Gordon Lightfoot Lives On

I have loved Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot's music since 1975, when my first wife bought me his Summertime Dream album. It contained a song I liked, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a lengthy maritime ballad of the loss of an iron freighter in a storm in Lake Superior. I later collected every LP I could find, and then CDs. Today, I listen to him on my iPod.

Lightfoot is a survivor. He drank in earlier years, but cleaned up and became quite healthy later. Good thing--it helped him live through an abdominal aortic aneurism that nearly killed him a number of years ago. His voice has faded considerably in recent years, but the man still puts on a great concert, and is still touring at 72. Live, he shows his warmth and humor--something his serious album cover portraits never brought out.

A big favorite is Song for a Winter's Night, recently covered by Sarah McLachlan.

In a book by Bob Mercereau, The Top 100 Canadian Singles. Lightfoot placed three songs in the top 20: If You Could Read My Mind at #7, The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald at #15, and Sundown at #19.