hits was the heartbreak-driven "If You Could Read My Mind," which was inspired by the dissolution of his first marriage. The song was written in 1969 and released a year later on the album of the same name, hitting No. 1 on the Canadian Singles chart. Covers of the song spanned genres from country to disco, with musicians including Barbra Streisand, Olivia Newton-John, Kenny Rogers, Liza Minnelli, Johnny Cash and Stars on 54 putting their spin on the ballad.

The song also shares a title with the 2019 documentary Gordon Lightfoot: "If You Could Read My Mind," directed by Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni. The film earned a Canadian Screen Award nomination in 2020.

Gordon Lightfoot - If You Could Read My Mind - YouTube

[charlene]

'Sundown'

The title track of Lightfoot's 1974 album was another of his biggest hits, and he wrote it about his girlfriend at the time, Cathy Smith. While wondering what Smith was doing while out at a bar with her friends, Lightfoot started crafting the song at home. He explained to American Songwriter that he thought the track resonated with fans because it had "a good beat," "interesting harmonic passages" as well as "a great arrangement and not too bad of a vocal."

Lightfoot's relationship with Smith was reportedly sometimes violent, and the lyrics illustrate the dark nature between the pair: "She's a hard-loving woman, got me feeling mean."

"Sundown" has been covered by musicians including Toby Keith and Depeche Mode.
Gordon Lightfoot - Sundown (Official Audio) - YouTube

'Carefree Highway'

Another of Lightfoot's chart-toppers from his 1974 album was "Carefree Highway." He composed the song while driving in a rental car through Arizona with his bassist, as he told Mass Live about the inspiration: "All of a sudden, this sign went flashing by. It said, 'Carefree Highway.' And I looked at the bass player and he looked at me, and I said, 'That must be, like, a title of a song.'" Lightfoot wrote the words down on a page of the rental contract and tucked it away in his wallet. After finding the scrap of paper two weeks later, he wrote "Carefree Highway," which he turned into a song about a failed romance with a woman named Ann — although he said it was written while wondering if his relationship with his girlfriend at the time would last.

Carefree Highway - YouTube

'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'

Lightfoot's sombre hit "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was inspired by the sinking of the bulk carrier S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior in 1975, a tragedy that killed all 29 crew members. Lightfoot learned about the incident from a Newsweek article and wrote the song, which was released in 1976.

"It's just one of those songs that just stands the test of time and it's about something that, of course, would be forgotten very shortly thereafter, which is one of the reasons I wrote the song in the first place. I didn't want it to be forgotten," Lightfoot told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about immortalizing the wreck in song.

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" hit No.1 on the Canadian charts, was nominated for two Grammy Awards and was covered by artists including the Dandy Warhols, Tony Rice and more.
Gordon Lightfoot - Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald (Official Audio) - YouTube

'If It Should Please You'

Lightfoot's 1988 album, Gord's Gold, Vol. 2, was a compilation that included re-recordings of hits such as "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The first track on the album, though, was a new one called "If It Should Please you," and the country-tinged song was one that Lightfoot often performed live but had not been previously recorded. With a catchy, dulcet melody, the track demonstrated what audiences could expect from Lightfoot in concert: "So I'm itching to please you, with a topical song/ and a few golden oldies and a little hoedown." With all the classics in his catalogue, Lightfoot showcased the true breadth of music in his arsenal with the recording of "If It Should Please You."
If It Should Please You - YouTube

'Why not Give It a Try'

Lightfoot was still churning out new music in his 80s, and in 2020 released his first-ever solo recordings. "I actually tried for several months to orchestrate these tracks and I even tried rewriting five or six of the songs," he told the Absolute Sound about the aptly titled album, Solo. "Finally, I decided these tracks were fine, since they were recorded before any of my health issues. We listened to them again as solos and decided we couldn't make them sound any better."

Solo was Lightfoot's first album in 16 years, and "Why not Give It a Try" the closing track. It was the final bow on his 21st album; a simple ode to experimenting with new things, whether it be dancing, travel or staying true to oneself. "Would you like to go dreaming, would you like to go free?" he sings, stripped-back and simple with just voice and guitar.

"This one is special; it's a really good one, but it's as different as it's ever going to get," he told the Toronto Star.

Gordon Lightfoot - Why Not Give It A Try - Official Lyric Video - YouTube

[charlene]

https://www.cbc.ca/music/in-gordon-lightfoot-s-songbook-art-is-for-everyone-1.6827145

In Gordon Lightfoot's songbook, art is for everyone
How the songwriter’s utilitarian approach to inspiration proved beauty belongs to all of us

Andrea Warner · CBC Music · Posted: May 02, 2023 1:14 PM EDT | Last Updated: May 15

For Gordon Lightfoot, there was never a right or wrong way to draw inspiration. He was a prolific, award-winning songwriter who made meaning out of the mundane and observed the macro and micro of everyday in his lyrics and lines. He turned a commission into a Canadian classic, a breaking news story into the "best song" he ever wrote, and a stolen glance at an Arizona road sign into a hit song.

"You can start with a title if you want, or go fishing for words in a magazine, like People magazine or something, you'll see an ad with some fancy language to it," Lightfoot told CBC Music in 2013. "I've done that, honestly, I've even gone into a paint store and picked up the titles of paint samples."

Lightfoot was not an overly precious writer, a cultured aesthete wrenching words and phrases from a head stuffed full of canonical greats. Instead, Lightfoot's omnivorous approach to creation made him an accidental disrupter of the highbrow, a brilliant songwriter subverting the vaunted purity of divine artistic genius.

"I'm a fairly normal sort of person," he said in a 1975 interview. "I'm not particularly smart and I'm not particularly stupid. Maybe it's the general normality of it, with a touch of art."

Lightfoot may not have set out to democratize the playing field with his unpretentious approach to music, but the staying power of his songs acts as radical permission for other aspiring writers and artists. The source of the inspiration doesn't matter; it's what you do with it that counts.

Lightfoot died on May 1, 2023. This year also marks the 65th anniversary of Lightfoot's foray from Orillia, Ont., to Los Angeles to study music composition and the beginning of his "official" music career (even though he'd been singing and performing since his youth). Lightfoot wrote his first song in 1955 but it would be a full decade of playing and performing before he shifted to sets comprising mostly his own tunes. "I didn't have to rely on my own material at the beginning," Lightfoot told American Songwriter in 2008. "There were so many good songs around that I kept learning them."
Rain, planes and trains

But in 1965, that all changed. Lightfoot began performing his own songs, and other bands began recording them. By the time he released his debut album, Lightfoot!, in 1966, the record's biggest success, "Early Morning Rain," had already been a hit for Ian & Sylvia and Peter, Paul and Mary. Lightfoot once called it "the most important song I've ever written," and estimated that it was nine years in the making. The inspiration came years earlier during his time in Los Angeles when, in a fit of homesickness, he went to the airport to watch the planes come and go. It was in the morning, and, yes, it was raining.

In the early morning rain with a dollar in my hand
With an aching in my heart and my pockets full of sand
I'm a long way from home and I miss my loved ones so
In the early morning rain with no place to go

Lightfoot abided by a key rule of good writing: "Show, don't tell." He didn't specifically say he was broke and lonely in L.A., but the "dollar in his hand" and "pockets full of sand" and "no place to go" conveyed his situation perfectly.

On his second record, 1967's The Way I Feel, Lightfoot showcased his ability to thrive creatively under commission. CBC tasked Lightfoot with writing a song that would celebrate the history of the country for the Canadian Centennial, which would kick off with a televised event on New Year's Day, 1967. According to scholar Chris Hemer, since Lightfoot had already written a couple songs about trains at that point, CBC suggested something on the Canadian Pacific Railway and recommended a book from the CBC library on William Cornelius Van Horne, who designed Canada's first transcontinental railway. Lightfoot wrote "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" in just three days, and it quickly became one of the country's most celebrated folk songs, though its legacy has been recontextualized over the years.

Given the source material and the purpose of the commission, it's not surprising that "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" embraces a certain kind of nationalism. Lightfoot does reference the lives lost in the building of the CPR, but the lack of specifics contribute to Canadian myth-making. There's no mention of the settler-colonial violence inflicted on Indigenous people who were displaced and whose lands were stolen, nor the more than 15,000 exploited Chinese migrants who helped build the railroad — and an estimated 600 of whom were killed on the job. In a video essay about the song, journalist Nick Lefevre acknowledges the CPR was "a feat in engineering and it did change the country, but from a humanitarian perspective, it was a tragedy and a crime."
Love undone

Lightfoot also mined his own relationships and love affairs for inspiration and catharsis.

"In some cases the songs are autobiographical; some events and traumas that have to get handled, one way or another, go into the tunes," Lightfoot said in a 1998 interview. "And it's easier and cheaper than going to a shrink."

"If You Could Read My Mind" is one of those songs, written in the midst of the breakup of his first marriage. He had a new home on a small farm in the country, a new record label, and he was drinking "quite a bit." (He quit in 1982.) The song is a series of devastating lines that capture the haunted longing and bittersweet aftertaste of a breakup.

If I could read your mind love, what a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel, the kind the drugstores sell
When you reach the part where the heartache come
The hero would be me, but heroes often fail
And you won't read that book again because the ending's just too hard to take

It's a song written from the perspective of a narrator not quite ready to contend with their own accountability, who masks his willful ignorance in a performance of vulnerability. But Lightfoot's own child called him on this early on. "There's a line in the song that goes, 'If you read between the lines, you'll know that I'm just trying to understand, the feeling that you lack.' My daughter, who was just a girl at the time, heard the song and asked me, 'Don't you lack any feelings, daddy?' She got me to change the line to 'the feelings that we lack.' She said I was putting the whole onus of the divorce on her mother."

The title track of his 1974 album, Sundown, is another song inspired by Lightfoot's volatile love life. The music has a darkly rhythmic groove, irresistible and insistent, and the words convey an urgency and tension that skew toward the sinister.

I can see her looking fast in her faded jeans
She's a hard loving woman, got me feeling mean
Sometimes I think it's a shame
When I get feeling better when I'm feeling no pain
Sundown you better take care
If I find you been creeping 'round my back stairs

The "muse" behind "Sundown" was Lightfoot's then-girlfriend Cathy Smith. According to Lightfoot, one night Smith went out partying with her friends, leaving him home alone, restless, jealous and watching the sunset. He channelled his frustration into writing "Sundown." But according to several publications, including the Globe and Mail, Lightfoot's jealousy turned to violence at least once when he allegedly broke Smith's cheekbone during a fight.
Breaking news

Within the first decade of his solo career, Lightfoot released 10 studio albums. During this time, his record labels also released six compilations of his greatest hits and best songs. The most successful, by far, was 1975's Gord's Gold, a sprawling double vinyl featuring 22 of his most popular tracks. Many of these songs are considered foundational to the Canadian music canon. But one of the biggest and most surprising hits of Lightfoot's career was still to come.

Lightfoot released "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" in 1976, a re-telling of the tragic real-life sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior, Nov. 10, 1975, which claimed the lives of all 29 people on board. "I saw the story on TV, about five hours after it happened, so I collected every newspaper for the next couple of weeks and the song came out," said Lightfoot, who wrote and recorded the song in a rare one-week burst. "It's basically a straightforward account of how the events actually unfolded."

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck saying
Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in, he said
Fellas, it's been good to know ya
The captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

[charlene]

Writing: a life's work

Most of Lightfoot's songs were written over months, sometimes years, and he devoted decades of his life to the practice. In a 2010 interview, Lightfoot assigned a numerical value to his songwriting process, telling the Montrealer that it was "15 per cent inspiration and 85 per cent perspiration. I will stand by that — it's hard work. Writing is a solitary process, and it can be exciting and draining at the same time. I wrote songs under contract for 33 years, and now I can relax a little and focus on our performances."

In another 2010 interview, Lightfoot described recording 20 albums under contract as "pretty rough work… That caused a lot of the bumpiness too, because it caused me to be isolated and cut myself off from my people and my kids, so I could work on the songs. I wanted to do it because by that time I was supporting a band, was supporting a crew, and had acquired two or three children. But I don't regret any of it."

Lightfoot was under contract and writing was his job. I have always appreciated his matter-of-fact honesty about spending 33 years and 20 albums doing that work and the effort that he put into it, that it was thrilling, isolating and exhausting. It was also labour. He couldn't afford to be too high-and-mighty to turn up his nose at People magazine or to make a trip to the paint store to find what he was looking for in "Bitter Green" (just a guess on my part).

But in that work, in these songs, we see how beauty — or the illusion of it — can be coaxed from violence and tragedy, the mundane, the everyday and the unexpected. For 65 years, he showed us how beauty belongs to all of us, not just the classically educated or the affluent and cultured. Art is for everybody in the landscape of Gordon Lightfoot's greatest hits.

[charlene]

https://muskokatoday.com/2023/05/lightfoot-comes-home-to-rest-in-orillia-as-celebration-of-life-full-of-music-and-memories-that-would-make-a-song/?fbclid=IwAR3oGDth4VhV0h7mGc47ghKR4hJQ1Exljv-_sOvH3rgX94tuxbXtoWdhCmk

Muskoka Today - Mark Clairmont

May 7, 2023
LIGHTFOOT COMES ‘HOME’ TO REST IN ORILLIA AS CELEBRATION OF LIFE FULL OF MUSIC AND MEMORIES HE COULD HAVE WRITTEN HIT SONG ABOUT

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

ORILLIA — “I can say I shared a stage with Gordon Lightfoot.”

Dan Moses was among 2,000 fans and friends from Kingston to Kentucky who lined up this afternoon and evening to pay their respects to Lightfoot “came home” to rest in his hometown.

The music teacher at Base Borden was among the first two dozen people two hours before visitation began at St. Paul’s United Church.

A French horn player in the Victoria Symphony, he’d never heard his favourite folk singer live, but was “lucky” to now be teaching a four-month music course to reservists like himself and couldn’t miss the opportunity to pay his respects.

Like some 700 others in the first hour, he began by listening to Lightfoot songs on his phone before turning to those close to him and sharing favourite stories about Mariposa’s most famous musician and son.

Sylvia Rogan and her partner Sharon Korpan came up from Toronto. They arrived shortly after 10:30 a.m. Korpan, a former geography teacher said she spoke about Lightfoot in her classroom, calling him “Canadian royalty.”

Ed Zeally was another Torontonian in line early on with a handful of in bloom roses he waited to leave.

Ray Rama and his wife, Wendy, “had to be here,” because as an immigrant “he taught me Canadian culture.” As with many the Richmond Hill couple often saw the teacher at Massey Hall and Ray called Lightfoot’s passing “one of the saddest days of my time since becoming a Canadian.”

His favourite song is “Song for A Winter’s Night,” which he plays every Christmas.

Rick Melson got up at 4:30 a.m. driving from Kingston. He was listening to “Pussy Willows, Cattails” — but admitted Seven Island Suite was his favourite song due to the “beauty of the places he wrote about.”

Ron Jones knew his old “friend” from his days in Toronto at the Steeles Tavern in the 1960s after arriving from Newfoundland where Lightfoot “is very big.” The singers and composers were closer then occasionally sharing a billing. The 82-year-old is font of information when it comes to Lightfoot, his life and lyrics, which he was without a loss at finishing when asked to finish a melodic opening line.

He, too, loves “Winter’s Night,” saying Lightfoot “made me cry” the first time he heard it — and adding that when the Scarborough resident plays it some people also shed a tear.

Jones, who’s seen every Lightfoot Massey concert since 1967, came to town Saturday to visit at the City Grill Lightfoot’s nephew Steven Eyers — one half of ‘Even Steven’ with Steven Owens.

Another Lightfoot inspired singer Don James and his wife, Sandy, came down from Nobel. They lived in the Sunshine City for 20 years and he still performs Lightfoot shows, including one at July 7 at the Stockey Centre in Parry Sound that he booked two months ago.

It was a public celebration of life that Lightfoot could have written and made a hit song about.

For the homecoming was at the same church where he emerged from choir as a boy and went on to international fame. Many in the lineup knew him growing up and were happy to say goodbye to a friend they knew more as a neighbour than a star.

Lightfoot had been very ill for in recent months said Rick Haynes, his bassist for 55 years, and who was with him at the end last Monday at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto when his close friend died.

He said Sunday’s visitation wasn’t at all bitter-sweet when asked.

“No — it’s just difficult,” he told MuskokaTODAY.com.

Haynes said in a media scrum in the church “he meant a lot to me personally. I’m the guy who started with Gord 55 years ago and stuck with him in the times when he maybe wasn’t in the high points of his career, because I thought he deserved more recognition that he was getting by in large most of the time.

“I think Gordon was the best. There’s a lot of great songwriters out there. I don’t think there’s any are better than Gordon.”

Is there was a lyric or line that sticks out as he watched the procession going around the coffin his music playing and photos on a screen above?

“There are so many — “If you could read my mind? ‘The legend lives on’ and that’s one I’m thinkin’ about today.”

Asked what he thought Lightfoot would feel about the outpouring from the community and country, Haynes said “I think he would be humbled by it and he’d like it. Because he loved his community and his fans.”

And “the last months were rough. But Gordon was resolved and he was at peace. One of the things he said to me very recently was ‘my life’s work is done and I’m ready.”

Haynes said Lightfoot repeated that a few times. But their last conversation was hard as Lightfoot had “some difficulty speaking. His breath was going away.”

A sad ending for an artist whose life was singing and with his words painting pictures of what he saw.

Haynes said Lightfoot was not averse to church. His funeral was preplanned years ago said Minister Karen Hilfman-Millson who will lead Monday’s private family service.

Fellow friend and promoter Bernie Fiedler said his last words to him were: “Bern, I’m tired and ready to go. I think he really felt it that he was ready to go.”

Fiedler, who had worked with Lightfoot for 60 years and was the founder of the famed Riverboat Cafe music venue in Toronto’s Yorkville, where Lightfoot became a ’60s legend along with the likes of fellow Canadian folk and rock icons Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, and Americans James Taylor and Simon and Garfunkel, said: “To my mind, one of the saddest things for me was to see him lying in bed. He had really suffered and I think this was a real good thing actually. It turned out that way. I think he’s at peace now. I think he wanted it that way.”

Haynes said: “He told me a few times ‘I’m not afraid to die. I’m ready.’ And I can say he really wasn’t in a lot of pain towards the end. People have tried to do something with that. But he wasn’t. He was at peace in a lot of ways.”

Fielder said: “I don’t know anybody who will ever forget his music.”

He said down the road they’re going to try and do a musical tribute, including with his original band. He already has Burton Cummings, Tom Cochrane, Tom Rush and Murray McLaughlan. A lot of them have already agreed they’ll come and do a song at Massey Hall.

Haynes said Lightfoot’s passing has already “gone way beyond our borders,” noting that Billy Joel “gave a shout-out to Gordon on Friday night I think” and did “Sundown” as part of medley on stage live. Billy was a fan of Gord and we were supposed to meet together if we got to go to Florida in March. There’s a lot of huge fans of Gordon in the music business and some of them were present at the American Song Writers Awards in New York City when Gord was on the red carpet and Gord was the recipient of the American Song Writers Award, which was a huge deal to Gordon.”

Fiedler added: “What I loved about Gordon most was he was so proud to have come from Orillia. He never looked toward living in the United States as is, I think, common knowledge, because he mentioned it many times. That and besides he was so kind to numerous people, especially to myself when I got in to trouble with the tax department. I mean he just bailed me out so big. Huge, huge guy. He didn’t care for himself on anything. He was happy. He gave everything to everybody. He was just in to song writing. He loved his life that way and couldn’t care less about what would happen to him. He was just a happy guy.”

remainder in next post

[charlene]

part 2

And what does his life show for younger artists today?

“He was a professional songwriter first. He was a great showman, his shows were fantastic. Even last year in November three nights sold out at Massey Hall was unbelievable. The fact that he closed the hall when they renovated it and he came back and finished it off when they opened the hall again. I think that meant a lot to him and to a lot of us. And a tribute today, they’ve got the hall open and they have the stage (on it) with a book for people to sign. That to me was very appropriate.”

“Gord was a workaholic,” said Haynes. “Gord was the hardest working entertainer, musician, songwriter that I have ever worked with in my life that I have ever seen.”

Last year they did almost 60 shows.

“He really worked hard. He had the best work ethic. You asked about young people and what they can take away from Gord, it’s his work ethic first. You can’t buy talent. But you can work hard on work ethic.

A regular in recent years again at the Mariposa Folk Festival, he ensured its return to Orillia was a success in 200o by agreeing to headline.

Haynes said “he was always available. One thing that stands out about Gordon is his loyalty. He was always extremely loyal to the community, Canada, the people who worked with him.

Haynes said in his early years he could be perceived as honest, but he really wasn’t.

“He was really humble and he really enjoyed playing. When we were making records, he was under contract, he had to produce records, write songs every year. When the contracts was fulfilled, he said ‘that’s great, now we can just do shows.’”

Lightfoot was also “an adventurer” who years ago took up the CBC’s offer to play in Frobisher Bay, now Iqaluit where “the whole town came out,” they were billeted and he played with just one light bulb that was like a spotlight for him.

“He loved it.”

“You all know how he went down the Rain Forest of Brazil. He was an adventurer in a lot of ways. And all about his canoe trips.”

While Lightfoot told me years ago after a Massey show that the Wreck made his career in the U.S., Haynes said “Sundown” was “his most successful on the charts.”

Fiedler said “Early Morning Rain” was his favourite song “he told me.”

“‘If You Could Read My Mind’ definitely has the most staying power,” added Haynes, who said he was told an L.A. call-in radio station this week had people calling in asking ‘Please play Gordon.’ They didn’t care which song.”

Fiedler concluded the outpouring today and all week “has been fantastic. I can only thank everybody for this.”

He said he will miss his “humour. He was just so personable. Just unbelievable.”

Fiedler noted a pool party years ago with musicians where a little baby fell in the pool “and everybody was like ‘Oh!’”

And Gord Lightfoot jumped in and pulled the baby out of the water.

“It was so cool, he was really just down to earth.”

Haynes wrapped up by expressing what Canada meant to Lightfoot.

“It meant everything. He loved Canada. He didn’t think there was a reason ever to leave the country.”

And Orillia, “it meant everything to him. That’s why we’re here.”

Rev. Ted Reeve paid tribute to Lightfoot earlier in the morning beforehand during St. Paul’s church service. A few still in the congregation remembered hearing the young protoge sing in the church.

An hour after visiting began, church bells at St. Pauls and St. James Anglican Church next door on Coldwater Street rang out 30 times — once each the mariners number for each of the 29 sailors who died on the Edmund Fitzgerald, which Lightfoot immortalized in his legendary “Wreck” Great Lakes anthem.

And and one for Lightfoot’s passing.

A private family service will take place at 11 a.m. at St. Paul’s followed by an interment at the family plot where his parents Gordon Sr. and Jessie and their daughter Beverly are buried.

[charlene]

https://muskokatoday.com/2023/05/legendary-son-to-be-buried-overlooking-lightfoot-family-home/

May 8, 2023
LEGENDARY SON TO BE BURIED OVERLOOKING LIGHTFOOT FAMILY HOME

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

ORILLIA — Following his funeral today, some time at a later date Gordon Lightfoot will be buried in his family’s plot with his parents and sister.

St. Andrew’s and St. James’ Cemetery overlooks his childhood home, in the northwest end of Orillia, where he grew up and lived until about 1959-60.

And where he sang his way to elementary school on nearby Westmount Street, before running down to St. Paul’s to sing in the choir and eventually go on to international fame.

Harvey Street, a mix of small, older homes, was where Lightfoot developed his small town sensibilities and sensitivities.

Paul Hill bought the family stead from Lightfoot and his mother’s estate in 1998 after Jessie died at 88. Her year-younger husband, Gord Sr., predeceased her in 1974 after a life as a Wagg’s laundry and dry-cleaning owner where his son was humbled by the tumble.

Hill told me he was enticed from Toronto with prospect of purchasing a “century home.”

At first he wasn’t clear on the seller after an original sale fell through.

It wasn’t until two weeks later — when the real estate asked if he knew his new digs were owned by Lightfoot — that he realized it was a famously local musical landmark.


Hill said at first he was unaware of its local significance and that the singer was from Orillia.

But when he began teaching at all the public high schools in the small Ontario city he quickly became aware of the troubadour’s community prominence and Canadian presence.

About six months after the sale Lightfoot and sister Beverly Eyers arrived for a look when he “heard I was renovating and wanted to see what I had done.”

He joked that if Hill kept the renos going “I may have to buy it back.”

Lightfoot ended up living in Toronto’s Bridle Path, with Drake as a neighbour, and came one other time for a visit and something to do with a documentary. “Lightheaded” is about Gordon’s fans and is soon due out on Amazon.

Hill says there is nothing left in his home of the family or Lightfoot. No music or pictures.

While the Canadian icon was being memorialized by the public five minutes away, Hill was busy lamenting with his neighbours the prospect of an eight-storey condo project towering over their mostly not famous homes.

When Lightfoot is finally laid to rest up the hill, Hill hopes that’s the only towering presence he can withstand.
More stories …

Fred Schulz has seen, heard and photographed dozens of Lightfoot concerts, thanks to his mutual friend Bernie Fiedler, Lightfoot’s promoter for 60 years.

Schulz, who says he retired last fall after booking shows at the Barge for some five decades and is now working part-time doing the same at Gravenhurst Opera House, has many stories about driving to Massey Hall and Mariposa with his Muskoka friends the Marians and others as well as times with Lightfoot’s good friends the Good Brothers on the Barge in Gravenhurst.

After one of the Lightfoot’s shows last year, when he knew concert appearances were becoming fewer and further between, he detained the singer from his adoring fans long enough to “get everything I owned signed by him.”

Sing in choir and solo …

Former St. Paul’s minister Rev. Karen Hilfman-Millson, who presided over this morning’s private funeral, got to know Lightfoot well over the past 20 years or more.

She said he had come back a few times over the years to sing and perform and for filming of a documentary.

In 2006 she invited him to come back for the St. Paul’s 175th anniversary, when she and archivist Robert Chapman interviewed him for the church’s history project.

Notably the next year he came back and sang in the choir.

“We did a worship service and he told two things that he wanted to do. He said: ‘The first thing I want to do is come out of the choir and sing my solo like I did when I was kid.’ So we put him in the choir and he came out sang his solo ‘Sit Down Young Stranger.’

“And then he wanted to have tea with the ladies after church. So we had tea.”

He returned in 2011, 2013 and in 2017 for his documentary “If you could read my mind,” when he talked about growing up in Orillia and singing in the church and Kiwanis Festival that always had its contest tests at St. Paul’s.

The retired reverend, who still lives in Orillia, said “I have scads of memories.”

Hilfman-Millson added “I had a very continuous flow of tears” last Monday when she heard he had died.

“I actually got a lot of condolences from people, which is very nice.”

She has also read a lot on Facebook the past week and wrote an article for the Broadview Magazine, the United Church magazine, which is online.

Rev. Ted Reeve, who co-officiated at the funeral, said he had “a few encounters with him over the last few years at Mariposa Folk Festival and university events. And I always found him quite a gracious guy to hang out with. And I appreciated his sensibilities about St. Paul’s and his family’s connections here.”

Reeve said “of course” he mentioned him at Sunday morning’s service before the public wake.

“I had a prayer for him when I ended my sermon by talking about him.”

Music still fresh in mind …

Bassist Rick Haynes, 78, and his son, Jeremiah, who were two of the pallbearers along — with four of Lightfoot’s children Mary, Galen, Eric and Fred — said they haven’t listened to any of Gord’s music this week even though it was hard to miss it on radio, TV and online.

“It’s still too fresh,” said Rick. “We know it so well.”

Jeremiah, who told his dad about the Bill Joel “shout-out” Friday, said they’ll soon get back to enjoying it a different way now.

Lightfoot Fan Club …

“Char” Westbrook, of Whitby, represented Lightfoot’s Fan Club, which started in 2000 as a FB discussion forum and memorabilia exchange. Lightfoot appeared on it a five or six times for chats and he told she could ‘put it out there.’ That’s the way he referred to the internet.”

Westbrook was “very grateful that I had his music in my life. And it the later years come to know him and the families. This is beautiful. It’s lovely and very understated, not an over the top Massey Hall event or the Gardens.

“This is Gordon Lightfoot. His church. His home. He is home here. It never left him. The small town boy never, ever left home and he’s just back where he should be.”

Sharing the stage …

Preeti Nichol, of Bracebridge, too was “emotional, but glad to be here.”

Friend Neil Hutchinson left a guitar pick on his coffin saying he should used one he played with a day before at ‘Lunches with Lightfoot’ at Fyne Thymes Bistro and Bakery in his hometown.

“Huge fan” Ray Rama, of Richmond Hill, was also moved. “It’s been really sad,” he said, adding what he said as he paused beside the singer who helped the immigrant understand Canada. “I said my thanks. Keep the memories.”

Jim Shepherd, who was walking by the church, stopped at the light and said he grew up with Lightfoot and went to the same two-room classroom on Westmount Road. The 84-year-old said he wasn’t as big a fan, though “there were a couple of songs” that weren’t too bad.

[charlene]

Photos were included online with the articles.. (NOT taken by me!) A single potted rose was among well more than a dozen floral tributes on the stage from family, friends and fans who either came or sent them.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52962462464_898242018d_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2oG7sUy)IMG_3379 (https://flic.kr/p/2oG7sUy) by char Westbrook (https://www.flickr.com/photos/8539259@N07/), on Flickr

Steve Lippert gets ready to pull the bell chain as organist and choir director Blair Bailey co-ordinates with St. James Anglican church bellringers for a salute of 30 bell tolls at 2 p.m.
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Lightfoot fan club member Charlene Westbrook, of Whitby, signs one of several books of condolence on her way out. ( I signed: Miss you. Love you. Thank you Gordon. I'll Tag Along.. Char & Lisa Westbrook )
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A 1947 quilt with the names of Lightfoot and fellow Cub members is embroidered twice with his name top and centre.
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Then there’s a photo of him, front row left, on the Orillia District Vocational Institute high school track team 1956-57; and a second ‘Woman’s Association’ record of him singing two much-appreciated numbers.
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Another piece of church history notes Lightfoot stepping forward to entertain with “two amusing solos” by Lightoot.
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This roll call shows Lightoot as singing in the bass section in the mid- to late 1950s.
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Church archivist Robert Chapman dug up old letters and notes in which Lightfoot was regularly remembered as far back as the shortly after the second world war.
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A number of enlightening historical photos and memorabilia about Lightfoot were on display as mourners left the church.
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A good-old “Kentuckian” got a warm welcome from a church volunteer after he came up to join fellow fans from Canada.
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Don and Sandy James wore their Orillia Lightfoot Days t-shirts when they came down from Nobel.
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Ron Jones met up with Lightfoot at the Steele Tavern in Toronto. They kept in touch over the years and Jones has an encyclopediac knowledge of his old friend.
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Family and friends brought lots of flowers and a few signs remembering their hometown hero. Each had a personal message.
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Inside the church many lingered to take in the moment, hugging and crying, listening to his songs and watching a slide show of Lighfoot from his start to finish.
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[charlene]

Family, friends and fans said goodbye as Lightfoot can be poignantly seen stage left packing off with his guitar, leaving the room this afternoon amid tears.
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The lineup lasted all day from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. with a light rain from 1 p.m. till visitation ended.
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Rick Haynes, Lightfoot’s bassist of 55 years, and Bernie Fielder his promoter for 60 years spoke to the media as hundreds of fans filed past his coffin Sunday. Hayne said it was a “difficult” day and Fielder said the Canadian folk legend told him he was “ready to go.”
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‘Lunch with Lighfoot’ singer Neil Hutchinson, of Bracebridge, left one his guitar picks on the coffin as he paid his respects with Preeti Nichol Sunday afternoon.
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Sylvia Rogan gets a hug from fellow fan Ed Zeally. The two met and exchanged stories while waiting in line this morning.
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Gordon Lightfoot came home to rest in the church where he emerged from the choir and went on to Canadian and international singing fame. His wife Kim, centre left, followed his coffin into St. Paul’s United Church this morning with Lightfoots daughter Meredith, sons Galen, Eric, Fred and band member Rick Haynes and his son Jeremiah acting as pallbearers. The visitation went on till 8 p.m. with more than 2,000 fans, friends and his family celebrating his life. He was 84.
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Owner Paul Hill said Lightfoot visited his family stead a couple of times and once joked with retired high school teacher that he’d have to buy it back with all the renovations.
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The Lghtfoot family home where he grew up is a nice unassuming local Orillia landmark not far from where the singing sensation will eventually find his final resting place.
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Rev. Karen Hilfman-Millson asks mourners to pause for a moment as church bells rang out Sunday at 2 p.m. The 30 bell peals included 29 for the men lost on the Edmund Fitzgerald and finally once for Lightfoot.
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“Char’ Westbrook, who had Lightfoot chat with her five or six times “out there on the internet,” said he was finally “home.”
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Pallbearer Jeremiah Haynes takes a moment outside the church after helping carry in the coffin yesterday morning.
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Schulz made sure to get everything he owned signed by his friend in one of their final times together, including this ‘Songbook’ box set of CDs addressed to him.
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Schulz captured this lovely photo of Lightfoot at the unveiling of a bust at the Orillia Opera House where today flowers are all around it.
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Fred Sculz caught up with Gord again in recent times after one of his last Massey concerts. Photos Fred Schulz
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[charlene]

A proud moment was when Lt.-Gov. Elizabeth Dowdeswell honoured the singer-songwriter who made good.
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[charlene]

https://www.orilliamatters.com/local-news/column-rest-easy-mr-lightfoot-we-will-never-forget-you-6978662

'Rest easy, Mr. Lightfoot. We will never forget you'

After an emotional week of tributes and rites, Orillia shifts gears, moves back into a 'whirlwind of arts and culture events,' says columnist
Anna Proctor
May 10, 2023 6:15 PM

Well, it’s certainly been quite the week here in Orillia. Our hometown hero, Gordon Lightfoot, put us on the international stage this past week, no doubt about it. And Orillia, and St. Paul’s United Church in particular, did him very proud.

All of the arrangements were handled perfectly, and I have heard from more than one source, everyone was so very kind, respectful, and welcoming.

Lightfoot planned this 10 years ago, and he knew what he was doing. He knew Orillia and St. Paul’s was where he wanted to be, and where he wanted his loved ones to be taken care of with love and respect. Hats off to you, Orillia. You did good. Rest easy, Mr. Lightfoot. We will never forget you.

[charlene]

https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/remembering-gordon-lightfoot-1938-2023/?fbclid=IwAR0VmB2rFsOKgX-txV4TTv3iZOgLLykG2URD_wRPK4cQ53og6dRa72ht0NQ

It would only take a small penthouse to accommodate the amount of music artists who if you disappeared their legacies in their entirety, it would irreparable and forever change the very fabric of music as we know it today. In a world teeming with interpreters, reenactors, imitators, and outright frauds, only a few select songsmiths truly touched music in foundational manners integral to audio expression, and irrespective of genre. Start and end that list with whomever you wish. But damn well make sure you include Gordon Lightfoot within that small and exclusive company.

Gordon Lightfoot was a Canadian, not a Statesman. He was only country in spurts, or by accident. But even the shit kickers and the honky-tonkers out there will conclude that Gordon Lightfoot was undeniably essential, at least the ones who know their stuff, are worth their salt, and honest. And the others? Well screw them. It’s their loss if they don’t know the gold they’re missing in a catalog rendered timeless and awesome through tales of the land and the people upon it, and how those people love, and live, and eventually, and tragically, die.

No matter who you were, or where you were from, Gordon Lightfoot told your story. And he did it in a way that pulsated with the magic and mystery in life that only life itself could match in emotion, memory, and ferocity. Folk traditions were the underlying foundation that Gordon Lightfoot utilized to express his inspirations, always putting the words before the music, and the message ahead of the melody. But if electric or eclectic instruments expressed the sentiment more accurately, Lightfoot accommodated. The muse was always in charge. Lightfoot was only the vessel.

So much of music colors our lives, works like timelines in our relationships and life’s other landmarks. But Gordon Lightfoot’s music went so much deeper. It wasn’t ephemeral. It was monumental. We made life-altering decisions based on the wisdom we once gleaned from a Lightfoot lyric. We remember a place, or a moment in history and tie it to a Lightfoot song not just in the way it serenaded us in the moment, but in the way it influenced its outcome.

Yes, Gordon Lightfoot left behind ample songs you can conclusively label as “country.” There’s his early song “Cotton Jenny.” There’s the entirely of his 1974 masterpiece Sundown that’s more important than entire eras of other artists in the strokes of influential mastery it captured. But let’s not diminish Lightfoot’s legacy in conversations of genre. Not in this moment. His work stands irrespective of any limitation. It was epic in its ability to stoke the imagination. We all lived heroically and died tragically on the Edmund Fitzgerald, and we have Gordon Lightfoot to thank for it.

May Day is what they call it in many parts of the world—a day when we commemorate the laborers who built our modern society and the infrastructure we all enjoy, including many who died in that service, just like the 29 men who perished in the icy waters of Lake Superior, yet still live in the minds of all of us to this day due to Lightfoot. They died, but he allowed them to live again. And now Gordon Lightfoot is dead, but he’s still very much alive in our hearts, and minds, and souls. Because his music outlives him, and will outlive us all.
© 2023 Saving Country Music

[charlene]

https://www.carpentertheologian.com/what-i-learned-from-gordon-lightfoot-1-of-3/?fbclid=IwAR3VycF0AHtwCuMicbAtS94lyxKPEAMrKjsKZBWh TrQ1gDWwDWvnVDronFU

Carpenter Theologian Blog
Home BLOG What I Learned from Gordon Lightfoot, 1 of 3
What I Learned from Gordon Lightfoot

n honor of Gordon Lightfoot’s passing on Monday night at 84 (a year older than my dad), I’m reposting this first part of a three-part series I wrote in 2020. My deepest sympathies to his family, fans, and friends. And I’m so grateful my son Tim and I got to see him live last year on April 5th in Phoenixville, PA.

If you could read my mind, love,
What a tale my thoughts could tell.
If You Could Read My Mind, ©1969 by Gordon Lightfoot

I know it had little to do with the fact that “his debut album… came out on United Artists in January 1966,” the same month and year I was born.[1] Still, there are few artists I’ve enjoyed, resonated with, and been influenced by more than Gordon Lightfoot. Among other things, I share a connection with Presbyterianism, small-town roots, a commitment to authenticity, and a delight in the wildness of nature.

I was introduced to Lightfoot’s music at seventeen by a friend, mentor, and another excellent singer-songwriter and guitarist, Richard Fuller. And for those who don’t know, Gordon Lightfoot was one of the brightest stars of the folk music genre, famous especially for his strong use of emotion, the consistently “high quality of his compositions,” and a band that featured Terry Clements’ amazing guitar work. A rugged Canadian with a huge talent, drive, and work ethic, I’ve identified with Lightfoot’s exquisite songs about “nature and love and the refined natural beauty of living.”

For good and, at times, for ill (more on that next week), Lightfoot’s songs were a balm to my repressive upbringing, inhibited soul, and the depression—anger turned inward—and cynicism I carried with me for a good part of my life. I found an honesty, humanness, and celebration of the goodness of creation (Gen. 1:31) in his expressions that I rarely experienced in the church.

In his very accessible biography (my favorite read from 2018), Nicholas Jennings notes that:

“Lightfoot did have a strong Presbyterian, almost Calvinist streak, in him. He professed not to be religious, but having grown up in a small Ontario town where churches and Protestant thinking dominated, he always held himself to a strict moral code. Throughout his life, Lightfoot faced issues of sin, redemption and repentance—and when reflecting on himself actually thought in those biblical terms. Guilt, a somewhat strange concept in the decadent world of rock and roll, would weigh heavily on him throughout his life as he judged whether he was a good husband, father or son.”[2]

Gordon and his fellow singer-songwriter and friend Joni Mitchell shared this “survivalist notion” to never go back to the “restraints” and “narrow-minded disapproval” of their childhood. Joni’s ex-husband, Chuck Mitchell, observed that this “was one of Joni’s main drives and I think Gordon’s too.”[3]

Yet his career took off in large part because he retained the genuineness of those small-town roots: “In an age of the ‘super cool,’ he digs deep into the warmth of the heart to relate some basic feelings about human longing and desire.’ Once embarrassed about his unpolished small-town ways, Lightfoot was finding that his lack of artifice had become an asset.”[4]

Lightfoot also gave me a love for history and place. Songs like Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Don Quixote, and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald still bring legends to life. Many of his songs champion the beauty of the wilderness, the sea, or majestic creatures like the Blue whale. Some celebrate simple things like listening to music, a winter’s night, hard work and courage, or Rainy Day People. Others tell tales of regret, love—including illicit affairs, addiction to alcohol, and life on the road.

Throughout his prime, Lightfoot relied on rigorous “marathon outings to work off what he called his ‘spare tire’ from heavy drinking.” One example is when he took “a physically challenging 673-mile canoe trip on the Back River of Canada’s Northwest Territories… the country’s twentieth longest river and the most demanding of the eleven wilderness trips that he did.” This trip was especially “grueling because of the large portages” he and his five partners had to make with their two canoes.

Here’s Lightfoot’s personal account of this trip—one of my favorites from Jenning’s biography:

“We were icebound on the Back River, at a place called Beechey Lake. We weren’t able to travel through certain lakes because they’d be plugged with ice. We carried the canoes ten miles one day, after which there was another three-mile portage. So we ended up portaging thirteen miles—the longest I ever did. We figured we’d stop at the ten-mile point, camp and continue in the morning. But we got such a head of steam that we did the whole thing. It only got dark about one hour each night, so we kept going. It was really, really hard work. Some of the portages on that trip were filled with mud and mire and mush and we had to lift the canoes sideways in order to get through some of that stuff. We got involved in some stretches of river where we traveled eight miles but only wound up going one mile. It’s called a serpentine. We had two tents for camping, and we’d cook with small mountaineering gas stoves. There wasn’t much firewood up in the tundra. We did some fishing, but mostly we took all our own food in with us. Saw all kinds of wildlife, including a grizzly bear with her cubs. I enjoyed watching the muskox. They loved to play on the sides of the slopes, run back and forth in groups. They’re huge animals. I stood about twenty feet away from one; he looked at me, I looked at him and he just ambled off. I got inspired to write some songs on those trips, which are some of the most glorious experiences I ever had.”

https://www.carpentertheologian.com/what-i-learned-from-gordon-lightfoot-part-2-of-3/

I ain’t the kind to hang around

With any new love that I’ve found

Since movin is my stock ‘n trade,

I’m moving on I won’t think of you when I’m gone…

I’ve got a hundred more like you, so don’t be blue

I’ll have a thousand ‘fore I’m through
For Lovin’ Me/Did She Mention My Name, ©1966, 1968, 1975 by Gordon Lightfoot

The cold, detached state-of-mind reflected in the lyrics above may have been part of what made Lightfoot famous; however, his actions consistent with this authentic expression of his soul took a devastating toll on his family. In the real world, cheating spouses and dead-beat dads don’t make us laugh like the character Reese Bobby, Ricky’s Bobby’s father, in Talladega Nights. They bring pain and hurt of the worst kind.

We can learn a lot from Lightfoot about “how not to be”—especially toward our wives and children. On his third marriage, he has six children that we know of. “…(In the Seventies, he was also briefly in a relationship with Cathy Smith, who was with John Belushi on the night he overdosed.) You wonder if all those relationships come rushing back when he sings songs he wrote about those situations — ‘If You Could Read My Mind,’ for instance, is about the collapse of his first marriage in the late Sixties.”[1]

Happiest on the road, Lightfoot’s “long absences… not to mention his infidelities—had ruined his [first] marriage and put distance between him and his kids.” On this Lightfoot reflects, “Have you ever had your son look at you with an accusation that you walked out on him?’” Jennings, his biographer, concludes: “Thrilling through it was, being in constant motion took a toll that Lightfoot would have to live with all his life.”[2]

Regret is a common theme in his music. For example, in his song “Second Cup of Coffee,” he confesses to sleep that is “filled with dreaming of the wrongs that I have done/ And the gentle sweet reminder of a daughter and a son.”

The daughter referenced is Ingrid, his oldest from his first marriage. She finally asked him to stop singing “For Lovin’ Me:” “I didn’t want him to sing it, because it made me angry… I knew it was about my mom. It‘s pretty self-explanatory. ‘I’m not the kind to hang around’ and ‘the new love that I’ve found.’ My dad was going through a lot of women. My mom didn’t need to be reminded of that.”[3]

[charlene]

Reflecting back, Lightfoot admits:

“In my first family, I’m afraid, at that particular time I guess I wasn’t around long enough to be of service to them, and I do regret that a great deal to this day,” he said. “[I] keep the lines of communication open at all times and see them regularly and the two grandchildren as well… My new family is growing and needs more attention. Since I won’t be following the route I did in my first marriage, I will be dealing with it practically. I hope I can handle it.”

At Care Net, the Christian ministry I work for, we focus on the private, hidden issue of abortion—often the collateral damage resulting from a promiscuous lifestyle like Lightfoot’s. In offering compassion, hope, and help to men and women facing pregnancy decisions, we’ll gently remind them that children—whether born or pre-born—are not lives worth sacrificing but lives worth sacrificing for. Lightfoot’s had to learn this the hard way.

Thankfully, “making amends for past mistakes… [has] become a priority. Responsibilities to… children…[are] now paramount.” Jennings notes: “If he’s sinned in the past, Lightfoot’s future was going to be all about redemption.”[4] Indeed, aging, a near-death experience in 2002, and the pain of regret have given him a different perspective than he had throughout his prime. Here’s evidence of that from his children:

“He’s definitely changed after the aneurysm,” adds Ingrid, “paying more attention to all of us and calling more.”[5]
Says Fred, his oldest son: “In my younger years I didn’t see much of Dad, but he’s been very supportive of my kids, especially Ben, who’s extremely autistic, and comes to visit a lot.”[6]
Meredith, one of his children from a later marriage observes: “One of the things that I admire about him is that he realizes he has room to grow… He’s still learning things about himself.”

https://www.carpentertheologian.com/what-i-learned-from-gordon-lightfoot-part-3-of-3/

“Writing songs is about finding the time, because it’s an isolated thing. You need to lock yourself in a room to do it, in one shape or another, whether it’s an empty house or hotel room.”
Gordon Lightfoot in Nicholas Jennings, Lightfoot (Viking, 2017), 88.

[charlene]

I mentioned in Part 1 that, among other things, Lightfoot and I share a connection with Presbyterianism, small-town roots, a disciplined work ethic, a commitment to authenticity, and a delight in the wildness of nature. We also share a similar approach to the creative process, a wandering heart, and a profound need for Christ’s atonement.

And what’s more, even today—especially when I’m doing finish carpentry, Lightfoot’s music is still a favorite. It’s beauty, earthiness, familiarity, detailed lyrics and finger-picking have always helped me relax, focus, and do my best creative work.

But in certain past melancholy or dark moods, although Lightfoot’s music soothed my soul, it wasn’t the remedy I needed. Sometimes his songs exacerbated my depression when I needed to choose joy. Or sometimes they kept me marinating in loneliness when I needed community. By way of examples, sometimes his music kept me from prayer, a much-needed conversation with Pam, or was a pre-cursor to destructive habits like overeating, eating poorly, or viewing porn. Lightfoot had his own vices—in fact, his journey toward addiction began with using alcohol to deal with the stress in his first marriage: “When things got complicated with Brita, alcohol gave him an easy way to forget his problems—if only for a while. ‘It made me feel better,’ he says, ‘and if I felt better, I could work better.’

A lot has changed since that marriage ended in 1973. Aging, a near-fatal brain aneurism in 2004, and a third marriage to actress Kim Hasse (see above) have given Lightfoot a softer heart and a wiser perspective: “It’s funny—as you get older, you complain less because you get mellower, and with that mellowness comes a bit of humor.”[1]

Last week, we saw proof of Lightfoot’s change-of-heart in the testimonies of his children. And here’s some further evidence from his own words and those of his biographer:

“I’ve made a few mistakes in my career, I’ll admit them. For the last many years, I’ve been in a process of atonement. Honestly, I try really hard to please, particularly when it comes to my family. I feel a really strong responsibility to them.”[2]
It’s hard to imagine a more humble and self-effacing superstar. Ever since he’d quit drinking, making amends preoccupied Lightfoot. Sometimes he called it a process of atonement. Later, he took to saying he was in a state of repentance. Either way, the duty weighed heavily on him.”
“He’d always professed not to be especially religious, but guilt, remorse, redemption remained powerful forces for the man who once sang ‘Forgive me Lord for I have sinned.’ Lightfoot’s ‘sins’ were a heavy burden on him… and he wanted desperately to atone. He was doing a pretty good job.”[3]

Notice how I italicized statements that reflect Lightfoot’s concept of atonement above. It is clear he knows something of repentance—that is, he has changed his mind and done an about-face regarding some of his “sins.” I want to take issue, however, with his idea of atonement and suggest that, as many have learned from him, he has yet something critically important to learn from others. Lightfoot views atonement as something he is capable of doing for himself and, to be fair, it’s a view held by even many religious people. Indeed, in most religions, the message is focused on what we need to DO to save or atone for ourselves. In Christianity, the message is focused, rather, on the atonement of Christ—what he has DONE on the cross:

“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2, NIV)
“Unlike those other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices every day. They did this for their own sins first and then for the sins of the people. But Jesus did this once for all when he offered himself as the sacrifice for the people’s sins.” (Hebrews 7:27, NLT)

And here’s the truth and good news for Gordon Lightfoot or any of us: None of us can atone for our sins, and salvation is a gift found only in dependence upon the finished sacrifice of Christ.

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…” (John 1:12, NIV)
“But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.” (Romans 4:5, NRSV)

Gordon Lightfoot is—by this world’s standards—a legend. He’s scored timeless hits, befriended Bob Dylan, and has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. And he’s still got it: At 80, he has a new album and 40 tour dates in Canada and the U.S. this year! Still inspiring others, I hope Lightfoot comes to accept and root his acts of repentance in the love of the Ultimate Father who has already—amazingly—provided atonement for his sins by his Son.

In conclusion, may I suggest that a little-known band from the 90’s—that, unlike Lightfoot, was literally a “Legend” in name only—might still be helpful in getting this vital issue of atonement right. Below are the relevant lyrics and you can listen to their full song here.

All alone,

You were all that I could depend on,

The failure of my life has been atoned,

And you’ve been right beside me all along…

Carry me,

You always carry me,

Carry me,

You breathe new life in me,

The love of the Father is always guaranteed,

The hands of the Father will always carry me.
“Carry Me” by Legend (Legend Seven) | from the album Legend

[charlene]

https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/remembering-gordon-lightfoot-1938-2023/?fbclid=IwAR0VmB2rFsOKgX-txV4TTv3iZOgLLykG2URD_wRPK4cQ53og6dRa72ht0NQ

It would only take a small penthouse to accommodate the amount of music artists who if you disappeared their legacies in their entirety, it would irreparable and forever change the very fabric of music as we know it today. In a world teeming with interpreters, reenactors, imitators, and outright frauds, only a few select songsmiths truly touched music in foundational manners integral to audio expression, and irrespective of genre. Start and end that list with whomever you wish. But damn well make sure you include Gordon Lightfoot within that small and exclusive company.

Gordon Lightfoot was a Canadian, not a Statesman. He was only country in spurts, or by accident. But even the shit kickers and the honky-tonkers out there will conclude that Gordon Lightfoot was undeniably essential, at least the ones who know their stuff, are worth their salt, and honest. And the others? Well screw them. It’s their loss if they don’t know the gold they’re missing in a catalog rendered timeless and awesome through tales of the land and the people upon it, and how those people love, and live, and eventually, and tragically, die.

No matter who you were, or where you were from, Gordon Lightfoot told your story. And he did it in a way that pulsated with the magic and mystery in life that only life itself could match in emotion, memory, and ferocity. Folk traditions were the underlying foundation that Gordon Lightfoot utilized to express his inspirations, always putting the words before the music, and the message ahead of the melody. But if electric or eclectic instruments expressed the sentiment more accurately, Lightfoot accommodated. The muse was always in charge. Lightfoot was only the vessel.

So much of music colors our lives, works like timelines in our relationships and life’s other landmarks. But Gordon Lightfoot’s music went so much deeper. It wasn’t ephemeral. It was monumental. We made life-altering decisions based on the wisdom we once gleaned from a Lightfoot lyric. We remember a place, or a moment in history and tie it to a Lightfoot song not just in the way it serenaded us in the moment, but in the way it influenced its outcome.

Yes, Gordon Lightfoot left behind ample songs you can conclusively label as “country.” There’s his early song “Cotton Jenny.” There’s the entirely of his 1974 masterpiece Sundown that’s more important than entire eras of other artists in the strokes of influential mastery it captured. But let’s not diminish Lightfoot’s legacy in conversations of genre. Not in this moment. His work stands irrespective of any limitation. It was epic in its ability to stoke the imagination. We all lived heroically and died tragically on the Edmund Fitzgerald, and we have Gordon Lightfoot to thank for it.

May Day is what they call it in many parts of the world—a day when we commemorate the laborers who built our modern society and the infrastructure we all enjoy, including many who died in that service, just like the 29 men who perished in the icy waters of Lake Superior, yet still live in the minds of all of us to this day due to Lightfoot. They died, but he allowed them to live again. And now Gordon Lightfoot is dead, but he’s still very much alive in our hearts, and minds, and souls. Because his music outlives him, and will outlive us all.
© 2023 Saving Country Music

[JohninCt.]

Thanks Charlene, excellent post, glad you found it.

[charlene]

https://wng.org/articles/the-passing-of-a-dedicated-folk-musician-1686017678

The passing of a dedicated folk musician
MUSIC | Gordon Lightfoot was a meticulous craftsman
by Arsenio Orteza
Post Date:
June 8, 2023 Issue Date:
June 24, 2023
Steve Snowden/Getty Images

Long after Peter, Paul & Mary had faded into sepia and Bob Dylan had gone electric, Gordon Lightfoot kept the spirit of folk music alive on pop radio, scoring the last of his six U.S. Top 40 hits during the same year that Saturday Night Fever established the dominance of disco.

Lightfoot died on May 1. He was 84. When his hometown of Orillia, Ontario, honored him with a statue in 2015, he’d been a Canadian legend for the better part of 50 years, inspiring national pride with songs that bore witness to his native land’s history, spirit, and terrain.

A meticulous craftsman, he learned early to write his own lead sheets and developed a songwriterly diligence that earned him the respect of his peers. More than any other factor, it was this ability to block out the world and focus on matching melodies and words that saw him through the chaos that he brought upon himself by womanizing and drinking his way through the 1970s.

The first of his three marriages ended in divorce (its dissolution inspired his U.S. breakthrough, “If You Could Read My Mind”), and his relentless touring made him an absentee father more often than not. His drinking, meanwhile, lowered his resistance to groupies in general and to the opportunistic rock-scenester Cathy Evelyn Smith in particular. Seven years after their volatile affair, Smith was charged with involuntary manslaughter for her role in the overdose death of the comedian John Belushi.

Lightfoot, it seemed, had dodged a bullet.

In the meantime, he scored his second-*biggest and most unlikely hit with “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” an elegiac, six-minute folk ballad that, were it not for the stranglehold that Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night” had on the position, would’ve gone to No. 1.

He sobered up in 1982 and became as much of a gym rat as his schedule would allow. But by that point pop music had undergone an MTV-spearheaded revolution that kicked sensitive neo-folkies in their 40s to the curb. Lightfoot kept writing and recording, but his hit-making days were over.

Not so his days as a concert draw. He averaged more than 70 shows a year from 2010 to 2016. He also made a *priority of repairing the family ties that he’d let fray.

He did not, however, seem inclined to revisit the mainline Protestant faith of his upbringing. His unironic 1980 outtake “Forgive Me Lord” was sandwiched, chronologically speaking, by the songs “Heaven Don’t Deserve Me” and “Return Into Dust,” both of which viewed eternal verities through an emphatically agnostic squint. Whether one of those three—and, if so, which one—played in his head as his end drew nigh, only those who could read his mind can say.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53012909370_d30990d37c_o.png (https://flic.kr/p/2oLz21N)Screenshot 2023-06-28 at 20-26-16 The passing of a dedicated folk musician (https://flic.kr/p/2oLz21N) by char Westbrook (https://www.flickr.com/photos/8539259@N07/), on Flickr

[charlene]

VIDEO:

https://barrie.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2721906&jwsource=em

[charlene]

https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/warmington-gordon-lightfoot-cheated-death-so-often-hard-to-believe-hes-gone

WARMINGTON:
Gordon Lightfoot cheated death so often, hard to believe he's gone

Joe Warmington
Published May 02, 2023

Gordon Lightfoot wore cheating death like a badge of honour and with a sense of humour.

Lightfoot planned to do it again when he confronted serious medical issues last month which forced him to postpone tour dates. But even this cool cat only had so many lives.

The world tried to kill Lightfoot off so many times that when word spread of the legend’s death at 84 Monday night, it was difficult to believe.

Even a couple of weeks ago, he told me he was holding out hope his latest health setback was temporary and he’d be able to get back up stage.

“We don’t know what is going to happen, but I am doing my best,” he said.

Lightfoot always did his best, no matter the odds.

In 2002, they wrote him off after a near-fatal aneurysm, but he not only came back, he toured for 20 more years.

“I just keep going,” he joked.

The best story came in 2010 with a simple tweet that he had died.

“I heard it on the radio when I was in the dental chair,” he told me.

He called into AM640’s Charles Adler to say reports of his death were premature. I caught up with him that day; he got such a kick out of that, hamming it up by placing his thumb to his wrist to check to see if he had a pulse.

“I looked in the mirror and said, ‘I don’t look dead.’”

Lightfoot’s legacy will never die. And, his songs are a big reason for that.

Whether it’s Rainy Day People, Early Morning Rain, Sundown, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, If You Could Read My Mind, Carefree Highway, or The Canadian Railroad Trilogy, the catalogue is not just his but ours. He is a generational Canadian storyteller and always will be.

“Musically and lyrically, there is no one else like him,” said musician and historian Tony Gosgnach, who was the first to suggest a state funeral.

This is not only appropriate but a necessary sendoff for this humble but brilliant icon. For me, Lightfoot will live on for the kind of man he was away from stardom. His legacy will be his passion for Canada and his love for Canadians.

Lightfoot was born in Orillia, but all of Canada was his hometown

“He was a very special person who made everybody feel special themselves,” said George Bigliardi, from the famed Bigliardi Steak House where Gordon was a regular. “I met him in 1967, the same year the Maple Leafs last won the Stanley Cup and we were friends ever since.”

Thanks to George, his wife, Carol, and their daughter, Victoria, I got to know Gordon as a friend, as well.

They invited me to many birthday parties and celebrations and often I would be sitting next to Gordon and his wife, Kim, listening to amazing stories about his times hanging with everybody from John Lennon to Bob Dylan.

But what I found fascinating was the way in which Gordon was toward taxi drivers, waiters, photographers, autograph hounds and even Occupy Toronto protesters.

In 2011, in St. James Park, he just showed up in the middle of the tent city to check on his then teen-daughter, Meredith, who was camping there. He didn’t say anything political, other than to remind everyone there are many perspectives, and people on all sides need to talk to each other peacefully. He believed and embodied that.

Lightfoot was interested in people. He cared about them.

When I was in his dressing room in Oshawa with photographer Veronica Henri, I saw how he tuned his guitars for hours, looking for perfection. In his music room at his Toronto home with photographer Craig Robertson, we saw his work ethic and how he would rehearse to keep his skills honed.

None of his greatness was by accident.

There’s no question there should be a state funeral because for Canadians, his death is like losing a family member. He touched the whole country deeply for many decades.

And not always on stage.

In 2008, on a cold winter evening, he came out for the repatriation of a fallen Canadian soldier whose body was being sent downtown to the coroner’s office behind Toronto Police headquarters. There was a delay, but he would not leave.

“I want to pay my condolences to the family,” he said.

It didn’t surprise me since two years earlier at the Red Rally for the troops I helped organize with Louise Gray, of the Toronto Police Association, and Justin Van Dette, Lightfoot not the only showed up but stayed for hours to talk with the families of serving soldiers.

While they say he’s now gone, in Canadian’s hearts, Gordon Lightfoot never will be. The legend will live on!

[charlene]

VIDEO AT LINK:
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/honorary-c-gordon-lightfoot-once-served-as-honorary-maple-leafs-captain?fbclid=IwAR2Quid7YqSP0tO9c5ohX5SRNefZdGhcT NdDYu5DsH9BPGfpE-1Mb7nUKx0
Honorary 'C': Gordon Lightfoot once served as honorary Maple Leafs captain

TORONTO -- When Maple Leafs brass held a meeting ahead of the NHL's 75th anniversary season, several big names -- John Candy, Anne Murray and Mike Myers to name a few -- were considered for the honour of serving as Toronto's honorary captain for the 1991-92 campaign.

``A lot of the U.S. (teams) went for comedians or people who were super-involved (with the team) or whatever,'' former Leafs public relations director Bob Stellick said Tuesday. ``We thought there really was nobody more iconic than Gordon Lightfoot.''

Lightfoot, a legendary singer-songwriter who died Monday at 84, was presented with a Maple Leafs jersey -- complete with a 'C' -- by former captain Darryl Sittler in a 1991 pre-game ceremony at Maple Leaf Gardens.

``I dropped the puck for Wendel (Clark) and for Steve Yzerman,'' Lightfoot recalled in a 2012 interview with CBC's ``Hockey Night in Canada.'' ``I remember it very well.

``I was so awestruck by the whole scene that I just dropped that puck and got the heck out of there.''

The Toronto resident wore a black tuxedo for the occasion. Stellick, who helped co-ordinate plans with Lightfoot's agent, recalled the singer-songwriter was shy and rather quiet.

``These people that are backslappers or jock-sniffers or whatever they are, he was the absolute opposite of that,'' Stellick said. ``He came in and was low maintenance and did his thing.''

At the time, the Maple Leafs were coming off a last-place finish in the Norris Division.

Optimism was higher for the regular-season opener and Lightfoot helped make it a special night. The Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings 8-5.

``We thought, 'We're an iconic franchise,' and we were looking for someone who was an iconic Ontarian,'' Stellick said. ``We certainly didn't want to do politicians or anything like that or someone who just happened to be hot that year.

``The 'Canadian Railroad Trilogy' and 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,' these are (songs) that resonated with Canadians and we thought it would be fun and relevant for the 75th anniversary.''

Lightfoot told the CBC that he was a Maple Leafs fan and that he and his bandmates would follow the team's results when they were out on tour.

Lightfoot met with the team's directors before the pre-game ceremony, Stellick said, and got an ``extraordinarily warm welcome'' when he walked out on the ice.

``I didn't like the idea of being made an honorary captain, the jersey would have been just fine,'' Lightfoot told the CBC. ``But they gave me the sweater and I kept that and I treasure that.''

The Maple Leafs were scheduled to kick off their second-round NHL playoff series against the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night at Scotiabank Arena.

[charlene]

https://www.glenngould.ca/2023/05/02/gordon-lightfoot-17-november-1938-1-may-2023/?fbclid=IwAR3R81IUXVJXIup_lgzNBWNChFvgObbPoopn--as_c1zaRMvDTdZ6v3kUmA

May 2, 2023
A Personal Appreciation

Peter O’Brien

Canada doesn’t have too many icons, and the few it does have tend to be begotten, not made. It seems now that Gordon Lightfoot, who died yesterday, May 1, 2023, had always been with us and would always be with us.

From a youthful choirboy singing at St. Paul’s United Church in Orillia, to the hard-living troubadour singing about vanishing love and about nature that is both beautiful and terrifying, Gord was always an intimate part of our lives. He sang about us, but he also sang to us and with us.

I met Gord about 15 years ago and was fortunate enough to spend a bit of time with him. We talked about various things: the deep creases that the guitar strings etched permanently into his fingertips; about Taylor Mitchell, a young singer-songwriter I knew, who had great potential but who died tragically while still in her teens – “She would have had a real future in music,” said Gord; about the importance of physical exercise to keep the body and soul moving forward; and about romance and related quotidian joys.

In our last conversation – which was over dinner at Scaramouche Restaurant in Toronto, with owner Mordy Yolles, Gord’s wife Kim, and Mordy’s son Dylan – Gord mentioned that he had recently donated his piano to a local school.

We talked about Glenn Gould, and I referenced some stories about Gould and his singular habits and passions. I mentioned how Gould, who often wore hats, gloves, and winter coats in the heat of the summer, was arrested in Sarasota, Florida, under the suspicion of being a homeless drifter (he was later released after it was revealed he was a famous concert pianist). He would sometimes play random TV shows in the background, or asked his cleaning woman to run the vacuum cleaner when he was learning a new piece of music. Gould sometimes needed those extraneous and disruptive sounds in order to concentrate on the ethereal matter at hand.

I asked Gord if he wanted wine with his meal. He responded, with definition, “I’m an alcoholic,” and then proceeded to talk about his years drinking a bottle of whiskey a day, and then quitting. I was worried that if he had a glass of wine that might start him drinking again. “No, it’s okay now,” he said. So we drank wine with the meal.

Mordy circled back to talk about Bach and Gould. Mordy likes to say that Gould talked like he played Bach, and we nodded.

I asked Gord about the sorry state of his hands. He had two bandages – on the index finger and the ring-finger of his left hand. Kim noted that his wedding ring had fallen off three times during his recent tour in the US. He started to wear a band-aid around his left-hand ring-finger so the ring didn’t fall off.

Gord led an adventurous life, and we talked about the various kinds of mistakes that people make. I quoted Joyce: “A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.” It seemed to me that there were opportunities for various portals of discovery around the table.

In a photo taken that evening, Gord is holding a book I made about Mordy. It’s called I Know the Answers But I Don’t Know the Questions. I had brought a copy of the book for Mordy to sign for Gord. It is full of funny and witty “Mordyisms,” and we had lots of laughs over the course of the evening reciting some of them. Mordy signed his name in the book, and then wrote “not funny” under his name, which we all laughed at.

Gord’s voice was weak, and even though I was sitting beside him, I had to lean in to capture all his words. But he definitely wanted to talk, and laugh.

I know that producing music and words that can live on takes significant effort, inspiration, and hard work, but sometimes the results seem as though they just tumbled out, fully and spontaneously and elegantly formed.

Listening to Gould play Bach, and to Gord singing about the early morning rain encourages me to appreciate talents that seem as thought they were effortlessly gathered from the air – as though they were begotten, not made. And that leads me to eternal thanks.

__

Peter O’Brien works for The Glenn Gould Foundation

[charlene]

https://www.thespec.com/entertainment/music/gordon-lightfoot-hamilton-two-hard-graces-making-much-great-music-together/article_40ae63a9-27a6-5d93-be21-b4b56cd59f11.html

A reflection on the death of Canadian music icon Gordon Lightfoot
jeff-mahoney
By Jeff Mahoney Spectator Reporter
Tuesday, May 2, 2023

If we could read his mind? We most surely could, even in the castle dark of Canada’s foreshortened winter days.

He shone the light, often a hard one, and held the page down for us.

And what a tale ... Gordon Lightfoot’s music was the large print in which that tale became legible, the window through which that mind appeared, and the music’s texture was the braille we ran our searching Canadian fingers over.

Read his mind? He helped us read our own, helped us, as great songwriters and their songs do, to find and feel something that inheres in us, deeply, something more essential to us than we ourselves really even know is there.

He took us to those places, to those feelings and blind corners of our being, on everything from trains in trilogies to a sinking laker getting swallowed up, along with the souls of the sailors, into the last infinity and stillness of Superior’s vast depths.

Lightfoot. Even the name. The bright airy trochaic lift of that first beat, the gently touching-down groundedness of the second. And Gordon? The name, as he wore it, was like something carved out of the rock in the Canadian Shield.

Yes, the legend — who died Monday at 84 — lives on, from the Arctic on down ... all over Canada, but with a special relevance for Hamilton.

Did I call him a great songwriter in that fourth paragraph? Let Bob Doidge qualify. “He was the greatest songwriter,” says the celebrated and sought after producer and co-owner (until recently) of Hamilton’s legendary Grant Avenue Studio, where Lightfoot recorded many albums.

“Oh, you might put McCartney in there or Paul Simon,” adds Doidge. But Doidge didn’t spend 25 years producing their music as he did with Gordon Lightfoot.

Doidge is just one of many connections between Lightfoot and Hamilton, a city he loved, perhaps the most dramatic being the life-saving surgery he received here after being rushed to McMaster hospital by air ambulance for stomach surgery in 2002. He later did a benefit concert for the hospital as a gesture of gratitude.

Doidge’s relationship with Lightfoot started — and Hamilton’s was accordingly intensified — with a phone call in 1997. Lightfoot was looking for a new sound, a new producer and studio. Barry Keane, his drummer and recording expert, told him, “Your number 1 fan (that would be Bob Doidge) owns a studio and would kill to work with you.”

Doidge got a call from Barry, saying that in 10 minutes Gordon Lightfoot would be calling him. And he did.

“I just sat down, smoking every cigarette I could find (he has since quit) and drinking coffee after coffee, trying to sound rational and coherent.”

He was that dumbstruck because it didn’t really start with the phone call in 1997. It started when Doidge was in his teens and got taken along to a Gordon Lightfoot concert. “I was into The Beatles and psychedelia at that time.” That concert turned him right around. He knew right from that moment.

“I wanted to play the bass guitar and I wanted to play for Gordon Lightfoot.” Very handy even then, he made his own bass guitar.

After that ’97 phone call, Doidge ended up producing Lightfoot’s 1998 released album “A Painter Passing Through.”

He went on to produce “Harmony” and numerous other records including a live one from Reno and the Royal Albert Hall.

“Doing ‘Harmony,’ one of the albums I made with him, he was in hospital (after the aforementioned surgery) and was working on it from his hospital bed,” Doidge recalls. “I’d add in instruments (in the studio) and take it to him. He was fresh out of a coma. It was crazy.”

But that was Lightfoot, Doidge says, the most meticulous, giving, ever musical man he’d ever met. His teenage boyhood hero made flesh as a hero in real life.

Doidge wasn’t the only Hamiltonian to experience Lightfoot’s power to reach into one’s hunger for what it is — whatever mysterious unknown — that the soul is hungry for, at a young age.

Says renowned singer-songwriter/author/playwright Tom Wilson: “She (Tom’s mother) came through the door one day with a copy of a record ... Dropping the needle on that record changed my life immediately. It was responsible for igniting the devil in me and stirring the sludge up at the bottom of my lake. Everything was so real like the guy was standing right there beside me.”

That guy? You know who.

Thus was born a fan who, over the next decades, like Doidge, enjoyed several fan fantasies being lived out in real life — for instance, in Wilson’s case, inducting Gordon Lightfoot into the Mariposa Folk Festival Hall of Fame in 2022.

At the time Wilson said of Lightfoot, “He lives in our blood.”

Someone else, earlier, in 1986, inducted Lightfoot into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. You might have heard of him. Bob Dylan, who considered Lightfoot a songwriting mentor of sorts.

“All these people, all these artists,” says Doidge, “like the (late) Dan Fogelberg who says so right on his album” that Lightfoot is a chief songwriting influence. “Every single artist in the big leagues looks at him as the ultimate songwriter.”

Doidge recalls travelling with Lightfoot to Nashville to do some recording. “He said to me, ‘You wanna meet Joan?’ And there was Joan Baez and she throws her arms around Gordon and says, ‘It’s been too long.’”

It’s not just that he was such an influence; he was genuinely beloved.

“Straight up,” says Wilson. Lightfoot was just as naturally gracious and amiable as he seemed.

“He’s a hero. And I got to work with him. To work withe a hero, that’s something.” Lightfoot sang backup on the Wilson recording “Summer Side of Life.” “You can’t that buy kind of ...”

Says Doidge, “It’s hard to digest sometimes. I have so many instances when I’d come home the phone rings and Gordon Lightfoot is on the other end saying, ‘I’m just checking in.’ For 25 years I worked with him. I’m going to miss working with him, with a raw Gordon Lightfoot and guitar. Mostly, I’m going to miss him.”

His voice on the phone. His generosity.

But the legend lives on, and Bob knows it better than most. He still has raw material from Lightfoot that has never been heard before — songs, outtakes, demos. Right here in Hamilton. We’ll see what the future brings.

Gordon Lightfoot at Waterdown ArtsFest in 2017.
The Hamilton Spectator file photo
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Gordon_Lightfoot_at_Waterdown_ArtsFest_in_2017..jp g?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds (https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Gordon_Lightfoot_at_Waterdown_ArtsFest_in_2017..jp g?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds)

Bob Doidge at Grant Avenue Studios, the legendary Hamilton music studios started by Daniel and Bob Lanois.
The Hamilton Spectator file photo
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Bob_Doidge_at_Grant_Avenue_Studios_the_legendary_H amilton_music_studios_started_by_Daniel_and_Bob_La nois..jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds (https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Bob_Doidge_at_Grant_Avenue_Studios_the_legendary_H amilton_music_studios_started_by_Daniel_and_Bob_La nois..jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds)

Gordon Lightfoot on Sept. 6, 2009, singing "If You Could Read My Mind."
The Hamilton Spectator file photo
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Gordon_Lightfoot_on_Sept._6_2009_singing_22If_You_ Could_Read_My_Mind._22.jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds (https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Gordon_Lightfoot_on_Sept._6_2009_singing_22If_You_ Could_Read_My_Mind._22.jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds)

Canadian icon Gordon Lightfoot was just one of many music legends to record at Grant Avenue Studios.
The Hamilton Spectator file photo
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Canadian_icon_Gordon_Lightfoot_was_just_one_of_man y_music_legends_to_record_at_Grant_Avenue_Studios. .jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds (https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Canadian_icon_Gordon_Lightfoot_was_just_one_of_man y_music_legends_to_record_at_Grant_Avenue_Studios. .jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds)

Lincoln Alexander and Gordon Lightfoot on Sept. 6, 2009, talk about old times.
The Hamilton Spectator file photo
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Lincoln_Alexander_and_Gordon_Lightfoot_on_Sept._6_ 2009_talk_about_old_times..jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds (https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Lincoln_Alexander_and_Gordon_Lightfoot_on_Sept._6_ 2009_talk_about_old_times..jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds)

Gordon Lightfoot on stage with Brian Good at Waterdown ArtsFest in 2017.
The Hamilton Spectator file photo
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Gordon_Lightfoot_on_stage_with_Brian_Good_at_Water down_ArtsFest_in_2017..jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds (https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Gordon_Lightfoot_on_stage_with_Brian_Good_at_Water down_ArtsFest_in_2017..jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds)

[charlene]

Canadian musical icon Gordon Lightfoot performed at FirstOntario Concert Hall on Thursday, Nov. 18, 2018.
The Hamilton Spectator file photo
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Canadian_musical_icon_Gordon_Lightfoot_performed_a t_FirstOntario_Concert_Hall_on_Thursday_Nov._18_20 18..jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds (https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Canadian_musical_icon_Gordon_Lightfoot_performed_a t_FirstOntario_Concert_Hall_on_Thursday_Nov._18_20 18..jpg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds)

Gordon Lightfoot on Sept. 6, 2009, admiring the bust of him made by local sculptor Gino Cavicchioli.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Gordon_Lightfoot_on_Sept._6_2009_admiring_the_bust _of_him_made_by_local_sculptor_Gino_Cavicchioli..j pg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds (https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/Gordon_Lightfoot_on_Sept._6_2009_admiring_the_bust _of_him_made_by_local_sculptor_Gino_Cavicchioli..j pg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds)

[charlene]

https://mountainstage.org/larry-groce-remembers-gordon-lightfoot/?fbclid=IwAR0qKNr7nGFiX36lQt8IVweyiDdavobW5hzMx50o 6ZiCZKAqrlfxKzuDWA4

Larry Groce Remembers Gordon Lightfoot

I bought Gordon Lightfoot’s first album in 1966 at my local record shop. I was already familiar with some of his songs from Peter, Paul, and Mary and especially Ian and Sylvia versions. I loved the recording.

He visited Mountain Stage in 1993 and 1998. Both visits thrilled me because I admired his songs and singing so much, but at the first one something very special happened.

In those days, Mountain Stage was live on West Virginia Public Radio. We would record the show and send it, unedited, to NPR for distribution via their satellite the next week. Our format was slightly different then. We would have three or four guests, not five like today, and most guests would do two sets, one during each hour. The guest we considered lead act would open and close the show.

Gordon, his band, and his manager arrived early on show day in a private plane that Gordon himself flew. During a pre-show discussion, his manager told our producer, Andy Ridenour, that Gordon would never do a finale song and he did not stay around to meet and greet or sign autographs after his shows. They would finish their set and immediately proceed to the airport to fly out. That was all fine with us. Our finale is never mandatory for anyone.

As expected, the first set went great and Gordon and his band, dressed in their dark, long-sleeved shirts, headed back to their dressing room. They didn’t mix with us or the other guests. Once again, hanging out with us is not required. Some folks do, others prefer their privacy. It’s their business.

All the other acts performed, including a beautiful set by David Lindley (with Hani Nassar) on his first visit, and then it was time for Gordon to finish the show. When he and his band came out of the dressing room, he had changed into a t-shirt and seemed a bit looser. Once again, the set was a triumph and received an immediate, spontaneous standing ovation. There were many lifelong Lightfoot fans in the full house.

We took a dive into our archives and found this live performance of ‘If You Could Read My Mind’ by Gordon Lightfoot from his May 9, 1993 appearance on Mountain Stage in Charleston, WV. see link below:

As I waited in the wings with the other artists to go out for the finale, Gordon came off, saw us and suddenly asked me if he could sing on the finale. I told him of course he could and asked if he wanted to take a verse. He said no, he’d just join the chorus. Then we all headed onto the stage.

I don’t remember what we were singing, but if I had known he was going to join in, I would have asked to do one of his many classic songs.

In any case, the finale was finished to another standing ovation, and everyone left the stage. As the audience filed out, a few folks rushed down to the front of the stage in hopes of getting Gordon’s attention. They succeeded and he sat on the stage and started signing autographs. Many had brought his albums and cassettes in anticipation of this moment.

Our crew proceeded to start taking down the equipment and I began to pack up my things. Andy was on stage watching to make sure everything was OK. In a few minutes, Gordon’s manager came up the stairs and asked where Gordon was. Andy pointed out the signing party down front.

The manager looked puzzled and concerned so Andy walked over to the gathering and told the folks that Mr. Lightfoot needed to get to the airport and the session would have to wrap up. Gordon smiled up at Andy and said that it was OK, it was his airplane.

Andy turned away and looked at the manager who just shrugged and said he’d never seen Gordon do this before. The last time I looked, there was a line of fans up the aisle all the way to the back of the hall. Gordon had gotten down off the stage and was signing albums and shaking hands with every one of them.

I thought to myself, I guess the manager has never been with him in West Virginia before. Our people just wanted to thank him for what he had given them. Gordon must have felt that.

audio: May 9, 1993 appearance on Mountain Stage in Charleston, WV.

https://mountainstage.org/larry-groce-remembers-gordon-lightfoot/?fbclid=IwAR0qKNr7nGFiX36lQt8IVweyiDdavobW5hzMx50o 6ZiCZKAqrlfxKzuDWA4

[JohninCt.]

Wow, great story, and yes that's the way Gordon was. He loved his fans and showed it. Thank you for the post.

[charlene]

https://muskokatoday.com/2023/05/gordon-lightfoot-was-living-legend-lets-be-honest/

May 2, 2023
GORDON LIGHTFOOT WAS ‘LIVING LEGEND, LET’S BE HONEST’

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

GRAVENHURST — I sat on my front step today listening to Gordon Lightfoot songs and reading about his passing.

And recalling a 1984 visit to my home where Canada’s folk laureate sat on the same stoop for a family photo we’re tracking down today.

He had called my dad, Hugh Clairmont, and said he was dropping by for a visit one August day, recalled my sister, Chris Jones, who was there with her family.

It wasn’t unusual for famous musicians my dad knew or worked with to drop by the Clairmont home — many en route to Dunn’s Pavilion in Bala.

They chatted about their mutual music careers and reminiscing about playing together in Charlie Andrews’s band in Orillia — my dad on trumpet and Lightfoot singing and playing drum licks my dad taught him.

My mother had to race to bake butter tarts she said he loved, which to my sister meant he had been to our home before.
Mark Clairmont sits with today’s home delivery copy of the Toronto Star and it’s great headline about Gordon Lightfoot’s passing. It’s the same spot Lightfoot stood in 1984 during a visit to his friend and colleague Hugh Clairmont.

Over the years my dad and he and I occasionally got together like when he played his annual Massey Hall gigs.

I recall after one show us going back to his apartment next to Maple Leaf Gardens for a post party.

Another time I ran into him was again at Massey, thanks to his manager Bernie Fiedler, when Lightfoot told me “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” really put him on the map in the U.S.

In recent years at Mariposa Folk Festivals in Orillia we connected back stage as Lightfoot recalled playing the Barge in Gravenhurst — after first being refused after an audition.

Similar stories are being told today across Canada and in parts of the world after Lightfoot’s passing Monday, May 1, at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto at age 84.

His passing, ironically, came yesterday the same day as the Orillia Kiwanis Music Festival held a Festival Encore presentation of winners at the Orillia Opera House.

For it was the Kiwanis that early on helped set his path to stardom as a young singer in his hometown.

And so this Saturday the Orillia Opera House is certain to be sold out for “Early Morning Rain – Legend of Gordon Lightfoot.”

It’s billed as: “Spend the evening with the incredible music of a Canadian legend, and sing along to Sundown, For Loving Me, Early Morning Rain, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Did She Mention My Name, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Black Day in July, If You Could Read My Mind, Carefree Highway, Rainy Day People, Song For a Winter’s Night, Ribbon of Darkness, Alberta Bound, I’m Not Sayin’, Bitter Green, Cotton Jenny, Pussy Willows Cat-Tails and more!”
Gordon Lightfoot looked and sounded good last year at Casino Rama in his finaly local performance.

One person certain to be there is Lynne Westerby.

The former Bethune House employee, who just retired as manager of the Mariposa Pharmacy in Orillia, is a huge fan of Lightfoot.

“It’s a sad day. It hurts a lot,” she said this afternoon from the pharmacy where she still does deliveries.

She was listening to one of his songs on the radio as she left of her home for her run.

Last summer she met with Lightfoot at Mariposa and sat down for a lovely chat while they listened to Serena Ryder perform and he signed a sketch of himself, which by chance she bought at the souvenir booth.

“Even for the amount of time I got to spend with him he made me feel like an old friend. You know he was very warm and welcoming and kind. You know he took the time to sign a sketch for me. I just still to this day still feel very kind of surprised and honoured I got that opportunity with him. Yeah that was very special.

“I’ve got that wonderful sketch hanging in my home with a rose on it. It’s just beautiful. It’s all framed nicely and hanging in the most prominent space in my combination living room, dining room and kitchen. He’s got the best wall in the house now.”
Lynne Westerby shows her autographed sketch of Gordon Lightfoot she has in a “prominent” place in her home in Orillia.

Westerby is also saddened that Lightfoot won’t make his annual formal or informal appearance at Mariposa this July.

“I was just so hoping upon hope to see him there again. Even if he’s not scheduled, sometimes he just still goes. And I just felt like I was going to see him. You know I just did.

“As soon as I heard all those cancellations (last month), and the way he was talking to me last year about how he was loving it so much. And he’s got 13 people that love it and go everywhere with him, I just knew it was something big for him to cancel like he did.”

Westerby said that “way back months ago, I happened to buy tickets” for this weekend’s tribute performance “because there are performers doing Gordon Lightfoot music there.

“I was already going to that and to lose him in less than away week before that event …. It’s going to be beautiful to sit through that; but it’s going to be somewhat heartbreaking to sit through it as well. Some of both.”

Thelma Marin, of Bracebridge, was another devoted fan who “loved” and “admired him.”
She and husband Jim had seen him perform about a dozen times, including a contest win and when he closed and opened Massey Hall last year after recent renovations with friend and “chauffer” Fred Schulz.

After hearing of his passing on the late news Monday, “I read all the coverage, too.”

“I loved the front page (of the Toronto Star” ‘Sundown.’

“Yeah, you know, I guess the final moment is always the toughest. We should have been prepared, I guess, because they cancelled that tour.”

Lightfoot, she agreed, seemed almost invincible the way he kept bouncing back from illnesses.

“It’s too bad he put on all those hard miles back in the ’70s. That’s what really got him, I think. But you can’t reverse that damage. The damage is done.

“Oh dear, it’s very sad. But yeah, he’s 84. It’s pretty good. We’re only promised three score and 10 according to the Bible.”

“It’s surprising,” said Marin, “we’ve had several emails of condolence from people who know how much we loved him.”

She said in recent years Lightfoot’s “range, his physical range was down and his stamina was down a bit. He said as long as he could stand and sing he would do it.

“One of our daughters said ‘Why do you go and listen to that old man?’

“And I said, listen, as long as he stands up and sings for us, we will go and listen.

“Because I admired him, I really did. He didn’t look good, but he still sounded fine.

“We will miss him. End of an era. He really was a legend. Let’s be honest. No question.”

[charlene]

Here are a few other good MuskokaTODAY.com stories and videos about Lightfoot.

LIGHTFOOT HUMBLED TO RECEIVE BELATED MARIPOSA HALL OF FAME AWARD https://muskokatoday.com/2022/07/lightfoot-humbled-to-receive-belated-mariposa-hall-of-fame-award/

LIGHTFOOT, WHO LOVES ‘THE BARGE,’ PLAYED HERE ONCE — AND IS INVITED BACK BY GOOD BROTHERS FOR THEIR 30TH SHOW https://muskokatoday.com/2022/07/lightfoot-who-loves-the-barge-played-here-once-and-is-invited-back-by-good-brothers-for-their-30th-show/

MARIPOSA WAS ABOUT LEGENDS FROM LIGHTFOOT TO MURRAY TO MAVIS https://muskokatoday.com/2022/07/mariposa-was-about-legends-from-lightfoot-to-murray-to-mavis/

LIGHTFOOT: THE LEGEND LIVES ON IN SONG … WITH LASTING — IF DIMINISHED VOICE https://muskokatoday.com/2022/06/lightfoot-the-legend-lives-on-in-song-with-lasting-if-diminished-voice/

LIGHTFOOT RETURNS TO MASSEY, SCHULZ RETURNS TO OPERA HOUSE https://muskokatoday.com/2021/11/lightfoot-returns-to-massey-schulz-returns-to-opera-house/

Lightfoot honours Dobson with award at Mariposa https://muskokatoday.com/2018/07/lightfoot-honours-dobson-with-award-at-mariposa/

[charlene]

Updated headstone:
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/LIGHTFOOT_headstone.jpeg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds (https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/uu324/inspirationlady/LIGHTFOOT_headstone.jpeg?width=960&height=720&fit=bounds)

[imported_Next_Saturday]

Just curious, is Bev buried elsewhere?

[charlene]

Just curious, is Bev buried elsewhere?

Yes, but at the same cemetery..

[3pennies]

Gone one year today

[Rob1956]

Yeah, today has to be pretty hard on Kim and the family. Rick Haynes' comments on Gord's last days and how he was ready to pass on to the next adventure really made me feel better about Gord being gone. Still trying to find video from Gord's appearance on WTTW Channel 11's "Made in Chicago". Not from 1979 (Soundstage) but from 1972 before the name change. I've heard the audio, but the performance was great. I remember watching it when it premiered.

[charlene]

Just merging today's posts with the original from May 1 2023.

I am so happy to be able to attend the Lightfoot Band shows - 5 so far - time spent with them and their families has helped so much over the last year...

I am ever thankful for the music and the kindness Gordon showed me over the years.. Always and forever remembered and missed...