Re: Is This True?
Richard Harrison (Lightfoot's previous Live sound engineer) says:
"There have been some cynical people that have said that Gordon had exploited the tragedy for his own gain. Obviously they don’t know him at all. Right from the obvious concern I saw on his face on that flight between New York and Toronto, to the dedication he put into writing the song proves —in the true troubadour tradition —that he was a chronicler of the event, creating a memorial for those men who had lost their lives in the tragedy. This is proved by the testimony of the loved ones who survived them and who have embraced the song as a fitting tribute —publicly stating that approval.
Some years later, however, the mothers of two lost crewmen did object to the line that suggested a hatch cover had failed.
“At seven PM a main hatchway caved in....”
The job to which their sons had been assigned was to make certain those hatches were secured. When the wreck was found —snapped in two —it was proved that hatch failure could not have been the cause, and Gordon,— very sensitive to their concerns —immediately changed the line, which pleased the two mothers because their sons had now been exonerated.
The line was changed to: “At seven PM it grew dark, —it was then.
(he also set up a scholarship fund)
|