Here is something I picked up somewhere:
Born into a well-to-do family from the London, Ontario, area - English Canada's Tory stronghold - and brought up as a classically trained choirboy, singer/song-writer Gordon Lightfoot has had a long successful career, first as a "folksinger," then in the Seventies as the Canadian musical institution. These two phases in Lightfoot's career are marked less by a change in style than by a switch of record companies, from United Artists to Reprise/Warner Bros., and by the increasing slickness of his producer, Lenny Waronker.
Lightfoot, his first album, introduced Lightfoot's style in a mature form: firm, fast strumming on guitar and a smooth baritone voice. It was a style that made Lightfoot one of the most engaging singers to come from the Sixties folk boom. This first album also contains several songs that have since become frequently recorded standards: notably "Early Morning Rain"; "For Lovin' Me," penned by Lightfoot; and "The First Time ," by Ewan McColl. The subsquent U.A. albums may now seem more formulaic than they did when first released. Lightfoot's lyrical sophistication, forcful melodies and stolid posture remain admirable, but the major topical songs, "Black Day In July" and "Canadian Railroad Trilogy," sound glossy and overwritten. Too many of the ballads ("If I Could" and "Mountains and Marion")sic are so reflectively vague that they verge on being folkie Tin Pan Alley. This is, in fact, the tendency that overtakes Lightfoot on several of his Reprise/Warner albums.
Although beautifully produced and featuring Lightfoot's most consistent collection of songs, If You Could Read My Mind was a sleeper until the title song became a smash hit single in 1970 and Lighfoot was rediscovered by a public who remembered him only by way of cover versions of his early songs, such as Peter, Paul and Mary's "Early Morning Rain." Stylistically, If You Could recast Lightfoot's mixture of ballads and topical songs into a blend of elements from both genres. Typically, "Sit Down Young Stranger" takes on a highly personal tone to welcome American draft dodgers and deserters to Canada. The song also points to Lightfoot's growing semi-offical status in Canada. The "Railroad Trilogy," having led to a whole catalogue of Canadian songs, also led to Lightfoot's Seventies position as his country's songwriter laureate, with "Alberta Bound" and "Christian Island(Georgia Bay)" sic finally leading to the masterful; epic "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" (on Summertime Dream).
Even when Lightfoot's ballads are tired and indulgent, which is often on Summerside Of Life and Cold On The Shoulder, Lenny Waronker's production has been able to screen the albums so pleasingly that even the most minor later Lighfoot is listenable. (But the converse is Gord's Gold, on which he rerecords his Sixties songs in a way that makes them sound minor as well.) On the most recent album-[i] Endless Wire]/i], Lightfoot seems, at last, aware of his gradual drift into well-crafted post-folk Muzak: the studio players are as strongly highlighted as his indifferent vocals, leaning heavily on medium-tempo tunes and strings. Now approaching middle age. Lighfoot is apparently satisfied with his role as a Canadian institution, writing one or two superior songs a year and gliding easily over the rest of his annual album and tour. In the off months, Lightfoot occasionally plays Las Vegas or Lake Tahoe; in mid-winter he does a sold-out week at Toronto's Massey Hall. -B.T.
The above was written by Bart Testa (who he?) He also awarded Gordon's albums 2 or 3 stars. Sundown only rated 2 stars?? In the same publication, John Denver's albums rated 1 star and one album managed 2 stars. The majority of Mr Denver's albums rated a black square dot. "Worthless: records that need never (or should never) have been created. Reserved for the most bathetic bathwater. Tut,Tut.
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