Gordon Lightfoot is a Canadian singer-songwriter and musician who has been lively because the Nineteen Sixties. He has discharged over 20 albums and has been inducted into the Canadian Song Corridor of Reputation and the Canadian Nation Song Corridor of Reputation. He’s identified for his many strike songs, corresponding to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, “If You Could Read My Mind”, “Sundown”, and “Carefree Highway”. He has additionally been a recipient of the Line of Canada and Juno Awards for lifetime fulfillment. Lightfoot’s song has been featured in movies and tv, and he has seemed on a number of events as a different visitor on numerous presentations.
If it had been had to assure that Gordon Lightfoot’s adoring target audience continues to hold in high esteem his formative paintings in addition to his upcoming hits, it got here on the 2017 version of the Polaris Song Prize. The once a year match for Canada’s best possible magazine has lately been expanded to praise the rustic’s song historical past. At this month’s match, the people vote for the Heritage Prize within the 1960-1975 section was at the admirable singer-songwriter’s debut magazine Bright footed!
Recorded in past due 1964 when Lightfoot was once 26 however now not discharged till the spring of 1966, the LP is an engaging report of the early days of some of the in point of fact admirable songwriter-performers. The Ontario artist carried out and wrote song from a tender moment, instructing himself guitar and making a song in the community earlier than finding out for 2 years at Westlake Faculty of Song in Hollywood. There he wrote and sang radio jingles earlier than going back on Canada in 1960.
Lightfoot next sang with the Singin’ Swingin’ 8 in Toronto and in 1962 in Nashville recorded two very country-western-leaning singles produced through Chet Atkins. Each had been native Canadian hits, even supposing the singer upcoming mentioned, “The general feeling was that the songs sounded too much like Jim Reeves or Pat Boone. I decided not to go that route, opted to bet on the folk revival of the early ’60s and started working in bars and coffee houses.”
In 1963 he traveled to Britain and seemed often at the BBC The Nation and Western Display (“Singer/Guitarist: Gordie Lightfoot,” was once his invoice for the line, which unfortunately seems to were purged from the archives). The one “Day Before Yesterday” was once discharged in the United Kingdom on the similar month. Returning house, Lightfoot’s popularity grew along side his songbook, which might quickly upload a composition that remained a signature right through his epic occupation.
“Early Morning Rain” was once impressed through Lightfoot’s days in the USA in 1960, when he would infrequently get homesick and oversee the jets go away from Los Angeles World Airport. In 1964 he made up our minds to jot down him a music at the matter. “Hear the mighty engines roar, see the silver wing on high,” he wrote. “She’s gone and heading west, far above the clouds she’ll fly.”
Canadian society and nation heroes Ian & Sylvia had been the primary (of greater than 125 artists and counting) to document the music. They discharged their model because the identify tune in their Might 1965 LP on Leading edge, which peaked at #77 billboard Diagram.
Alternative noteceable society artists temporarily noticed the opportunity of the haunting, wistful “Early Morning Rain.” Peter, Paul & Mary, Judy Collins and the Kingston Trio all coated it in 1965 earlier than Lightfoot’s personal model seemed at the Bright footed! Magazine discharged through United Artists in April 1966 upcoming Canadian song booklet RPM named him govern society singer in 1965. His lengthy tune presence was once underscored as early as October 1964 when RPM referred to him as “an old Trouper” and in March 1965 as “a household name in Toronto for many years”.
Others who recorded “Early Morning Rain” in upcoming years had been Julie Felix, Jerry Lee Lewis and, on his Studio 154 covers poised, Paul Weller. Bob Dylana self-confessed fan of Lightfoot’s whole catalogue, complimented him a great deal through modifying it for his Spanish guitar-style lullaby Self-Portrait Magazine from 1970.
However there was once one alternative learn that was once a specifically large do business in for Lightfoot. “This is the one who elvis covered,” he mentioned within the 1999 notes music retain compilation. Presley recorded it in 1972 Elvis now, and ceaselessly in his are living presentations. “I’m really proud that he recorded it,” Lightfoot persevered. “He got it perfectly.”
However “Early Morning Rain” wasn’t the one music from the debut LP that had strike the large month in other places. Nation admirable Marty Robbins discharged his model of “Ribbon Of Darkness” as a Columbia unmarried in March 1965 and noticed it turn into his eleventh nation #1. After readings integrated the ones of Conway Twitty, Connie Smith and Don McLean. Trade eyewitnesses started to talk of the Canadian’s “Country and Lightfoot” genre.
Lightfoot’s personal “Ribbon Of Darkness” was once one in every of two unmarried releases in Canada that preceded his first magazine; its B-side, highlighting the alike ingenious ties between Lightfoot and Dylan, was once a model of the ultimate’s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” which had Canadian luck, attaining #3 at the RPM chart. The one earlier than that was once “I’m Not Sayin,” a host 12 strike in his hometown.
Extra highlights from Bright footed! integrated “For Loving Me” which in flip lead the way for the LP when the Peter, Paul and Mary studying made the Supremacy 5 billboard‘s Adult Contemporary chart in 1965. “The most chauvinistic song I’ve ever written,” Lightfoot opined, “however Peter Yarrow nevertheless [of Peter, Paul & Mary] noticed one thing in it, a tongue-in-cheek option to the condition.
“Luckily for me, it became a big hit,” he persevered. “I was lucky to have been part of her career. It was their recording, along with the help of Ian & Sylvia, that opened some doors for me in New York City that got me where I wanted to go.” Certainly, Lightfoot carried out with each acts on the 1965 Newport Population Pageant, which was once the backdrop made historical past for Dylan’s first electrical efficiency.
Essentially a car for his personal subtle songwriting, the John Court docket-produced 14-track magazine nonetheless contained 3 covers: Ewan MacColl’s acclaimed “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, Phil Ochs’ “Changes” and Hamilton Camps “Pride Of Man”, upcoming decided on through Quicksilver Messenger Provider for his or her 1968 debut LP of the similar identify. Lightfoot was once basically accompanied through 2nd guitarist David Rea and bassist Invoice Lee (father of filmmaker Spike) on his first lengthy studio day out, with Bruce Langhorne contributing guitar on two tracks.
exam Bright footed! within the April 30, 1966 factor, billboard wrote: “This album is sure to increase Gordon Lightfoot’s popularity around the world, especially among folk fans. He delivers his message with a deft and persuasive style. A powerful writer, many of the tunes he makes here, like “Early Morning Rain” and “Ribbon Of Darkess,” were hits through alternative artists.”
Previous to the magazine’s leave, Lightfoot performed Canadian presentations and next traveled to the United Kingdom for 11 dates with Ian & Sylvia and David Rey. In the meantime, his songs had been attracting increasingly covers, together with unused ones from George Hamilton IV and John D. Loudermilk, and Lightfoot was once amongst artists to look on a TV get advantages selection display with Bing Crosby. As he was once planning for his 2nd magazine, his famous person was once at the get up.
Purchase or wave Bright footed! on Apple Song and Spotify.
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