Gordon Lightfoot – In concert at The Riverboat Coffee House, Ottawa – January 27, 1966 – club soundboard –
And again, the passing of another gift this week. Gordon Lightfoot (1938-2023) left us on Monday, May 1st – another voice so closely associated with life in the 60’s and 70s, who left so many anthems and memories – so much music that instantly transcends time. That voice is now gone.
One of the most renowned voices to emerge from Toronto’s Yorkville folk club scene in the 1960s, Lightfoot recorded 20 studio albums and penned hundreds of songs, including “Carefree Highway,” “Early Morning Rain” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
In the 1970s, Lightfoot garnered five Grammy nominations, three platinum records and nine gold records for albums and singles. He performed in well over 1,500 concerts and recorded 500 songs.
He toured late into his life. Just last month he canceled upcoming U.S. and Canadian shows, citing health issues.
Once called a “rare talent” by Bob Dylan, Lightfoot has been covered by dozens of artists, including Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Anne Murray, Jane’s Addiction and Sarah McLachlan.
Most of his songs are deeply autobiographical with lyrics that probe his own experiences in a frank manner and explore issues surrounding the Canadian national identity. “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” depicted the construction of the railway.
“I simply write the songs about where I am and where I’m from,” he once said. “I take situations and write poems about them.”
Lightfoot’s music had a style all its own. “It’s not country, not folk, not rock,” he said in a 2000 interview. Yet it has strains of all three.
As the folk music boom came to an end in the late 1960s, Lightfoot was already making his transition to pop music with ease.
In 1971, he made his first appearance on the Billboard chart with “If You Could Read My Mind.” It reached No. 5 and has since spawned scores of covers.
This concert, one of the early ones in his career, comes around the time of his signing with United Artists and his debut album. I’m not sure how many people have heard this concert, it has made the rounds over the years, but it’s significant in that it captures Gordon Lightfoot during his formative years; that time just before his career changed and he was well on his way to becoming a household name.
So by way of tribute and remembrance of a supremely gifted artist who left a profound impression on so many lives, here is Gordon Lightfoot, as he sounded on January 27, 1966 – recorded at The Riverboat Coffee House in Ottawa.
