Sundown
This album wasn't Lightfoot's breakthrough recording, but it was both a demonstration of the rocking electric turn most folkies would make after Dylan's revolution, and a commercially successful marriage of soulful, R&B; sensibility with folk narratives. The title cut is probably engrained in the memory of anyone with an A.M. radio in the '70s, but 20 years later, it sounds suggestive, even bluesy. "Carefree Highway" perhaps excessively romanticizes the road, but less familiar tracks like "Watchman's Gone" and "Too Late for Prayin'" are convincing statements of Lightfoot's lyrical endurance.--Roy Francis Kasten