There’s this wonderful and remarkable universal aspect to Lightfoot’s music. I was doing a set at a Coffee House in Pittsburgh in ’72, and I sang “Did She Mention My Name”, and after the set a Russian defector came up to me and remarked that it reminded him of home, and he gave me a list of other songs that he’d like to hear in the next set, so we went with “Bitter Green” and “Affair on Eight Avenue”. Another time I was in Capri, and got challenged to perform on stage, I did “Long Way Back Home” and “Second Cup of Coffee”, and the response was remarkable. In Germany, “Can’t Depend On Love” and “Mother of A Miner’s Child” seemed to be favorites. Nonetheless, the same type of reaction to, and awareness of, Lightfoot occurred in a number of small venues throughout Europe and Africa, actually, as I was traveling on business and playing on the side. Lightfoot’s music has this global reach and significance that is simply fantastic.
|