{"id":572686,"date":"2023-05-02T07:00:42","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T04:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/canadian-folk-singer-gordon-lightfoot-dies-at-84\/"},"modified":"2023-05-02T07:00:42","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T04:00:42","slug":"canadian-folk-singer-gordon-lightfoot-dies-at-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/canadian-folk-singer-gordon-lightfoot-dies-at-84\/","title":{"rendered":"#Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot dies at 84"},"content":{"rendered":"
TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Gordon Lightfoot, Canada’s legendary folk singer-songwriter known for \u201cIf You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown\u201d and for songs that told tales of Canadian identity, died on Monday. He was 84.<\/p>\n

Representative Victoria Lord said the musician died at a Toronto hospital. His cause of death was not immedia<\/a>tely available.<\/p>\n

Considered one of the most renowned voices to emerge from Toronto\u2019s Yorkville folk club scene in the 1960s, Lightfoot went on to record 20 studio albums and pen hundreds of songs, including \u201cCarefree Highway,” \u201cEarly Morning Rain\u201d and \u201cThe Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”<\/p>\n

In the 1970s, Lightfoot garnered five Grammy nominations, three platinum records and nine gold records for albums and singles. In the more than 60 years since he launched his career, he performed in well over 1,500 concerts and recorded 500 songs.<\/p>\n

He toured late into his life. Just last month he cancelled upcoming U.S. and Canadian shows, citing health issues<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have lost one of our greatest singer-songwriters,\u201d Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted.<\/p>\n

\u201cGordon Lightfoot captured our country\u2019s spirit in his music \u2013 and in doing so, he helped shape Canada\u2019s soundscape. May his music continue to inspire future generations, and may his legacy live on forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once called a \u201crare talent\u201d by Bob Dylan, dozens of artists have covered his work, including Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Anne Murray, Jane\u2019s Addiction and Sarah McLachlan.<\/p>\n

Most of his songs are deeply autobiographical with lyrics that probe his own experiences in a frank manner and explore issues surrounding the Canadian national identity. \u201cCanadian Railroad Trilogy\u201d depicted the construction of the railway.<\/p>\n

\u201cI simply write the songs about where I am and where I\u2019m from,\u201d he once said. \u201cI take situations and write poems about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lightfoot\u2019s music had a style all its own. \u201cIt\u2019s not country, not folk, not rock,\u201d he said in a 2000 interview. Yet it has strains of all three.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,\u201d for instance, is a haunting tribute to the 29 men who died in the 1975 sinking of the ship in Lake Superior during a storm.<\/p>\n

While Lightfoot\u2019s parents recognized his musical talents early on, he didn\u2019t set out to become a renowned balladeer.<\/p>\n

He began singing in his church choir and dreamed of becoming a jazz musician. At age 13, the soprano won a talent contest at the Kiwanis Music Festival, held at Toronto\u2019s Massey Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the thrill of being in front of the crowd,\u201d Lightfoot said in a 2018 interview. \u201cIt was a stepping stone for me…\u201d<\/p>\n

The app<\/a>eal of those early days stuck and in high school, his barbershop quartet, The Collegiate Four, won a CBC talent competition. He strummed his first guitar in 1956 and began to dabble in songwriting in the months that followed. Perhaps distracted by his taste for music, he flunked algebra the first time. After taking the class again, he graduated in 1957.<\/p>\n

By then, Lightfoot had already penned his first serious composition \u2014 \u201cThe Hula Hoop Song,\u201d inspired by the popular kids\u2019 toy that was sweeping the culture. Attempts to sell the song went nowhere so at 18, he headed to the U.S. to study music for a year. The trip<\/a> was funded in part by money saved from a job delivering linens to resorts around his hometown.<\/p>\n

Life in Hollywood wasn\u2019t a good fit, however, and it wasn\u2019t long before Lightfoot returned to Canada. He pledged to move to Toronto to pursue his musical ambitions, taking any job available, including a position at a bank before landing a gig as a square dancer on CBC\u2019s \u201cCountry Hoedown.\u201d<\/p>\n

His first gig was at Fran\u2019s Restaurant, a downtown family-owned diner that warmed to his folk sensibilities. It was there he met fellow musician Ronnie Hawkins.<\/p>\n

The singer was living with a few friends in a condemned building in Yorkville, then a bohemian area where future stars including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell would learn their trade at smoke-filled clubs.<\/p>\n

Lightfoot made his popular radio debut with the single \u201d(Remember Me) I\u2019m the One\u201d in 1962, which led to a number of hit songs and partnerships with other local musicians. When he started playing the Mariposa Folk Festival in his hometown of Orillia, Ontario that same year, Lightfoot forged a relationship that made him the festival\u2019s most loyal returning performer.<\/p>\n

By 1964, he was garnering positive word-of-mouth around town and audiences were starting to gather in growing numbers. By the next year, Lightfoot\u2019s song \u201cI\u2019m Not Sayin\u2019\u201d was a hit in Canada, which helped spread his name in the United States.<\/p>\n

A couple of covers by other artists didn\u2019t hurt either. Marty Robbins\u2019 1965 recording of \u201cRibbon of Darkness\u201d reached No. 1 on U.S. country charts, while Peter, Paul and Mary took Lightfoot\u2019s composition, \u201cFor Lovin\u2019 Me,\u201d into the U.S. Top 30. The song, which Dylan once said he wished he\u2019d recorded, has since been covered by hundreds of other musicians.<\/p>\n

That summer, Lightfoot performed at the Newport Folk Festival, the same year Dylan rattled audiences when he shed his folkie persona by playing an electric guitar.<\/p>\n

As the folk music boom came to an end in the late 1960s, Lightfoot was already making his transition to pop music with ease.<\/p>\n

In 1971, he made his first appearance on the Billboard chart with \u201cIf You Could Read My Mind.” It reached No. 5 and has since spawned scores of covers.<\/p>\n

Lightfoot\u2019s popularity peaked in the mid-1970s when both his single and album, \u201cSundown,\u201d topped the Billboard charts, his first and only time doing so.<\/p>\n

During his career, Lightfoot collected 12 Juno Awards, including one in 1970 when it was called the Gold Leaf.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>\u2019s award in 1997 and was ushered into the Canadian Country Music Hall Of Fame in 2001.<\/p>\n

Originally published <\/span>

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TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Gordon Lightfoot, Canada’s legendary folk singer-songwriter known for \u201cIf You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown\u201d and for songs that told tales of Canadian identity, died on Monday. He was 84. Representative Victoria Lord said the musician died at a Toronto hospital. His cause of death was not immediately available. Considered one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":572687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/YIkw2hfHHHGrkoqg1ciCfQ--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD03NTk-\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/ap.org\/978a1b7a87f14a08badccd3e60adeec2","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-572686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}