the UA recordings.

as i've said a few times since joining this group my familiarity with so much of his music was through the albums my dad has, including the 75 GG release. therefore only familliar with the re-recordings of the early songs. however, several years ago here in the Chicago area, the radio station 930 AM witch is now a religeous sttaion out of Sandwich Il. it was this rather unique station were who would hear music, without a DJ and much of it seemed like what i heard was whole albums. the music styles varried and do remember hearing some early Lightfoot songs. while i couldn't remember hearing everything, i do remember hearing 1st time ever i saw your face witch wasn't re-recorded,but did hear a song for a winter's night, and bitter greeen witch had to have been the original recordings. now that i think of it the station was called Heat Radio. don't know if this was something that was national or not. you would of had to have heard it. it wasn't your average radio broadcast playing albums.

[Borderstone]

Mike? Are you asking a question or just telling us about something? I really can't tell what it is you're trying to convey to us.

By the way,it's "w-h-i-c-h",not witch.
also,
it's "could've" (short version of could have)

Not trying to be a know it all but your message is a bit confusing. No offense meant to you.

------------------
"A knight of the road,going back to a place where he might get warm." - Borderstone

i know it's a little hard to explain. the radio station was played all sorts of music without anykind of idenity. and perhaps just albums and they identified themselves as heat radio. and one of the things that was played was what it sounded like eary lightfoot recordings. sorry for the confusion. can;t explain it any better.

[Rob1956]

I think I can help out a little. From '79 to '88 I worked at radio stations not too far away from Sandwich, Morris, IL and Joliet, IL. If I recall, Sandwich was also an AM/FM combo. In many small markets, the AM tends to be very localized and full service while the FM often is automated. Sounds like, at least for the period of time you heard it, the station was automated using music recorded by the people at the station, as opposed to using a music supplier or satellite service. Sounds like one of the people making those big 10 1/2 inch reel to reel tapes was a Lighthead!

looking at the Lightfoot.ca/ site i looked at the singles section and mentions about songs such as Black Day In July being edited for it's single release and possibly others witch was common for many long songs in those days. but here's what i wonder. there is 1 album released in the 90s called the UN years or something like that and if BDIJ, CRT or any other long song that might of ended up on the album, were the single mixes the ones put on there or the full recording? i've heard some long songs when their put on best of collections or box sets often have the single mixes instead of the full recordings. didn't see any info on the other site or this one.

[vlmagee]

The UA compilations of Gord's recordings are notorious for their lack of specifics. In fact, in most cases you don't know what you have until you listen to the song - this applies to the version of a song that was recorded multiple times (eg, CRT - studio and live, or TWIF - two very different studio versions). To my knowledge, the single (45) version was never used on an UA compilation.

For songs recorded at WB, the single version of IYCRMM was used on Gord's Gold, and also on Complete Greatest Hits. The single of Sundown was used on Complete Greatest Hits. To my knowledge, that's it. In both cases, the song is complete but the mix differs from the album version.

As far as the UA rereleases are concerned, I suppose one might sit down and listen carefully to all of them.

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Valerie Magee

Visit my business site at mageenet.biz, Hamilton Camp's Offical Web Site at hamiltoncamp.com , and Cathy Cowette's web site at cathycowette.com. Also visit Dr. Jack's Lightfoot page.

[This message has been edited by vlmagee (edited September 22, 2004).]

does anyone know any internet stations that play any of Lightfoots rare songs especially the original UA recordings of the songs he later redid? i've come across some that have played his stuff but they're mostly his hit singles or in a couple of cases only playe the re-recorded versions of CRT and EMR. once i heard some song by him witch was probably from the 60s on a live 363 station called Amazon Classic Rock. while i though it was odd to hear hom on a CL station it was nice to have heard something i hadn't head by him before. sorry i know rememebr the title to it and sadly the sttaion has become a preferred member station.

don't mean to bring this up again i know we've discussed in previous posts that the early stuff wa re-recorded because for whatever reaons didn't like his early stuff but i brought him up and his UA stuff on another 1 of my discussion groups and somebody said without me asking he was mad at them for what he percieve to be a lack of support considering his 1st Reprise release did very well. i don't get it.

[Auburn Annie]

Gord had a five-album contract with United Artists, and put out some fine stuff but never got the marketing or airplay in the U.S. that fellow artists got. He recorded 4 studio albums for them and did the live "Sunday Concert" album to fulfill his obligations to UA. Also in the late 60s / early 70s UA Records and the UA film division were going through their own upheavals, and less attention was being given to their recording artists in general, not just Gord.

Meanwhile the Reprise label (Warners) was a better fit, both philosophically and financially, and his record sales took off. He apparently had a happy relationship with the record producers at Warners.

I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been to be banging out one wonderful song after another and have nothing really catch fire south of the border. I suspect some of it had to do with word "Canadian" in front of the phrase "singer-songwriter" since John Denver, Jim Croce, and James Taylor, singer-songwriters all, were Gord's contemporaries on the music scene and were all over the airwaves, even in the 70s when Gord was with Reprise and getting fair coverage. Such is the music biz.

[Affair on Touhy Ave.]

I was at myspace trying to look for sites with GL music mostly trying to find rare album track suff and the original 60's stuff he re-recorded. While I was fortunate enough to come across 1 that had the original DSMMN the others such as EMR were just the remakes.

Makes me wonder whether it's myspace or the internet radio is one more likly to find his re-recordings originals both the same ammount?

I get the feeling the re-recordings are more common and if my assumption's right. How Come.

Are they more popualer with most people? Do not as many people know about the originals? Even though there's a box set of them that have been out since the 90s I think.