Rez,
I knew what you meant by *influence*
...so it's really not that you had chosen the *wrong* word and certainly influence plays into all this. Your posts are very insightful. You've added and clarified the subject quite nicely. And of course, I continue to agree+ with you on all accounts.
I've never been a big fan or too familiar/knowledgeable of the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, so this was very interesting to read about. I’ll also have to find “The Alamo” and the Sawyer Brown song.
A little off topic here but if I could choose only one, among the many gifted "phenomenal" songwriters of the past few decades, that along with Lightfoot I admire most would have to be... Harry Nilsson.
Their work couldn't be more dissimilar in most respects. But many of their songs have a simliar, powerful affect on me. Like -IYCRMM amd Without You (though Harry didn't write this). I appreciate their eclectic, volume of work. And I rather find it entertaining at times to compare/contrast their music.
Gordon's voice (Harry had a 3 1/2-octave range) and lyrics are much more pleasing and sophisticated than Harry's. I just gotta have Harry's crassness in the mix! Like his 'answer' to "For Lovin' Me" would be "You're Breakin' My Heart" (aka the "F-U song").
More related to the subject at hand...a lot of Harry's work was influenced/inspired by Lennon/McCartney and you can readily pick this out in songs like "One".
If Gord's music was/is (in whatever degree) influenced/inspired by any others....I can't pick it out. If there is, it may be that of someone's work which I'm not familiar with. However, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I find a similar sophisticated quality in Lightfoot's musical compositions to that of Rachmaninoff's. That being said, if I were to be in a gambling mood, I'd bet money that Lightfoot found some inspiration in Sergi's music.
Also, along the lines of what you said about Folks and Blues, for sure! What comes to mind are songs like "Black is the Color".
RM -hmmmmm I've never thought about Dylan fitting into Lightfoot's work -aside from the most common denominator being the fact that both learned to tell a story from Guthrie's work. Dylan did much, much more in regards to Guthries' work...he delved into it with passion, ambition and even more. We can more readily note the results in Dylan's music (and voice).
Lightfoot's work is far more sophisticated, intricate., etc., than Dylan's, and I need not mention the quality of vocals. From what little I've read about Gordon breaking into the folk music scene...Dylan was among those he paid attention to and learned more about the biz from. I would think that Gordon would have learned more about Guthrie via Dylan.
I would love to learn more about Gord's early days (and later on too for that matter) pertaining to what music/who may have inspired his work the most. It's a bit fun to take some guesses though. Actually, I'm now curious to know what he enjoys in the present time! I've never even thought before. Does he ever talk about this? I've never read any anything where this is even mentioned.