Believe it or not, this was the Sunday Music pick I'd long had pre-scheduled for this week. And then on Tuesday, he passed away.
With Lightfoot's passing this week, it's already popped up multiple places. I repeat my comments first posted on Mike's Cold Fury site:
The list of classic Gordon Lightfoot music is damned near everything he ever recorded.
Just his Top Ten would dwarf most people’s and group’s entire catalogs.
And none of them, AFAIK, have suffered a whit with age.
Not bad for one guy with a guitar.
84 years?
One helluva run.
The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald is an unquestioned multi-generational classic. I've already put up 3 or 4 other Lightfoot pieces as Sunday Music picks, but to mark his passage, here are a few others for your week. The hardest thing to do isn't to pick worthy Lightfoot works; the true challenge is to find a bad one.
Lightfoot was a classic. Seeing him perform at Massey Hall in Toronto was a great experience.
ReplyDeleteA great moving tribute to Gordon from Rick Beato.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Iw7Jei8XOo
I have fond memories of If You Could Read My Mind. It was a standard slow dance number when I was in High School. Brings on flashbacks of a good kind.
ReplyDeleteThe Mrs. always sheds a tear when listening to Edmund. What a story, what a talent.
ReplyDeleteWell, this is neither here nor there, but I got a summer job on a Great Lakes ore ship in 1981.
ReplyDeleteThe Paul H Carnahan. The Fitzgerald was the Queen of the Lakes (longest boat) in 1957. Carnahan beat that by a few feet in 1960. By the 70’s, there were 1000 footers out there, so the days of the shorter boats were numbered.
Before the Fitz was found by submersivals in the late 80s, all there was was a couple life boats. One of them was set on the SS Meteor - visible from the Lake- as you passed by. Made you think. One result of that ship going down was to provide all sailors with a “survival suit” henceforth.
Basically a 7mm dry suit, blaze orange.
It was a great job. many sea stories, but that’s for another time.
Lightfoot's genre is unique unto itself. Nearly every song he is associated with threads a story many of which are a historical tale of a bygone past.
ReplyDeleteGordon Lightfoot was a Bard. An ancient Celtic poet and singer of epic poems.
ReplyDeleteGod rest ye,sir.