Gordon Lightfoot documentary on Amazon Prime

[OKCtodd71]

I bought a copy of Gord's Gold in a used record store in Kenmore sq in Boston circa 1977. I thought it was cool that the cover was inked with a bold font saying (via my hazy memory 4 decades past) "For radio broadcast ONLY; not for SALE". Love hearing Tony Rice sing his songs.

edit: just in case the math doesn't make sense, okctodd was not born in 71.

[pickinray]

Originally Posted by guitargabor

As one who grew up in Canada,Gordon Lightfoot's music and off stage events were very well known.

At one point a huge debate arose as to which celebrity in Canada would hand out the first million dollar divorce settlement in the country.
The two frontrunners were Gord and Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks.Lightfoot won that one...(and so did the lawyers)

At any rate everyone in Canada adored Gord, including the separatist folk hero and musician Gilles Vigneault.

He is a true icon of Canada.

A verse from his "Hi way Songs" describes the feeling I get every time I return to visit Canada...

"I would travel all my life
If loneliness was not the price
While headin' north across that line's
The only time I'm flyin'

Gabe

"Hi way Songs" is one of my favorite tunes from Old Dan's Records, an underrated but excellent album. In my opinion, Gord's best work was from around 1970 to 1976, when he released If You Could Read my Mind, Summer Side of Life, Don Quixote, Old Dan's Records, Sundown, Cold on the Shoulder and Summertime Dream. I think that was his most prolific period.

[Cabarone]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

One of my best friends when I was in high school turned me on to Gordon Lightfoot. My friend Steve really did know a lot about music (he also turned me on to John Renbourn.) Anyway, Steve loaned me a live concert album called “Sunday Concert” (or something like that) and that was all it took to turn me into a hardcore Gordon Lightfoot fan from then onwards.

Around 1974, as a Junior or Senior in high school, a teacher asked me if I would be willing to go to the library's audio room and transcribe the lyrics of a song off an album for him. The album was "Sunday Concert" and the song was "Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle". I was aware of his hits of course but that song just blew me away...still my favorite tune. Of course, I listened to the whole thing. There's another whole, long story about this but I'll save it for another time. We became great friends (he was just out of college and that was his first teaching job) and I'll never be able to thank him enough...

[Cabarone]

Originally Posted by pickinray

In my opinion, Gord's best work was from around 1970 to 1976, when he released If You Could Read my Mind, Summer Side of Life, Don Quixote, Old Dan's Records, Sundown, Cold on the Shoulder and Summertime Dream. I think that was his most prolific period.

Can't really argue w/that...I liked the heavy-drinking albums right after that as well, but those you named are tops...

[Wade Hampton]

As a performer, I never played a lot of Gordon Lightfoot’s songs onstage, but two that were favorites of mine are “Did She Mention My Name?” and an adaptation of “Alberta Bound” that I sang as “Missourah Bound.” I was living and gigging in Chicago at the time, and definitely got a little homesick for my native state now and then.

“Alberta Bound” was easy enough to adapt:

“No one I met could e’er forget an Ozark Mountain sunset..”

Both of those songs always got a good reception at my gigs.

The one Lightfoot song that I really wanted to perform, though, was “Boss Man,” but for whatever reason I never found a way to sell that particular song. Normally I have a strict “three times rule” - if I perform a song in public three different occasions and it fails to ignite the crowd each time, I’m done with it.

But I broke my own rule with “Boss Man” and must have sung it onstage at least six or eight times, only to be met with yawning indifference each time. Since I’m a multi-instrumentalist sometimes transferring a song to another instrument will give a song the traction it needs to come across better, but not with “Boss Man.”

It’s not as though the audiences were hostile and breaking apart the furniture to use as clubs to cudgel me to death - I got polite applause whenever I performed it - but it never really went over or created any enthusiasm, either.

So in my opinion there’s really no point in performing a song in public if polite indifference is the best reaction you can hope for.

I’m even harsher when it comes to my own songs - I subject them to the same three times rule as any other music.

Either they work or they don’t, it’s that simple.

Anyway, Lightfoot is one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters: beautiful voice and great songs.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Wade Hampton]

By the way, when I was playing the Irish music circuit in Chicago I became friends with a great local musician, Dennis Cahill. Last I heard Dennis is still gigging out on a regular basis, or at least was before the pandemic hit and denied so many of us our livelihoods.

Anyway, one night after I’d torn down my gear and we were enjoying a couple of late night pints of beer, Dennis told me that, no matter how many requests I got for it, one song that was instant death onstage was “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald.”

“Any momentum you might have with a crowd will evaporate entirely by halfway through the second verse,” Dennis told me. “And it’s got so many verses that even the people who requested it will talk all the way through it.”

I had never worked up a version of the song, much less memorized the lyrics, but I thought about it and realized Dennis was right. Even though Gordon Lightfoot’s rendition of it is so mesmerizing, absolutely hypnotic. But that hypnotic quality doesn’t automatically transfer to anyone else singing the song, not really.

At least it wouldn’t work in an Irish bar. Maybe some of y’all have performed it successfully in other venues, but it’s too long and melodically similar all the way through for it to work well in a bar like those Dennis and I played in.

It’s kind of mysterious how Gordon Lightfoot made the song so compelling and impactful the way he did.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Gordfan]

Reviews, photos, videos about the documentary at link.

He has a new album out, SOLO. He recorded it as a demo around 20 years ago, found it, polished it at Grant Ave.studio in Hamilton and it is lovely. Gordon and his guitar. Oh So Sweet is my favourite on the CD.. When he phoned me in April I told him it was a new legacy tune for him.lol..
He's doing well and wants to get back onstage...So much so he did a Porch Performance this home in Toronto on Canada Day of my 2 fave songs. (He knows I'll Tag Along is dear to me and has done it once in a while in concert if he knows I will be there. Otherwise it's not done in regular setlists. The other of course is If You Could Read My Mind)

Documentary info:
http://corfid.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=28840

Porch Performance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDRQ...ature=emb_logo

[capefisherman]

I think what impressed me the most about him in this documentary was his work ethic related to his band/performances and songwriting. I confess to being the "like him, don't love him" camp regarding Gordon Lightfoot. Some good and some great songs, yes, but some throw-aways too like "Carefree Highway" which to me (considering when it came out) was at best a repetitive, pale imitation of a song by James Taylor with painfully forced lyrics. Sorry, Gord fans, just my opinion, :~)

But his body of work stands the test of time and that's the true test. He is an icon.

[Blueser100]

I think I announced the doc in another three some time ago. It was excellent. I started playing his old songs on Spotify. Such a gorgeous voice.

[6L6]

Watched it last night on Amazon Prime. Outstanding!

[pickinray]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

By the way, when I was playing the Irish music circuit in Chicago I became friends with a great local musician, Dennis Cahill. Last I heard Dennis is still gigging out on a regular basis, or at least was before the pandemic hit and denied so many of us our livelihoods.

Anyway, one night after I’d torn down my gear and we were enjoying a couple of late night pints of beer, Dennis told me that, no matter how many requests I got for it, one song that was instant death onstage was “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald.”

“Any momentum you might have with a crowd will evaporate entirely by halfway through the second verse,” Dennis told me. “And it’s got so many verses that even the people who requested it will talk all the way through it.”

I had never worked up a version of the song, much less memorized the lyrics, but I thought about it and realized Dennis was right. Even though Gordon Lightfoot’s rendition of it is so mesmerizing, absolutely hypnotic. But that hypnotic quality doesn’t automatically transfer to anyone else singing the song, not really.

At least it wouldn’t work in an Irish bar. Maybe some of y’all have performed it successfully in other venues, but it’s too long and melodically similar all the way through for it to work well in a bar like those Dennis and I played in.

It’s kind of mysterious how Gordon Lightfoot made the song so compelling and impactful the way he did.


Wade Hampton Miller

It's part of the Lightfoot mystique. I think it's a combination of his voice, his phrasing ("fellas it's been good to know ya") and the arrangement. What makes that song great for me is the steel guitar work by Peewee Charles. His playing adds so much to the haunting quality of the song. I think that speaks to Gord's talent as an arranger.

[pickinray]

Originally Posted by 6L6

Watched it last night on Amazon Prime. Outstanding!

I just finished watching it. It was even better than I expected. I loved the story about Sinatra saying he couldn't sing "If you Could Read my Mind" because it was too long.

[rgregg48]

I liked the documentary very much.
I was disappointed that so little attention was paid
To the late, great, Red Shea and Terry Clemens.

[Earl49]

I have this documentary cued up on Amazon Prime to watch when I can devote the time. I also plan to get the Solo recording. His music was a large influence in choosing and learning to play acoustic guitar. We always could get Canadian radio and TV stations from across the lake.

"Edmund Fitzgerald" is long in part because each couplet combines to make 29 total verses - corresponding to the 29 lives lost. (It is more obvious if you've ever seen the sheet music). That song is a bit special for me because I grew up in Michigan and the headlines on the morning of a milestone birthday were all about the wreck. Later I lived in da UP, eh and spent time on Lake Superior myself, and have studied the story in depth. However when I do perform this song I skip one of the verses (Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings.....) just to make it more manageable time-wise.

I also have to agree with the 70's and even early 80's as being a really fertile period. I still listen to those titles more often than later stuff. Gordfan, thanks for posting those links.

[pickinray]

Originally Posted by rgregg48

I liked the documentary very much.
I was disappointed that so little attention was paid
To the late, great, Red Shea and Terry Clemens.

Red and Terry both had a lot to do with Gord's sound. Different styles, but both were great players. At least Rick Haynes got some well deserved attention.