GL Biography
 

Hello all, currently I'm reading an Al Stewart biography book called "True Life Adventures of a Folk Rock Troubedour," written by Neville Judd. It is a superb book about Al Stewart's career, and has many details about his ascending career beginning in the late 1950's, in the nightclubs in London. Al rubbed elbows with ascending folk/rock stars such as Paul Simon, Jimmy Page, and Donovan. Al also was inspired by Bob Dylan.
I was wondering, is there a biography of Gordon Lightfoot available? I would love to read about Gord's life, his early years and the history of his albums, how his life influenced his songs.

Re: GL Biography
 

http://www.lightfoot.ca/biograph.htm

www.lightfoot.ca has tons of info-re: tours/tv/radio/discography/books/awards etc.

Re: GL Biography
 

Char beat me to it, whilst I was researching this response to give
some help in tracking down a biography
Basically as Char said. if you visit
http://www.lightfoot.ca
you would find
a link "books" this in turn opens
a page upon which the very first entry is:-
tada tada:-
"biographies"
which will open
http://www.lightfoot.ca/biograph.htm
complete with images of the two principal books by Alfrieda Gabiou and Maynard Collins. I have both and have enjoyed both, I think they are now both out of print
now so you'll need to find a preread copy on either http://www.alibris.com,
http://www.biblioz.com
or http://abebooks.com
or in the unlikely event that they are all dry try keeping a watch on http://www.ebay.com
I found a remaindered copy in the UK of the Gabiou book many years ago and abebooks last year found me a virtually new copy pf Collin's book from a seller up in Port Perry Ontario for a very reasonable sum
Moreover if you search this forum hard enough I am pretty certain that sometime last year Yuri of this parish scanned many of the black and white photos in the Gabiou book and displayed them in a thread as thumbnails
I hope that helps

Re: GL Biography
 

Thanks Char & John for your replies, I went to the lightfoot.ca website and copied down, the Books listed there. Then I went to Amazon.com and looked them up. Some are there, and are very expensive, and others are not there. In my opinion this shows a need for a definitive biography on Gord; this man is a music legend and he deserves that. Did he ever tell his life story to his children, or keep any memoirs??

Re: GL Biography
 

I'm sure he's talked to his kids and they've heard and read about their dad but it's a pretty safe bet that there's a lot that he keeps to himself and always will.
He loves to chat about old times and people in his past but some things are kept close to the vest.
And perhaps that is as it should be.
don't know if you saw this chat with Gordon:
http://www.corfid.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=14798 - the whole transcript. part about a book:
CHAR: I asked you this one time before, and I know you talked about it at Massey either this last concert series or in 2005, about writing a book about the life of Gordon Lightfoot.

G.L.: Oh yeah…well I’ve decided against doing that. I had to make a decision on that last year and I decided not to do it.

CHAR: No?

G.L.: No.

CHAR: Wow, that’s going to be a disappointment to a lot of people.

G.L.: That’s all right.

CHAR: We will just live your life through your music I guess.

G.L.: My old manager Albert Grossman used to say “it won’t make the coffee taste any different in the morning.” (laughing) Whether there’s a book or not…...it doesn’t matter.

CHAR: No it doesn’t matter….that’s very true. It’s just that in this day and age where you’ve got kids that are writing their life story because they’ve made a movie or had a hit song…and THEY have a life story? They’re only 19! (laughing) It would be nice though. It wouldn’t have to have all the nitty gritty but just as a one focus sort of idea.

G.L.: Ya know…. it would be a nice thing to do….maybe later when I’m doing a memoir or something after I’ve stopped touring. You know really the touring takes up a lot of the time. I don’t know, it really does. We have to stay prepared all the time. We rehearse regularly between times. I don’t have the whole band here….but I sometimes have Michael here, maybe Terry or Rick and Terry.

Re: GL Biography
 

Good answer, Char. I understand, maybe some things are better left unsaid. There is privacy and confidentiality, I understand that. Thanks.

Re: GL Biography
 

I'm still hoping Gordon will pen his memoirs someday, but until then, wouldn't it be nice if someone would put together a coffee table sized scrapbook of Gordon's life and career? It'd be nice to have something that lists tour and studio dates, set lists, and maybe some comments or stories from Gordon or his band about particular shows or dates. It would also have to feature a ton of photos. Some of my favorite shots of Gordon are the ones taken by Joseph Sia. Many of these can be found in Gordon's first biography from 1979 and in the "Songbook" anthology. I really like the ones of Gordon taken backstage (I think at Massey Hall in 1974).

Re: GL Biography
 

I haven't seen the biography from 1979, but I love the pictures from Songbook. They're some of the best - I still page through once in a while.