I don’t have the statistics, but I suspect that, given its population, Canada has produced more great singers and songwriters per capita, both in folk and pop music, than the U.S. There’s Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Robbie Robertson, Leonard Cohen, the McGarrigle sisters, Sarah McLaughlan, and on and on. And of course there’s Gordon Lightfoot (b. 1938), who stands behind only Joni Mitchell as a prodigious folk talent: a singer/songwriter who could not only write wonderful songs, but play a superb guitar and sing like a bird.
Unlike Mitchell, though, Lightfoot had just one truly great album, and after that only sporadically produced good songs for the rest of his career. But that album, released in 1966, is an underappreciated classic (click on the picture to go to the Wikipedia entry and list of songs):
“Lightfoot!” came out when I was in high school, and is one of the few albums I wore out with constant playing. It contains 14 songs, 12 of which, I think, are all-time classics (9 of these were written by Lightfoot). And like Joni Mitchell, Lightfoot was not only talented but strikingly good looking (see above, and note the boots). Now he’s an old man, and what does that say about me?
This week, and perhaps part of the next, I’ll feature cuts from the album. Only one of them has a good live performance on YouTube, and I’ll put that one up today.
“For Loving Me,” the song of a cowboy roué who loves ’em and leaves ’em, became famous when it was covered by Peter, Paul and Mary; but Lightfoot’s original version, below, is better. He’s accompanied by Red Shea (I think) on lead guitar.
…not forgetting Alanis Morisette…!
(Is that ironic?!)
Educational as ever, WEIT is – I have never heard of this fellow before!
We have not seen any PCC boots recently… are we waiting for the snow to melt? London today is sunny & spring-like – we no longer get a winter.
It is too snowy and wet for boots, and the salt on the sidewalks plays hob with the soles. As soon as it gets a bit drier it will be boot time. I did wear some lovely black J.B. Hill calf boots to my talk last week, but nobody noticed. . .
I treated my boots with the Bicks you recommended and I just wipe the salt off now! 🙂 My boots are only dirty looking when I come in. Now it’s so cold that there is no slush.
I thought Jagged Little Pill was damn good when it came out, but I don’t recall hearing any more from her after that. I’ll have to dig that CD out, give it a listen, and see if I still like it after all this time.
She was did play “God”, in Kevin Smith’s film Dogma. Allan Rickman was the voice of God. One of my all time favs.
Gordon Lightfoot has such a mesmerizing voice, and very distinctive. He is well worth a listen.
Dear Mr Coyne, while I love your scientific elucidations, agree and concur with your dissection of religious illogicality, share your love of animals [though I must confess to being a dog person first, cats second – sorry] I find myself enchanted by the congruence of our musical tastes. From Steely Dan to the glories of Soul and now, Gordon Lightfoot. And I’m not even nearly as old as you are. Keep up the good work – I don’t know where you get the time and energy but don’t stop anytime soon.
Thanks for so much for this. Saw him 20 years ago, performing at the Jack Singer here in Calgary. He had two friends playing with him (bass and second string) but it was mostly just Gordon, his guitar, and that incredible voice. I, too, grew up with him in my ears – it was Carefree Highway (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewhM7I9gD4U) playing on my truck radio when I left home for good in 1974. – Thanks!
Lightfoot’s best known song is probably “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” – from 1976. But it was not his biggest hit – only reached #2. He did have three songs that reached #1 – Sundown, Carefree Highway and Rainy Day People, all circa 1974-5.
there’s a filked version of Edmund Fitzgerald about Apollo 13
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ah, even easier. thanks.
Thanks. That is quite easy enough to remember.
That’s what I always do. Easy as pie.
Yeah, whenever I hear his name, I hear that song in my head.
‘Lightfoot’s best known song is probably “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” . . . .”
When I see that title “Reuben James” comes to mind.
Here is a link to a press article from 1988 advertizing “The ultimate in Lightfoot memorabilia”: http://www.corfid.com/gl/press/press17.htm
I wore that LP out, too! 🙂
And sang all the songs.
Don’t forget Hank Snow!
(Get the lyrics to this one and just try to sing along, out loud. I don’t know how he does it.)
Remember that not all Canadians are great singers. William “Lucy in the Sky” Shatner is, I believe, from near Montreal !
It takes real talent to do it the way Shatner did! BTW, he did grow up in Montreal, near St Lawrence Street where his father had a small clothing factory.
Has Shatner himself ever claimed to be a singer, or to be singing any of the performances on his 1968 album, “The Transformed Man”?
He is giving dramatic readings, supported by instrumental accompaniment. If one declares the personal opinion that Shatner’s dramatic readings are not great or even good, well then, fine.
Suppose Paul McCartney specifically stated an intention to record and/or perform a dramatic reading of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” and then did so. I gather that The Reasonable Person would give him enough credit to know the difference between singing and giving a dramatic reading.
Do you hold that Shatner is singing the soliloquies from “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet” which are also on that album? Or the “I may rise perhaps to no great height . . . .” from “Cyrano”?
But, suppose one grants that he is singing on this album. What would it sound like if he were instead giving a dramatic reading?
Long as it’s memory lane and Canada, Why not The Guess Who. You can go take a listen to songs like – No Time, American Woman, These Eyes.
Yes! As much as I love Gordon Lightfoot and Neil Young, The Guess Who are higher on my list. But greater still in my personal estimation is Bachman Turner Overdrive. Their album “II”, to me, is a perfect album. And “Let It Ride” one of rock’s top ten songs of all time.
Blue Collar is my favorite BTO song.
I like everyone you two mention as well. And in a different vein, Ann Murray.
Ann Murray has a fantastic voice, but not always the best choice of songs, imho ( kind of like Karen Carpenter).
Did both have absolute control/final decision over what songs they recorded?
I’m no expert on recording contracts, but I gather that it’s very rare that recording companies give up that control. For sure, the companies, not the artists, own the masters. An artist might have a narrow, temporary window of opportunity opened by tremendous popularity allowing her to successfully renegotiate the contract so as to increase her song selection control.
I doubt that it occurs to many of the listening public to think, “Oh, the company must have forced that dud on the artist.”
And it goes without saying that whether a song is “good” depends on individual musical tastes. Carpenter and Murray could make a mediocre song sound at least satisfactory, and a good song great.
(As an aside, if I correctly understand, a certain recording artist highly popular in the 90’s would not record any previously-unrecorded song offered for his consideration unless the songwriter gave him half the songwriting credit and royalties. Such admirable, noble behavior. That oxymoron “business ethics.” I wondered how his professed Christian values informed him on the issue. But that’s another topic.)
No Sugar Tonight was stuck in my head for a while last week, another fun Guess Who tune.
If Canada has a lot of singers/bands, Winnipeg is responsible for a disproportionate number of them. Neil Young, The Guess Who and BTO all have their roots there. Long, cold winters and isolation in the middle of the prairies leads to a lot of garage bands, I suppose.
My favorite album side of Lightfoot’s is the first side of his “Summer Side of Life” – no hits but they’re all great songs. I play guitar and sing myself and I always enjoy doing Lightfoot tunes. Lightfoot’s output in the early 1970’s is definitely worth a listen, and I think it holds up as well as his work in the 1960’s does.
With you there! We like to play and sing them them too!
Had Pizza and drinks with his band at the Auburn Hills Hilton in 2013. They were very nice an unassuming. The people I was traveling with were from Ireland and the UK had never heard of Gordon Lightfoot. I was stunned.
🐾🐾
Population of America is 318m, population of Canada is 35m – America, if it were as musically fecund as Canada, should have produced roughly nine times as many great acts. You can argue about what “great” means, but when I cursorily scan my mind for great American acts, acts that are as good as the Canadian ones Jerry cited, I can think of absolutely loads – there are just too many. So I think America definitely holds its own, although Jerry and I would probably disagree about whether some of the bands and singers I’m thinking of are great.
If you switch to Britain though we’ve got serious reasons to feel proud about our rock and roll heritage. It’s probably the reason I’m most proud of Britain – I think our populace is a fifth of the size of America’s and yet think about how many truly, indisputably great acts we’ve produced over the last 50 years…
The rest of the world apparently sees us as so bloody awful at so many other things; food, sport(I’ll give them that one), sex, etc. – to me music is one of the things, along with literature and science, which Britain is bloody fantastic at.
We’re also good at hijacking posts about other countries in order to beat our own drum.
I think the existence of Bryan Adams acts as a -1(at least) in the ‘great Canadian acts’ tally.
And Celine Dion.
And Bieber.
“And Celine Dion.”
Well, no doubt like Liberace, she cries all the way to the bank.
I was going to mention Her Royal Awfulness but I thought that would be rubbing it in.
And I didn’t know Bieber was Canadian – I thought he sprang fully-formed from the womb of a nameless and infinite terror. You learn something new every day.
I think Celine has an incredible voice. She needs to get some less sacchariney tunes to sing, and she needs to learn more self-control and less ‘overwroughtness’. (David Foster, I hope you’re listening.)
” . . . she needs to learn more self-control and less ‘overwroughtness’.”
One wonders if her fan base requires that of her and others exhibiting that particular performance modus operandi.
To paraphrase Dr. McCoy: “My God, man! Can’t you see that this singer is suffering from post-prandial lower abdominal distention?!”
I like Bryn Adams, but NOT Celine or Justin B.
Same here.
And I do know how to spell Bryan.
If you happen to be a Rhapsody user like me, you won’t find the album Lightfoot! BUT, it is there as Disc One of the album called “The United Artists Collection.” Listening to it now! Thanks, Jerry, for the recommendation!
He still looks good, ruggedly handsome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta0a3DFUU0Y
Great stuff. I love his songs. Many are too hard for me and my gang to do justice to; but we do “Cotton Jenny” and it’s a fun one.
That is a fun one. 🙂
I appreciate Canada’s contribution to the Folk Music genre, a genre I love — but American Bob Dylan is still the King of that Mountain!
p.s.: Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota, and raised on the Mesabi Range just west of Lake Superior — a two-hour drive to the Canadian border. So maybe there’s something in the air up that way!
Never got into Lightfoot except for the wonderful, “If you could read my mind” about 1970-71. His early stuff like “For loving me”, and “Early Morning Rain”, were good songs, but his versions have too much “cow boy” for my taste. Love the PP&M versions which are more folky.
I myself being a three-part harmony nut, I trust that I can be forgiven for enjoying PP&M’s “Early Mornin’ Rain.”
I like Lightfoot’s “Sundown” well-blended three-part harmony hook for that reason.
I love If You Could Read My Mind best of all, but like almost everything he’s written ( and his versions better than PP&M’s) except for The Edmund Fitzgerald, which got WAY too much airplay, imho. Discovered him in Berkeley and have seen him twice live since I’ve lived near Toronto: once late 70s at his annual Massey Hall spring concert, and once late 90s when he was unfortunately looking and sounding much the worse for wear and drink.
“have seen him twice live since I’ve lived near Toronto: once late 70s at his annual Massey Hall spring concert”
Lucky you! 🙂
The Gordon Lightfoot song on my iPod is “Long Way Back Home,” from the “Back Here on Earth” album: a great mix of self-aware, melancholic longing tossed in with what I see as some Dylanesque touches (“the rats in the rafters/they’re after my shoes…”).
Canada, Thanks for the late, great Stan Rogers.
Hearing Gordon Lightfoot always reminds me of my father, who is one of the biggest Lightfoot fans. Surprisingly Gordon is still touring and my dad has seen him twice in the last 5 years.
Never really made it big in the UK. Just one song nudged the top 30 in 1970. (If You Could Read My Mind)
Moderately fascinating what does/doesn’t fly in the UK, and the opposite in the US.
Andy Williams had a resurgence in the UK in the latter part of his career, if I correctly understand in part due to an ad featuring him singing “Music to Watch Girls By.” Brits started calling him “The Emperor o
Moderately fascinating what does/doesn’t fly in the UK, and the opposite in the US.
Andy Williams had a resurgence in the UK in the latter part of his career, if I correctly understand in part due to an ad featuring him singing “Music to Watch Girls By.” Brits started calling him “The Emperor of Easy.”
(Hmm. I accidently hit the wrong button with my right pinkie. WordPress admonished me, “You’re posting too quickly. Slow down.” Humph. Didn’t even say “please.”)
I know… WordPress does get a bit bossy sometimes…I have Hmpfed as well.
Thanks for the memory. I first saw Gordie with my Mom in 1968 at Massey Hall. I saw him again at Dylan’s Rolling Thunder review in December of 1975, as an aside Joni was there too. Now I am feeling a tad old.
“Now I am feeling a tad old.”
Me too, but aren’t you glad to yet remain around? Not everyone gets to, especially young reckless teen male drivers with a heightened sense of invincibility.
For me every day is icing on the cake, with reasonably good health to boot. My dad died of his second heart attack at age 35 1/2. That will be 56 years ago on May 17.
Love it Prof Coyne! I’ll be watching for more Lightfoot on WEIT.
I’m a fan!
No mention of “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” yet?
Dagnabbit…didn’t think that would embed. Sorry.