People icon Gordon Lightfoot has died at age 84 of unspecified causes.
The Canadian singer-songwriter’s dying was confirmed by a publish on his official Fb web page. Final month he canceled upcoming 2023 tour plans, citing ongoing well being points.
Born in Orillia, Ontario in 1938, Lightfoot started his musical profession whereas he was nonetheless a toddler, singing in native choirs and competitions. As a teen, he taught himself piano, drums and guitar, earlier than transferring to California in 1958 to check jazz composition and orchestration on the Westlake Faculty of Music in Hollywood. Lightfoot soaked up people influences like Pete Seeger, Ian and Sylvia Tyson and the Weavers, then wrote and sang business jingles for extra cash whereas additionally performing domestically.
Lightfoot moved again to Canada in 1960, settling in Toronto the place he shortly grew to become an everyday at people music espresso homes. He slowly started constructing his status as a singer-songwriter as acts like Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Judy Collins and Elvis Presley recorded his songs.
Lightfoot signed a administration contract in 1965 with Albert Grossman, who additionally managed Dylan. His notoriety grew as he appeared on the Newport People Competition, on The Tonight Present Starring Johnny Carson and at New York Metropolis’s City Corridor. In 1966, he launched his debut album, Lightfoot! which included widespread tracks like “For Lovin’ Me” and “Early Mornin’ Rain.”
Hearken to Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘If You Might Learn My Thoughts’
4 years later, in 1970, Lightfoot scored his first main U.S. hit with “If You Might Learn My Thoughts,” which reached No. 5. He continued releasing albums by means of the ’70s, touchdown a good larger hit in 1974 with “Sunset,” a No. 1 smash in each the U.S. and Canada. This was adopted by 1976’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” a music a few sunken Nice Lakes freighter that landed at No. 2 within the U.S. and No. 1 in Canada.
His affect stretched out amongst his people friends, together with Dylan, who as soon as named Lightfoot as certainly one of his favourite songwriters. “I am unable to consider any Gordon Lightfoot music I do not like,” he as soon as mentioned. “Each time I hear a music of his, it is like I want it could final ceaselessly.”
Lightfoot skilled a number of medical setbacks over the course of his profession — together with emergency vascular surgical procedure in 2002 which put him in a six-week coma – however he continued to jot down, report and tour up till his passing.
“There is a completely different manner of going at it each time,” he defined of his songwriting to Rock Cellar in 2020. “I’ve usually thought of it that manner. I’ve a number of songs that you’d assume I might get — that I needed to be uninterested in enjoying, however the reverse is true. … They’ve a manner of expressing themselves every time, and that expression is automated.”
Hearken to Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Sunset’
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