[charlene]

Burton Cummings: Yours truly and Gordon Lighfoot. I've known Gordon for a very long time. Long before the big breakthrough of "These Eyes", Randy and I saw Gordon in a small club in Montreal. Must have been around 1967. Gordon came out with John Stockfish and Red Shea (both of whom have left us) and did about sixty minutes of all his own original material. There weren't many of us in that club that night, probably
not a hundred, perhaps more like fifty...it's 45 years ago, so it's a bit hazy. But we were in Montreal promoting something, and somebody took us to see Lightfoot. We (the GW) were still doing a mixture of a few originals and mostly other people's songs at the time. As Gordon's show went on, Randy and I began to look at each other and nudge each other, as if to say "someday, man...someday..." We were so impressed with the fact that this guy had a whole show of his own great songs and it was way back in '67.
Years ago, I was playing the legendary Imperial Room at the Royal York for a week...all through the week I was doing my LIghtfoot impression in the shows, and I guess the papers had mentioned it, and I guess some other people had mentioned it to Gordon, but lo and behold, Saturday night he came down and sat right in front of me...and I HAD to do it right in front of him. We laughed about it later in the little dressing room backstage.
Gordon is one of the reasons I was driven to try to be a songwriter. He's the epitome of artistry, truly "a painter passing through"...I'm proud to know him on a casually personal basis and I treasure all the separate times we've spent together. A classy artist...they are truly few and far between...
I love this picture of us together yesterday, more than 45 years after the night I first shook Mr. Lightfoot's hand...