Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian singer-songwriter whose graceful and literate songwriting made him one of the most respected folk-rooted musicians to emerge in the 1960s, has died. He was 84.
The latter song, which reached No. 2 in Billboard in 1976, told the true story of an ore freighter that sank in a storm in Lake Superior a year earlier, claiming the lives of all 29 crew members. It was one of many historically based Lightfoot compositions, and over the course of 21 albums recorded over five decades, he touched often on the character and people of his native country, most notably in “Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” revered by many Canadians as an unofficial national anthem.
“I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don’t like,” Dylan once said. “Every time I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever.” He gravitated to the region’s folk and country music scene as he got older, appeared on Canadian television in talent contests and then as a performer and, briefly, as the reluctant host of a country-western variety show.
As his reputation grew, Lightfoot was signed by the same company that handled Ian & Sylvia and Dylan. He won exposure in 1962 as the neo-folk boom was blossoming when Peter, Paul and Mary recorded his song “Early Morning Rain.” It helped establish a popular theme among modern-day troubadours with its tale of a lonely and destitute wanderer far from home “with a dollar in my hand, and an aching in my heart.
Lightfoot’s record was the first in a string of hits in the ’70s that also included “Sundown” , “Carefree Highway,” “Rainy Day People,” “Beautiful” and others that became staples of adult contemporary radio. It was also in the ‘70s that he was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy, which temporarily rendered one side of his face numb.
“I wasn’t going to be around very much longer if I continued,” he told The Times in 1996. “I’m referring to my career and to my life — both. I started to do some of the wiser things. It’s something that I really don’t like doing at all, but I do exercise. I go to the gym. That’s what’s keeping me going, so that’s why I do it.”
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