Gordon Lightfoot RIP

[sam]

We’ve lost another voice of a generation and a true voice of Canada. Gordon Lightfoot was a voice I knew automatically on the radio in the 70’s. What a great storyteller. Funny enough I watched a Netflix special about him last week. Never saw him live but my oldest daughter saw him a couple of years ago and said even though his voice was just a little weaker as the show went on, he was amazing and played 2 hours of great music. Sundown indeed.

[Craig]

So sad to have read of his passing last night. He was one of my Folk heroes and I had the pleasure see him in the early 70's at a show in Lake Tahoe, CA.

May he rest in peace. He has always been on my listening rotation and I am listening to the Summertime Dream album as I write this.

[tomanche]

I turned on my radio upon arising and it was playing "Sundown." (Not typical for KPIG, the last great FM station, but not impossible.) So, I checked online and learned of his passing. Now that I have a 12-string acoustic, I should consider adding a song of his.

In the late '80s, I saw a good Chicago-area Dead cover band (one of earliest) encore once with "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The two drummers gave Lightfoot's well-written story a rousing, heavy feel and power. He was a skilled writer.

[glvourot]

I read the news on this forum this morning. I listened to him on my ride into work. I have vivid memories of my mother singing along with many of his songs, and riding in the back seat of Dad's car in a haze of cigarette smoke while Gordon was on the radio. There were a lot of guitar riffs in his songs that got my attention even then. RIP.

[john o]

his music was, like many of us, part of the soundtrack of my teen years in the '70's.
sundown is still a regular for me in acoustic sets and jams. RIP

[DanDoulogos]

Sad news that.

Up here in Canada Canadian content laws require radio stations to maintain at least 50% "Canadian Content" in whatever is aired daily from 6:00 pm to midnight. Given the small population of Canada at the time (~ 23 Million people in 1976), these "Canadian Content" laws allowed a great many mediocre talents in Canada to get on the radio. That also meant that the bands that did have legitimate talent were over-represented in the market.

For this reason back in the seventies, after six p.m. no matter what Canadian radio station you were pretty much guaranteed at least one or two Gordon Lightfoot tunes a night.

I think it was this phenomenon that prompted Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas (from the comedy troupe "SCTV" - at the time best known as the two who played those two "hosers" - Bob and Doug McKenzie) to produce a fake commercial for SCTV in which a 379 Album compilation was being sold under the title "Gordon Lightfoot sings every song ever written". Rick Moranis lends his voice to impressively impersonate Gordon Lightfoot.



It was an outrageously funny tongue-in-cheek bit for Canadians whose universal experience made it seem like Gordon Lightfoot was indeed singing every song ever written. It has since been described as the most Canadian comedy sketch of all time.

I'd heard Sundown a bunch on the radio growing up, but it was the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald that seemed to be played most on the radio in my home town.

He played the Club Regent (a casino) in my home town just 7 months ago - a couple of miles from my house. Standing ovation at the end of each show, or so I am told. I didn't go, but now I really wish I had.

[glvourot]

I watched a ton of SCTV back when. I remember that bit. Good pull Dan !

[sam]

Hey Dan,

Talk about bringing back memories! I lived in northern Indiana in early eighties, family was there all of eighties, so boy do I remember hearing those bits. Funny stuff!

Speaking of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, to this day I can vividly remember where I was hearing that song as I was in the car riding with my dad and the song came on the radio. For some reason that song grabbed me so much that when I hear it, I go right back to being a teenager in the car with my dad. There are a few other songs that mentally put me in a particular space and time. Could be a lunch report topic someday.

[y2kc]

SCTV was a weekly treat. I think Sunday nights here.

Gordon's songs will last well into the future. RIP

[mutts]

The Fitzgerald is still honored every year in Michigan. He wrote some good songs. Seems like he was a really good guy- RIP