Rolling Stone reviews

[RM]

I was going to just post a link to the Rolling Stone magazine's reviews of Lightfoot's albums, but then thought it might be more interesting to paste them here and see what happens. Is the review fair ? Do you agree ?, that sort of thing. The earliest I found was SSOL. Let us now return to yesteryear :

Summer Side of Life
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No matter how intense he looks on the cover photograph, Gordon Lightfoot is a wonderful name for Gordon Lightfoot. His voice sounds so much like a guitar that syllables are frequently heard just as notes, and the purity of the voice conspires with over-refined production to divert attention from lyrics: the ear tends to skim them, following a phrase but not a sentence. Strings are used more conservatively than on his last album, If You Could Read My Mind, but there is not, as "Baby It's Allright" on that record, a successful freak of mood, a good loud song. Summer Side of Life is pretty but not beautiful.

"10 Degrees and Getting Colder" is about a hitchhiking minstrel, "raised up in Milwaukee/Though he never was that famous/To the taverns he would go," and there's a nice line about the weather being 98.6 and rising. "Miguel" is a ballad that includes the Mission of Saint Augustine, a gun from the wall, hiding out, and the death of the outlaw-hero while his newborn child lies on its mother's breast. The trouble is that he does very little with the cliches, which require some sort of artistic violation so that we can penetrate. Lightfoot's are mostly as-is.

"Summer Side of Life," the title cut, is nostalgia-for-the-present, and the, uh, bouncy tune renders the lyrics a bit silly. Kenny Buttrey's drumming justifies the rather over-elaborate production, or it might be that the overelaborate production justifies what would otherwise be over-energetic drumming. Background vocals here and a couple of other places on the LP are poorly recorded.

"Cotton Jenny" indicates a Neil Diamond influence, and would be a peachy opportunity for a Top-40 group, the Fifth Edition or Dimension or one of those other Fifths. Lightfoot's acoustic on this is kind of stuffy, but the steel guitar is ticklish, all right.

In the second side's first song, "Nous Vivons Ensemble," Light-foot is closest to a new synthesis, injecting some simple jazz into the purest folk guitar, and the bridge, like some of the things on New Morning, picks you up by the neck and lets you down slow. "You and I/Were asleep in the rock of ages/Remember the unborn children still to come ..."

Lightfoot at times seem less convinced of his songs, less delighted with them, than other artists who've covered them. (Barbra Streisand's version of "If You Could Read My Mind" is good precisely because you can tell she really loves the song, loves singing it.) On the refrain, however, of "Same Old Loverman," Lightfoot seems happy to be singing, enjoying it, and he performs better than anywhere else on the record. The "believe-me-ooh" chorus, though, is less than convincing, and the well-done piano work collapses at the finish and fades the number out lamely, with a tinkle.

The best song on the album is "Love and Maple Syrup," on which he is most self-consciously creating something beautiful–as on the previous record's "Your Love's Return" ("Roses are waiting for dewdrops to fall"). Here: "Love and maple syrup go together like/The sticky winds of winter when they meet." A scatsung chorus is pulled off, and the transition in energy is remarkable–the bridge is metallic, much like "Woodstock" by Matthews Southern Comfort, and you want it to go on and on.

"Cabaret" is sort of the opposite of "Love and Maple Syrup," simultaneously scattered and overambitious. The introductory guitar-work is more than pleasant, at points reminiscent of "Classical Gas," but the first of two melodies is soppy, and trumpets punctuate lines like "Yesterday's a cabaret/Gowns of satin on ladies gay." Still, any song that rhymes Reno and Mendicino can't be all bad. (RS 87)

ARTHUR SCHMIDT

[joveski]

i agree with everything on that review apart from Love and maple syrup - its my least fave on the album. i always skip that track. funny, its one of my favourite GL albums!

[Borderstone]

A successful freak of mood??

Was this guy a Harvard literautre major? LOL!

I don't know whrre this guy gets the idea that the music is supposed to divert you from the lyrics. Nothing diverts me from either one.

[GJA]

Thanks for posting this, Borderstone. Are there more?

[Yuri]

'Lightfoot' - you either get it or you don't.
Those that don't, never will - or end up writing reviews.
Those that do, need no explaination and eventually make the pilgrimage to Corfid.
'Summer Side of Life' happens to be my favourite album. Go figure....
Yuri

[charlene]

The review is from back in those days but I don't like, didn't like nor will ever like "Love & Maple Syrup" - especially as the best on this album.. ugh ugh ugh..
SSOL and 10 Degrees are fine..so fine..
and quite frankly I don't give a rat's patootie if Babs likes any Lightfoot song..

[JohninCt.]

As with most reviews, it is done for money and no other real reason, Much like movie reviews, I don't depend on them for my decisions of taste. One thing I really don't like about most critics, is the trying to find words that are rarely used that they can put in their reviews. I think they feel they get points for the more unusual words they can use, maybe they add up to a pay raise eventually. Everyone likes music for different reasons, whether it be for brings back a distant memory, or creates a dream for you, or has a melody that sets you free, it is your own reason. So it comes down to, they listen to the music to get paid in cash, we get paid in feelings.

[geodeticman.5]

RM - thanks for posting this as well. Like 'em or not they sure are a walk though memories.

As SSOL is my least favourite of the '70 - '76 period, I will reserve significant comment considerately for those who love SSOL and will have more heart-felt thoughts.

My only thought considerate of posting, begging the forgiveness of those that love the title cut, is I agree with the review that SSOL the song is somewhat overproduced, at least in the regard that I can't quite hear The Man singing or the lyrics well with the somewhat loud background vocals that are a bit reminiscent of either Pat Boone or "gentleman"-Jim Reeves' bckground vocals I vaguely recall, who both had great voices....

Its just the manner of production and style wasn't my cup 'o tea, as is the case with the title cut SSOL only in so far as the means of production -the background sounds a bit like the "Anita Kerr Singers" - if I remember the name right from my parents Reader's Digest music compilations. And not in a pejorative sense, only descriptive, I hope.

Being a Lightfoot album, by definition I can't dislike it, only like it less than others
It sure has some beautful music on it, and surely is as usual, gifted Gord mastery.

~ geo Steve