Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot

Subject: RE: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: mousethief
Date: 15 May 01 - 12:54 PM

It's not the hokiness of the lyrics (although some of the rhymes are atrocious) but the monotony of the melody that puts me off the E.F.

Alex

Subject: RE: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: Dunkle
Date: 15 May 01 - 12:51 PM

I hadn't heard that he'd had a stroke... I was on the wrong side of his guitar last night, and when he turned to me every once in a while his fingerings were unrecognizable - Were these his 6th and 9th chords, as has been suggested above, or was he using opening tunings? Any insights, anyone? Again, thanks, Dunkle.

Subject: RE: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: Trapper
Date: 15 May 01 - 12:48 PM

I was at a Gord show in Minneapolis when he told us that he wanted to try out a new song on us. He counted it down, and those now-familiar steel guitar riffs that begin the Edmund Fitzgerald rang out over the crowd. Goosebumps. Everyone in the place KNEW it was going to be a huge hit...

-Al

Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: Kim C
Date: 15 May 01 - 12:40 PM

My boss is from Canada and is a HUGE fan of his. A few months ago the local PBS station aired a Lightfoot concert, which I watched, and I thought he did pretty well. Roslyn, however, HATED it. She was expecting the same Gordon she knew and loved 30 years ago, and was disappointed. But I didn't know him then, and I thought the show was good. I hadn't realized how many people had recorded his songs.

I know a lot of people think Edmund Fitzgerald is hokey, but I love it, being interested in ships and shipwrecks and all that. The song has a very haunting quality to it, and the real-life story of the shipwreck is fascinating and sad. Scary, too, how the Great Lakes behave from time to time.

Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: Trapper
Date: 15 May 01 - 12:37 PM

I still love Gord's older stuff, but in the eighties he started getting away from stories and more into the smarmy, gooshey romantic ballads. I lost track of him after that. Still love "Canadian Railroad Trilogy", "Don Quixote", "Approaching Lavender"... I could go on and on. I saw him on cable a few months ago, and agree with Dunkle that his range has diminished some, but it was still fun to see him again.

- Al

Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: mousethief
Date: 15 May 01 - 12:33 PM

I love just about everything I've heard from him except TWOTEF. Sorry.

But I *love* especially Carefree Highway.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: Stevangelist
Date: 15 May 01 - 12:30 PM

"Ribbon Of Darkness"... "Carefree Highway"... "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"...

I love GL. Don't know much of his stuff, but I've heard him do these and I have a greatest hits tape around here somewhere. He's just the kind of folkie that many of my player friends have wanted to be: easygoing and insightful without having to march to save the whales. (*BIG GRIN*)

May The Road Rise To Meet You,

Stevangelist

Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 01 - 10:47 AM

This is a good thread.

It's my understanding that, despite a bit of dimished range and power, he's basically healthy, and doing more road work these past few years than ever.

I don't think I like touring or big crowds.

He's my son's favorite, his 21st birthday included a GL concert. He was not the only younger person there.

He played my request (& favorite GL tune)"Cherokee Bend" (well, actually several people requested it).

One of his more recent tunes, "I Used To Be A Country Singer"
has a wonderful chorus that goes:

And she said,
I used to be a country singer.
I could sing a mean Patsy Cline.
My husband, he could yodel like Wilf Carter.
Kitty Wells was a real good friend of mine.

I heard that and thought, like many I suppose,
"I know that person, I've met her a dozen times."

Well captured, Gord (well he might be a silent catter)!

Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: jeffp
Date: 15 May 01 - 10:42 AM

I remember seeing him at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania in 1971 or 72. He told a story about driving into town listening to the local radio station. The station announced that they would give a pair of tickets to the Gordon Lightfoot to the first person to show up at the station. Well, since Gordon noticed that he was passing by the studios at that moment, he parked the car and went on in. Imagine the shock of the announcer when he showed up to claim tickets to his own show! He said he stuck around to greet the real winner.

Good singer, good songwriter, great sense of humor (or humour, since he's Canadian)

jeffp

Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 May 01 - 10:31 AM

One AMAZING body of work. As has Tyson.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: GUEST,willie-o
Date: 15 May 01 - 08:38 AM

A tortured genius, I suppose. He has/had partial facial paralysis from a stroke I think. Not just smoking, but many years of heavy drinking have been rough on old Gord.

Lightfoot and Ian Tyson basically invented the Canadian singer-songwriter archetype. The tall lean lyrical poet, forever on the move, writing with very Canadian imagery, a lone wolf with a burden to bear, a superb composer and singer of tunes with nuanced melodies, but not a technically brilliant instrumentalist.

Lightfoot started in the fifties as a high school barbershop quartet singer. He switched to the folk scene during the early folk scare. You could almost call this opportunistic, since he was an ambitious young professional musician looking for an audience, but the results were fortunate.

Lightfoot used a lot more sophisticated chords and inversions than most 60's folkies. All those sixths and ninths. That combined with his lyric vision made his songs durable, and the jazz influence is what makes Tony Rice, among others, to cover Lightfoot songs. They're fun for guitar players as well as singers.

He's been out of the limelight since the seventies, but pops up now and then. Good to see him on the road again, he's one of the main guys.

W-O

Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 15 May 01 - 07:34 AM

I was thinking about Gord last night, and went and dug out the lyric to Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle, and had a sing through. I was turned on to GL by my sister over twenty five years ago, and I rank him up there with the other great mainstream folkies. I didn't realise he is still working, and I for one would love to see him if he plays the UK.

Skipjack

Subject: Thoughts on Gordon Lightfoot
From: Dunkle
Date: 15 May 01 - 06:39 AM

We saw Gordon in concert last night in Princeton, for the second time, the first being thirty years ago in Hartford. I haven't been following his career too closely in the last, say, twenty years, and most of the songs he sang were familiar. He's become a very small, thin person, and his voice at times had a tremolo/Kathryn Hepburn quality to it. He has the same bassist that he had thirty years ago, as well as the same (apparently) Gibson 12 that's on one of his album covers from that early time when I was buying his records. I enjoyed the concert, and came away with strong feelings about his 'legacy', the body of work that he's produced, and has offered to the rest of us. I'd enjoy hearing others' thoughts about him, his work, what he's been doing in the last twenty or so years (we learned he's now 62, remarried, with two kids under twelve years old.) Has his smoking (again, evident from his earlier album covers) affected his health? Thanks for your thoughts, Dunkle.