Gordon Lightfoot

Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. CC OOnt (November 17, 1938 - May 1, 2023) was a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He was credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s. He had been referred to as Canada's greatest songwriter and was known internationally as a folk-rock legend. Lightfoot's biographer Nicholas Jennings said, "His name is synonymous with timeless songs about trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness."
Lightfoot's songs, including "For Lovin' Me", "Early Morning Rain", "Steel Rail Blues", "Ribbon of Darkness"—a number one hit on the U.S. country chart with Marty Robbins's cover in 1965—and "Black Day in July", about the 1967 Detroit riot, brought him wide recognition in the 1960s. Canadian chart success with his own recordings began in 1962 with the No. 3 hit "(Remember Me) I'm the One", followed by recognition and charting abroad in the 1970s. He topped the US Hot 100 or AC chart with the hits "If You Could Read My Mind" (1970), "Sundown" (1974); "Carefree Highway" (1974), "Rainy Day People" (1975), and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" (1976), and had many other hits that appeared in the top 40.
Several of Lightfoot's albums achieved gold and multi-platinum status internationally. His songs have been recorded by artists such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Jr., The Kingston Trio, Jerry Lee Lewis, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Mathis, Herb Alpert, Harry Belafonte, Sarah McLachlan, Eric Clapton, John Mellencamp, Peter, Paul and Mary, Ian & Sylvia, Glen Campbell, Tony Rice, The Grateful Dead, Nico, Olivia Newton-John, Gene Clark, Dan Fogelberg, Jimmy Buffett, Paul Weller, and Jim Croce. The Guess Who recorded a song called "Lightfoot" on their 1968 album Wheatfield Soul; the lyrics contain many Lightfoot song titles. (Read more at Wikipedia)
== Links To Peel ==
The list of names above shows how Gordon Lightfoot influenced many artists, including some who did sessions for Peel, but it omits Fotheringay, who did a version of his song "The Way I Feel" on their Top Gear session (it also appeared on their first and only LP). Richie Havens had already recorded Lightfoot's "I Can't Make It Any More" and included it in his Night Ride session, which went out on 04 June 1969
But Gordon Lightfoot himself only did a single Peel session, broadcast on the Night Ride of 19 March 1969. By that time Lightfoot was an experienced performer who had already spent time in Britain in the mid-1960s (when Nico recorded a version of his "I'm Not Sayin'" for Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate Records). During his 1969 visit he also recorded sessions for other BBC radio shows. But apart from listeners to folk and country radio shows, he wasn't well-known to UK audiences and was seen as another promising Canadian singer-songwriter, alongside the likes of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. 
Lightfoot didn't achieve big commercial success until the 1970s, when he was seen as a bit too middle-of-the-road for Peel shows and didn't get much airplay on them. Nevertheless, Peel seemed to like some of his material, especially his protest song about the 1967 Detroit race riots, "Black Day In July", which picked up a play on Top Gear, on 28 April 1968.
==Sessions==
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No known commercial release
1. Only session, recorded 11th March 1969. First Broadcast: 19 March 1969. 
*If I Could / Affair On Eighth Avenue / Pussywillow Cat Tails / The Circle Is Small / Railroad Trilogy / The Leaves Of Grass / For Loving Me / Bitter Green
==Other Shows Played==
;1968
*28 April 1968: Black Day In July (7") United Artists
==External Links==
*Wikipedia
*Discogs
*Official Website
Category:Artists