Gordon Lightfoot Forums - OH LINDA - audio from recording session-1964

Gordon Lightfoot at 25 singing OH LINDA.. recorded on the LP, LIGHTFOOT ! 1964 - OH LINDA: LIGHTFOOT!
by Wayne Francis

It was the fall of 1964. Lightfoot enters a downtown New York recording studio on a gloomy evening to begin work on his debut album. They choose a small room in the studio to record, thinking that the smaller room might capture the intimacy of Gordon accompanied only by two guitars and bass.

Rich Man's Spiritual is the first tune laid down on that night. It is the type of song Lightfoot enjoyed playing live in those days, going back to his days as one half of the Two Tones, when they would close their sets with Children Go Where I Send Thee, the traditional folk spiritual. Lightfoot had also written other songs in that vein such as Where Are All The Martyred Children, but Rich Man's Sprirtual was clearly his best song of that genre.

Then it was Long River, with Bruce Langhorne, the highly sought after session guitarist of that era, weaving beautifully with Lightfoot's guitar. This song would be the first on record to document Lightfoot's fascination with the wild and untamed beauty and solitude that was Canada. And in the last verse we find the singer telling us that he'd "give it all to you, if her love were true". Ah yes, love and nature. A theme Lightfoot would return to many times in the coming decades, with startlingly beautiful results!

Editors Note: This song, Oh Linda,, which was on the first album, is a Lightfoot vocal accompanied by just the bass.
Editor
Jan Hammer:

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