(CNN) Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian singer-songwriter whose enduring folk hits include “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “Sundown,” died on Monday, his spokesman told CNN. He was 84.
Lightfoot died of natural causes at 7:30 p.m. at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, spokeswoman Victoria Lord said.
His death comes less than a month after he canceled his 2023 concert schedule in the US and Canada on April 11. That cancellation was due to “health issues,” according to a Facebook post.
Lightfoot hit the US pop charts in 1970 with the song “If You Could Read My Mind.” This track also earned the artist his second of four Grammy nominations, for Best Man pop vocal performance.
His 1976 ballad about the sinking of a cargo ship on the Great Lakes, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” reached #2 on the Billboard charts. Other hits included “Carefree Highway”.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the folk icon as “one of our greatest singer-songwriters”. a tweet On Monday evening he expressed his condolences.
“Gordon Lightfoot captured the spirit of our country in his music – and in doing so he helped shape Canada’s sonic landscape. May his music continue to inspire generations to come and may his legacy live on forever,” Trudeau wrote.
Lightfoot was photographed at his home in Toronto in 2012 while promoting his album All Live.
Lightfoot was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1986 and received 13 prestigious JUNO awards – from a total of 29 nominations – presented by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
In 2003 he was also awarded one of his country’s highest civilian honors, Companion of the Order of Canada.
Born in Orillia, Ontario in 1938, Lightfoot counts Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan among his greatest influences.
According to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Lightfoot’s songs have been covered by numerous legendary artists, including Dylan, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Barbra Streisand and Eric Clapton.
His life and legacy were explored in a 2020 documentary entitled Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind.
“I was concerned that hardly anyone said a bad word about me,” Lightfoot said of the documentary.
Despite being widely lauded as an icon, Lightfoot told The Globe and Mail in 2008 that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the label.
“Sometimes I wonder why I’m called an icon because I really don’t see myself that way. I’m a professional musician and I work with very professional people. That’s how we get through life,” he told the publication.