View Single Post
Old 03-18-2003, 11:56 AM   #11
gwen sue snyder
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Hartville, Ohio, USA
Posts: 60
Default

My First Time
I guess I am luckier than most here as well as being among the oldest<no grin>.
My first Gord experience was way back in 1966. the new fangled FM/VHF radio stations must have started in Montreal that year
allowing high quality broadcasts of good music. But my diet of Herb Alpert, The Fifth Dimension and even Andy Williams was shook up that year when the FM version of the Montreal station CJAD-FM (i.e.CJFM now I understand called Mix96 ) played a pair of fantastic records by Gord the single Spin Spin and then a track from his new album The First Time Ever I saw Your Face. I was hooked!!!It so happenned that at that time each week I played badminton with another ex-pat from England one David Moxey David ran a Folk-singing group which included Peter Wright newly in Montreal from Toronto where he had seen Gord perform live at the Riverboat. I acquired Lightfoot! early in 1967.Then One Sunday May 21 1967 an excited Peter phoned David and I to tell us that he had just heard that Gordon would be appearing at a small Coffee bar (The New Penelope) that evening after an afternoon concert at the Expo67 Worlds Fair site (just possibly the concert depicted on page 22 of the excellent Songbook box set accompanying book. We all three went and sat enraptured on seats I recall made from scaffolding poles and planks. Peter had said that he was hoping that Gord he would sing a great railway/railroad song he had heard in Toronto
And that evening as in every concert I have seen since I was not disappointed. I was fortunate to see gord in Canada 4 more times before returning to England in 1970 then although I did hear of and get to the Royal Albert Hall London concerts in June 1972 and May 1981 there was a long deprived period until the wonders of the internet enabled me to attend the fabulous 1999 Massey Hall Convention.And he rest as they say is history
I have attempted to display below a poster
for that coffee bar

I have talked to Gord about that place and he recalled being there after such luminaries as Tim Hardin and Judy Collins

[This message has been edited by fowlesjohn (edited June 07, 2004) to correct the picture link]

[This message has been edited by fowlesjohn (edited June 07, 2004).]
gwen sue snyder is offline   Reply With Quote