A SALUTE TO GORDON LIGHTFOOT
When We Met a Genius of The Timeless Moment
There was always a Canadian mystique about Gordon Lightfoot. He was like a sly but gracious neighbor, talking to me in a rich alluring baritone that evoked a spiritual wilderness, much like the big country he lived in. He set the bar for serious songcraft as a chronicler of “trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness,” enhanced by raw honesty and astute musicianship. This underlines what Bob Dylan said, "I can't think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don't like. Every time I hear a song of his, it's like I wish it would last forever...Lightfoot became a mentor for a long time...he probably still is to this day.”
Gordon’s star rose up in the 60s acoustic folk mode. At first he was regarded as a mere songwriter, but his United Artists recordings laid out a geography of storytelling. I’d listen to his early LPs and feel like been hitch-hiking in a cold rain on a lonely Alberta road, then a friendly driver pulled up to give me a ride in a warm pick-up and a round of songs.
In 1970 Gordon accepted a production upgrade by signing to Reprise Records. He enriched the airwaves with the dreamy “If You Could Read My Mind,” and that reached a global audience. Then he added a country rock band and made hit singles like the swaggering “Sundown” and “Carefree Highway,” a postcard from the era when confessional singer-songwriters like Jim Croce and James Taylor were in vogue.
My favorite LP from that era is “Summer Side of Life” (1971), which was recorded in Nashville and blended a broader Southern soul with Gordon’s true north.
“The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald” took us into the impossible darkness of a real-time event. It was a long, chilling epic that captivated us with stunning production and electric guitar signatures (featuring the sublime pedal steel work of Pee Wee Charles).
Gordon continued on a more electronic path into the 80s, which divided his fans and didn’t sell as well, but, in hindsight, albums like “Shadows” and “Salute” furthered Gordon’s model of updating deep old school folk styles with atmospheric rock, on par with Dire Straits and Gerry Rafferty. It was this phase of Gordon’s catalogue that hooked me into bingeing on his records, and the little-known “Salute” LP (1983) may be one of his most upbeat works.
Fast forward to 1993. After a lot of touring, battling sicknesses and personal travails, and threatening to make no more records, Gordon had a comeback of sorts with the album “Waiting For You,” featuring a cover of Dylan’s “Ring Them Bells.”
I remember listening to this album at the home of my friend Paul Farnham, a singer-songwriter and Detroit-born disciple of the Toronto Yorkville folk music scene that boosted Gordon’s career as well as the careers of fellow Canadians Bruce Cockburn, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young.
Paul and I had played music together and it was abundantly clear that Gordon was one of Paul’s heroes.
Fast forward to April 12th, 2002, and we visited with Gordon at The Community Arts Center in Williamsport, Pennsylvania (a link to the set list from that night: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/gordon-lightfoot/2002/community-arts-center-williamsport-pa-33dc38a5.html?fbclid=IwAR2UYLKOVtEjW7wPgO_ibM4NZyAMqSBReSUqHil8_AKEifyQMBw61v71Yrc). As post-concert “meet and greets” go, it was perfect. Gordon was as genial as could be, unhurriedly chatting about guitars, songs, places the tour had taken them, and he asked questions about what we were up to. Everyone in that small backstage room left feeling like they’d been with a soulmate who used his songs to befriend us over time and space.
Gordon passed away at age 84, after a life fully lived. Brushes with deadly illnesses took a toll on his body, but he kept recording and touring till nearly the end. As many tributes and memorials come forth, some have noted a subtext of Gordon’s quest for atonement and redemption. I hope he found that in and beyond the incredible body of music he left us back here on earth.
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