TORONTO (AP) — Gordon Lightfoot, the legendary people singer-songwriter identified for “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown” and for songs that instructed tales of Canadian identification, died Monday. He was 84.
Representative Victoria Lord stated the musician died at a Toronto hospital. His reason for dying was not instantly accessible.
Considered one of the crucial famend voices to emerge from Toronto’s Yorkville people membership scene within the Sixties, Lightfoot recorded 20 studio albums and penned a whole lot of songs, together with “Carefree Highway,” “Early Morning Rain” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
In the Nineteen Seventies, Lightfoot garnered 5 Grammy nominations, three platinum information and 9 gold information for albums and singles. He carried out in effectively over 1,500 live shows and recorded 500 songs.
He toured late into his life. Just final month he canceled upcoming U.S. and Canadian reveals, citing well being points.
“We have lost one of our greatest singer-songwriters,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted. “Gordon Lightfoot captured our country’s spirit in his music – and in doing so, he helped shape Canada’s soundscape. May his music continue to inspire future generations, and may his legacy live on forever.”
Once known as a “rare talent” by Bob Dylan, Lightfoot has been coated by dozens of artists, together with Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Anne Murray, Jane’s Addiction and Sarah McLachlan.
Most of his songs are deeply autobiographical with lyrics that probe his personal experiences in a frank method and discover points surrounding the Canadian nationwide identification. “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” depicted the development of the railway.
“I simply write the songs about where I am and where I’m from,” he as soon as stated. “I take situations and write poems about them.”
Lightfoot’s music had a mode all its personal. “It’s not country, not folk, not rock,” he stated in a 2000 interview. Yet it has strains of all three.
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” as an illustration, is a haunting tribute to the 29 males who died within the 1975 sinking of the ship in Lake Superior throughout a storm.
While Lightfoot’s dad and mom acknowledged his musical abilities early, he didn’t got down to grow to be a famend balladeer.
He started singing in his church choir and dreamed of changing into a jazz musician. At age 13, the soprano received a expertise contest on the Kiwanis Music Festival, held at Toronto’s Massey Hall.
“I remember the thrill of being in front of the crowd,” Lightfoot stated in a 2018 interview. “It was a stepping stone for me…”
The enchantment of these early days caught and in highschool, his barbershop quartet, The Collegiate Four, received a CBC expertise competitors. He strummed his first guitar in 1956 and commenced to dabble in songwriting within the months that adopted. Perhaps distracted by his style for music, he flunked algebra the primary time. After taking the category once more, he graduated in 1957.
By then, Lightfoot had already penned his first severe composition — “The Hula Hoop Song,” impressed by the toy that was sweeping the tradition. Attempts to promote the track went nowhere so at 18, he headed to the U.S. to check music for a yr. The journey was funded partially by cash saved from a job delivering linens to resorts round his hometown.
Life in Hollywood wasn’t match, nonetheless, and it wasn’t lengthy earlier than Lightfoot returned to Canada. He pledged to maneuver to Toronto to pursue his musical ambitions, taking any job accessible, together with a place at a financial institution earlier than touchdown a gig as a sq. dancer on CBC’s “Country Hoedown.”
His first gig was at Fran’s Restaurant, a downtown family-owned diner that warmed to his people sensibilities. It was there he met fellow musician Ronnie Hawkins.
The singer was dwelling with a number of pals in a condemned constructing in Yorkville, then a bohemian space the place future stars together with Neil Young and Joni Mitchell would study their commerce at smoke-filled golf equipment.
Lightfoot made his standard radio debut with the only ”(Remember Me) I’m the One” in 1962, which led to quite a few hit songs and partnerships with different native musicians. When he began taking part in the Mariposa Folk Festival in his hometown of Orillia, Ontario that very same yr, Lightfoot cast a relationship that made him the pageant’s most loyal returning performer.
By 1964, he was garnering constructive word-of-mouth round city and audiences had been beginning to collect in rising numbers. By the subsequent yr, Lightfoot’s track “I’m Not Sayin’” was successful in Canada, which helped unfold his identify within the United States.
A few covers by different artists didn’t damage both. Marty Robbins’ 1965 recording of “Ribbon of Darkness” reached No. 1 on U.S. nation charts, whereas Peter, Paul and Mary took Lightfoot’s composition, “For Lovin’ Me,” into the U.S. Top 30. The track, which Dylan as soon as stated he wished he’d recorded, has since been coated by a whole lot of different musicians.
That summer time, Lightfoot carried out on the Newport Folk Festival, the identical yr Dylan rattled audiences when he shed his folkie persona by taking part in an electrical guitar.
As the folks music increase got here to an finish within the late Sixties, Lightfoot was already making his transition to pop music with ease.
In 1971, he made his first look on the Billboard chart with “If You Could Read My Mind.” It reached No. 5 and has since spawned scores of covers.
Lightfoot’s reputation peaked within the mid-Nineteen Seventies when each his single and album, “Sundown,” topped the Billboard charts, his first and solely time doing so.
During his profession, Lightfoot collected 12 Juno Awards, together with one in 1970 when it was known as the Gold Leaf.
In 1986, he was inducted into the Canadian Recording Industry Hall of Fame, now the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. He acquired the Governor General’s award in 1997 and was ushered into the Canadian Country Music Hall Of Fame in 2001.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”