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Music Feature Heavy on the Lightfoot
by Donny Kutzbach

Picking from the best of singer/songwriter/Canadian nation treasure, Gordon Lightfoot

It certainly means you accomplished something when you’ve been given the Order of Canada, the highest civilian honor given in the True North. In terms of rock and roll, however, it means even more when Elvis Presley handpicks one of your songs to be a live centerpiece and Bob Dylan considers you one of the greatest songwriters in the world.

Gordon LightfootFor Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr.—a humble guy born 70 years ago in Orillia, Ontario, and forever known as Gord to fans and friends—that’s your legacy. With an acoustic guitar, a perfectly reedy, rich voice, and the deftness and concision of a great storyteller, he’s rightfully earned his mantle not just as one of the great voices of folk rock but as—as Dylan concurs—one of the greatest songwriters ever.

When I interviewed Lightfoot some years ago, he pointed out that Buffalo was always like a home no so far away from home, where he had some of his favorite shows in a career spanning almost 50 years. He finally returns to Buffalo this Sunday at Shea’s Performing Arts Center for his first Western New York appearance in nearly a decade.

In honor of that, here’s a chronological pick-and-mix playlist—some obvious highlights and overlooked footnotes—from the canon of a man known for his gift for merging rock, country, and folk with unmatched power and almost effortless grace.

“Early Morning Rain” (from Lightfoot!, 1966): Lightfoot’s earliest and arguably most enduring masterpiece, covered by hundred of artists from Dylan to Elvis to Billy Bragg, with a protagonist drenched not just in the rain but in loss and helplessness epitomized by the line, “You can’t jump a jet plane/Like you can a freight train.”

“Canadian Railroad Trilogy” (from The Way I Feel, 1967): Originally commissioned for a CBC television program, this dazzling epic in three parts triptychs the building of Canada’s Pacific Railway. Along with regular guitarist Red Shea and bassist John Stockfish, Lighfoot’s band is rounded out by Nashville aces drummer Kenneth A. Buttrey and multi-instrumentalist Charlie McCoy, who had helped Dylan’s lilting masterpiece Blonde on Blonde find its center just a year before.

“Did She Mention My Name” ( from Did She Mention My Name?, 1968): The classic story of the guy who can’t let go of the long-gone girlfriend and needles a mutual friend with casual catchups like “Is the landlord still a loser?” and “Is the home team still on fire?” before the burning question: “Did she mention my name just in passing?”

“I’m Not Sayin’/Ribbon 0f Darkness” (from Sunday Concert, 1969/reissued on United Artists Collection): A perfectly executed medley of two Lightfoot standards that exhibit a remarkable duality, with a yin of the flip shrug to a lover in “Sayin” and yang of the wounded one left behind in “Ribbon.”

“Station Master” (from Songbook, 1999): Another song about trains…sort of. This lost nugget recorded in 1970, pulled from the vaults for the expansive Lightfoot box set, finds Lighfoot and the boys perfectly aping the mostly Ontario ex-pat outfit the Band to rollicking perfection.

“If You Could Read My Mind” (from Sit Down Young Stranger/If You Could Read My Mind, 1970): A forlorn hit steeped in regret and culled from Lightfoot’s then fresh emotions following a divorce. Another of Lightfoot’s oft-covered numbers, though no version bests the artist’s original.

“Summer Side of Life” (from Summer Side of Life, 1971): A wonderfully autumnal song, more about summer idealized and recollecting a time of “no illusions only tenderness” across a lushly arranged musical backdrop where Gord’s voice never sounded stronger, delivering equal parts bittersweet regret and joy.

“Carefree Highway” (from Sundown, from 1974): A gem highlighted by exceptional guitar work, and another Gord great about smarting from love’s wounds and the desire to “slip away” along that great stretch of roadway to try and heal them.

“Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (from Summertime Dream, 1976): One of Lightfoot’s biggest hits in the USA and arguably his most recognizable song retells the tale of the doomed Great Lakes freighter with chilling details of the last hour of the 29 men lost at sea. Released within a year of the tragedy, it was (and remains) a perfectly formed example of the folk song tradition spun into modern times.

“Too Many Clues in This Room” (from Summertime Dream, 1976): A deeper cut, this album closer has Lightfoot outdoing Neil Young with lyrics that read like a riddle: The future connects to the past and tackles politics, ecology, the space race, and more.

“A Painter Passing Through” (from A Painter Passing Through, 1998) The folk singer looks back over five decades and likens his place to the traveling artist of old.

“River of Light” (from Harmony, 2004) Following a near fatal abdominal hemorrhage that many thought would signal the end, at very least, of Lightfoot’s recording and performing career, the Canadian lion roared back with an album he had begun before the illness. It includes this track, the perfect blend of romanticism, nature, and the endurance of the spirit.

Gordon Lightfoot performs at Shea’s Performing Arts Center this Sunday, September 21