TORONTO – Gordon Lightfoot, the legendary folk singer-songwriter best known for “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown” and for songs that told stories about Canadian identity, died Monday. He was 84.
Representative Victoria Lord said the musician died in a Toronto hospital. His cause of death was not immediately available.
Lightfoot is considered one of the most renowned voices to emerge from Toronto’s Yorkville folk club scene in the 1960s. He recorded 20 studio albums and wrote hundreds of songs, including “Carefree Highway”, “Early Morning Rain” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. “
During the 1970s, Lightfoot received five Grammy nominations, three platinum records, and nine gold records for albums and singles. He appeared in well over 1,500 concerts and recorded 500 songs.
He was touring late in his life. Just last month he canceled upcoming shows in the US and Canada citing health issues.
“We have lost one of our greatest singer-songwriters,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted. “Gordon Lightfoot captured the spirit of our country in his music – and in doing so he helped shape Canada’s soundscape. May his music continue to inspire generations to come and may his legacy live on forever.”
Once dubbed 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 openly explore his own experiences and explore questions surrounding Canadian national identity. “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” showed the construction of the railroad.
“I just write the songs about where I am and where I come from,” he once said. “I take situations and write poetry about them.”
Lightfoot’s music had a style all of its own. “It’s not country, it’s not folk, it’s not rock,” he said in a 2000 interview. Yet it has strains of all three.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, for example, is a haunting tribute to the 29 men who died when the ship sank in Lake Superior during a storm in 1975.
While Lightfoot’s parents recognized his musical talent early on, he didn’t want to become a famous balladeer.
He began singing in his church choir and dreamed of becoming a jazz musician. At the age of 13, the soprano won a talent contest at the Kiwanis Music Festival, held at Toronto’s Massey Hall.
“I remember the thrill of standing in front of the crowd,” Lightfoot said in a 2018 interview. “It was a stepping stone for me…”
The appeal of those early days lingered, and in high school his barbershop quartet, The Collegiate Four, won a CBC talent show. In 1956 he played his first guitar and in the following months he began to deal with songwriting. Perhaps distracted by his taste in music, he failed algebra the first time. After attending the class again, he graduated in 1957.
By then, Lightfoot had already written his first serious composition – “The Hula Hoop Song”, inspired by the toy that was taking over the culture. Attempts to sell the song failed, so at 18 he went to the US to study music for a year. The trip was funded in part by money he saved from a job delivering linens to resorts in his hometown.
Life in Hollywood didn’t sit well, however, and it wasn’t long before Lightfoot returned to Canada. Promising to move to Toronto to pursue his musical ambitions, he took every job available, including a job at a bank, before landing a spot as a square dancer on CBC’s Country Hoedown.
His first gig was at Fran’s Restaurant, a family-run downtown diner that warmed his folk sensibilities. There he met fellow musicians Ronnie Hawkins.
The singer lived with a few friends in a demolished building in Yorkville, then a bohemian neighborhood where future stars like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell would learn their craft in smoky clubs.
Lightfoot made his popular radio debut with the single “(Remember Me) I’m the One” in 1962, which led to a string of hits and partnerships with other local musicians. When he began performing at the Mariposa Folk Festival in his hometown of Orillia, Ontario that same year, Lightfoot forged a relationship that made him the festival’s staunchest returning artist.
By 1964 he was garnering positive word of mouth around the city and audiences began to congregate in increasing numbers. The next year, Lightfoot’s song “I’m Not Sayin'” was a hit in Canada, which helped establish his name in the United States.
A few covers by other artists didn’t hurt either. Marty Robbins’ 1965 recording of “Ribbon of Darkness” reached #1 on the US country chart, while Peter, Paul and Mary Lightfoot’s composition “For Lovin’ Me” made the US Top 30. The song, which Dylan once said he wished he’d recorded, has since been covered by hundreds of other musicians.
That summer, Lightfoot performed at the Newport Folk Festival, the same year Dylan shook audiences when he shed his folk persona by playing an electric guitar.
By the time the folk music boom was ending in the late 1960s, Lightfoot was already making the transition to pop music with ease.
He debuted on the Billboard charts in 1971 with “If You Could Read My Mind.” It peaked at number 5 and has since spawned countless covers.
Lightfoot’s popularity peaked in the mid-1970s when both his single and album “Sundown” topped the Billboard charts, his first and only time.
During his career, Lightfoot collected 12 Juno Awards, including one in 1970 when it was called the Gold Leaf.
In 1986 he was inducted into the Canadian Recording Industry Hall of Fame, now the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. He received the Governor General’s Award in 1997 and was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.