Quiz for Gordon Lightfoot fans ???

[johnfowles]

Originally posted by Jessi -Joe:
So they took a sledge hammer to the best of, in the Dumster.

Sorry both of you,and I will now have to spend precious time watching the Gzowski tape but I would lay down good money that the albums deatroyed in a dumpster (skip for UK readers) had absolutely nothing to do with any of the umpteen hundred United Artists etc "best of" "fantastic" or "very best of" regurgitations and evertthing to do with the opportunistic 1971 AME label release "Early Lightfoot"
"http://www.lightfoot.ca/elrev.htm"

(despite that attempt to destroy all them a very large number survived and frequntly get auctioned
plus there is the fact that this album was in fact only a cobbled together collection of previousy issued "singles") the album is reviewed at:-
http://www.lightfoot.ca/elrev.htm

[ June 15, 2006, 14:29: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[Jesse Joe]

Watch the "Gzowski In Conversation", and you will see that every word I typed are correct.

I respect the man to much to invent stories... JJ.

[johnfowles]

Originally posted by Jessi -Joe:
Watch the "Gzowski In Conversation", and you will see that every word I typed are correct.

I respect the man to much to invent stories... JJ.

I have now ploughed through a couple of VHS tapes.
All very interesting
the first was a compilation of a variety of television clips including the Maralyn McKay autograph
In passing I noted that there is an external shot of Gord's old Rosedale mansion as she enters and true enough Gord does say in obvious reply to her question "how many songs" "172 on 10 albums". However he immediately contradicts himself by adding "170 on record".
the other was the superb Gzowski in conversation, and yes Gord does say "best of".
But there is an urban legend around that I must have read at some point but I cannot now refind on the internet ( I thought that it just might be on one of the remaining Lighfoot pages on Valerie's site that she provided a link for recently but I cannot now find it.
Yes I can it's at:-
http://www.gordonlightfoot.com/EarlyLightfoot.shtml
and features this early photograph

But nothing about the dumpster story.
However other people certainly believe it was "Early Lightfoot" that incurred Gord's displeasure
(I save the web pages for what are to me interesting ebay auctions)
One seller in 2003 said
"Lightfoot tried to block the release of the LP and was unsuccessful so instead he bought as many copies as he could and destroyed them - as legend has it, with an axe in his backyard!"
and from another auction last year
"Mega-rare LP featuring his early recordings for Art Snider's, Toronto-based Chateau label. This is the infamous release of his 1962-63, pre-United Artists recordings. Ame Records was another short lived Snider label. Lightfoot was not pleased when this LP was released, and most copies were pulled back and later destroyed"
I was also pleased to rewatch a sweet performance of "East Of Midnight" from the 1989 Toronto Music Awards and can now pose this quiz question:-
"which members of Gord's band backed him up on this occasion"
Hint the answer is NOT the same as for the equally sweet radio broadcast from the 1987 Folkfest Benefit Concert
John Fowles

[brink-]

I remember that story too John. I thought that it was released after his contract expired and he went to court to gain control of those albums. They were pulled from the shelves and he got them, but some were already sold. I am very fuzzy on this story. Val? Char?

[2Much2Lose]

I have a copy of Early Lightfoot that I asked Gord to autograph. He did, but asked me not to let too many people hear it, he doesn't care for his earlier stuff. I believe he told me that he had bought up all of the record that he could, and destroyed them himself.
Jenney

[Jesse Joe]

Maybe the dumster thing was just a way of saying that they destroyed it. It was Gzowski who said A dumster full of recordings. Lightfoot acknoledged it, by saying I guess we didn't want people to be playing them at the dump.

So it is true, just how did he smashed them, is really up to him to say. Maybe I own one of those albums? Maybe not? Looking at his discogragh list, there is 2 Very Best of Gordon Lightfoot, Vol 1 & Vol 2.???

[Jesse Joe]

ANOTHER QUIZ!!!!!

Gordon Lightfoot told Peter Gzowski, in that same interview, that he once could play drums and sing just as good as ????? ????? Who was he talking about? :D :D

[swede]

Was it Ringo?

[Jesse Joe]

Yes it was Ringo Starr, Peter then asked him is that good or bad. Lightfoot said it was just fine.

Another one swede, your good... JJ.

[swede]

Here's one. We all know Gord was born in Orillia, Ontario. What famous economics professor was also born in Orillia?

[Jesse Joe]

I haven't got a clue, but Im going to guess, Stephen Foster??

[charlene]

stephen leacock was born in england but came to canada when he was 7 in 1876. he was a humourist and economics professor as well as author.
his home in orillia is a historic site and tourist attraction.
For over 50 years the funniest canadian book of the year has been awarded the Stephen Leacock award for humour.

[swede]

Right on Charlene.

[Jesse Joe]

Here is another one. In the interview with Marilyn MacKay, Marilyn told him, that what he did was hard work. Gordon disagreed saying this is not hard work. We had fun we got to travel the world. Hard work is ???????, or working in a ?

What 2 jobs description did Gord called Hard work? :D

[swede]

Would the second part of the answer be working in a mine?

[Jesse Joe]

Thats right Swede. The first was planting trees. Great job as usual. Feel free to post one if you choose?

[johnfowles]

Ahem Ahem
I have yet to see any attempt to answer my question of a little while back viz:-
"(I) was also pleased to rewatch a sweet performance of "East Of Midnight" from the 1989 Toronto Music Awards and can now pose this quiz question:-
"which members of Gord's band backed him up on this occasion"
Hint the answer is NOT the same as for the equally sweet radio broadcast from the 1987 Folkfest Benefit Concert"
Lets be having you!!
John Fowles

[johnfowles]

Originally posted by Jessi -Joe on May 26th:

I could not find a better photo of Gord as Morey Nathan. Rather didn't have the time. Probably someone like our Sir John will post one? I hope so anyway.

Ahem Ahem
well before you wrote that Omer I had made a better picture as a screenshot from the DVD and displayed it in another topic and will repeat it below

More on the film/video Harry Tracy with Bruce Dern
a current ebay.com auction for an ex-rental copy of the VHS (NOT DVD) video includes the text from one of the reviews on the IMDB(Internet Movie Data Base) that I was not immediately sure that I had seen before so I went and found the relevant site page.
I had a pleasant surprise because it was of course, how silly of me to forget, the review by our very own film critic Mr Roberto Dern
albeit Walter's final comment about the DVD is understandably omitted
It is at:-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084052/usercomments
whilst on IMDB I checked up their references to GL
and found the film "Lighthead"'s
"full cast and crew page" at:-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330564/fullcredits
I noted under "Non-Original Music by"
that Gord allegedly contributed a "song". it was not stated which one anyone know?
But I thought it interesting that the term "Lighthead" was here obviously associated with Gord

the VHS video artwork not showing Gord's picture
I have it in mind once I get my new computer's DVD drive functional again to answer Jessie-Joes request to " find a better photo of Gord as Morey Nathan" and make another still/screenshot from the film
but meanwhile here again is a scan
that I previously displayed on topic:-
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/ultimatebb...=003571#000000
of the DVD artwork:-

also a scene with Gord getting the treatment

that was I had previously displayed in the topic in which "happipuppi" Walter announced his review at:-
http://www.corfid.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ul...c;f=1;t=003800
John Fowles

[ July 17, 2006, 12:44: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[Jesse Joe]

Two great photos, I got the first as a desktop for myself. Gordon, {Morey Nathan}looking at Bruce, {Harry Tracy}.

This second photo the bath tub scene, if we could see a little higher, there we would probably see, Cathy Coonley.

I have the movie in it's entirety, also the french version. Not interesting in french, rather funny, to see Gord like he's actually speaking french. A voice dubbed, that sounds nothing like him. But I know it's always like that.

Superb Job, John Fowles...Jesse

[ July 18, 2006, 05:12: Message edited by: Jesse -Joe ]

[Jesse Joe]

Originally posted by johnfowles:
Ahem Ahem
I have yet to see any attempt to answer my question of a little while back viz:-
"(I) was also pleased to rewatch a sweet performance of "East Of Midnight" from the 1989 Toronto Music Awards and can now pose this quiz question:-
"which members of Gord's band backed him up on this occasion"
Hint the answer is NOT the same as for the equally sweet radio broadcast from the 1987 Folkfest Benefit Concert"
Lets be having you!!
John Fowles

[johnfowles]

Originally posted by Jessi -Joe:
From the same concert, he went to do , 'The Ghost Of Cape-Horn.' He said , "Dont mind my whistling here, I may sound like a ????" Go ahead <anon> or Swede, or Gordon Lightfoot himself.{LOL} :D

This was never answered the answer is "tin whistle" I believe

[Jesse Joe]

Absolutely correct John...

[johnfowles]

Originally posted by Jessi -Joe:
Watch the "Gzowski In Conversation", and you will see that every word I typed are correct.

I respect the man to much to invent stories... JJ.

Yes BUT...

Originally posted by swede:
Hope the guitar tastes good Jessi-Joe. Re your question the only part I recall from the interview is that Gord was ticked that his former record company, United Artists I suppose, had released a compilation his songs.

Originally posted by Jessi -Joe:
Yes A best Of, right in the middle of one of his new album they had just put out. So they took a sledge hammer to the best of, in the Dumster. So people would not be playing them at the dump. They then both, he and Peter Gzowski, went into a huge laugh.
Anyway who ever you are "All the best". Cheers, JJ.

OK at the time you two were taking about the story of the dumpster, I thought you were wrong regarding which album issue caused such extreme ire and action by Gord, Yes I know that is how it appears from Gord's own comments in the Gzowski interview video, but to me it seemed unlikely that it would have been one of the countless regurgitations of the initial 4 United Artists albums. as highlighted by a superb ranting of Bill Van Dyk at:-
http://www.chromehorse.net/rants/rants98/lightfoot.htm

As he puts it
"Gordon Lightfoot made a career by not issuing any albums whatsoever except for Greatest Hits Collections. It's true. His first album, released in 1966, was called "Gord's Greatest Hits". Nobody knew who Gord was. He had no previous recordings of original material. But since he had a greatest hits album, and went by his first name, we all figured he must be important and we added him to the collection."
_________________________________________________

anyway I always thought that the "dumpster" (UK "skip") story was more likely to be about the destruction of the relatively
rare AME "Early Lightfoot" singles compilation album issued in 1972 in an obvious attempt to cash in on the success of the
SDYS/ IYCRMM hit album.
Here is a montage showing most of the text etc on that album

Click to see a larger readable version
Anyway I recently won an ebay auction
for two Toronto Star weekend supplements from the far off 70's

and in the older (1975) one is this picture and caption/text

to make it easier I have used the wonderful Readiris OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program that is bundled
with the software of many HP scanners and here is the text of that caption:-
Gordon Lightfoot. On any given day, Paul
Anka. Joni Mitchel or Bachman- Tomer Overdrive
might sell more records around the world than
Lightfoot, but his songs are far better known.
When it comes to the number of artists who have
recorded his material, he stands in the same
crowd as John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Well over 100 artists have now recorded "If You Could Read My Mind; there are 60 versions of
Early Morning Rain; and some 10 million of his
own albums have been sold. Not bad for some*one
who chose to stay at home
At 35. Lightfoot is firmly established as the
spiritual leader of the Canadian music com*munity.
He stayed here; he made it. But most of all. he
showed perfection had its place in
Canada. too. Just one small example when
Lightfoot discovered a company had released an
album of his old singles without his permission. he
bought up nearly every copy. took the bundle
home to his back yard and put an axe through
each one. That's dedication to quality
It is now 15 years since Gordon Lightfoot had his first hit record.
He may never have his last. . . .


I also just refound this nice EMR picture I displayed somewhere before


[ July 24, 2007, 10:26: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[johnfowles]

I took the extreme liberty of posting a link to this topic on the Newsgroup and it elicited this confirmatory response from Gord's onetime sound engineer and general factotum Richard Harrison

"Let's set the record straight! The record in question was "Early Lightfoot," and it was quickly put together to capitalize on the #3 surprise success of "If You Could Read My Mind." Gord got wind of it and bought all the copies he could directly from the record company. Then one sunny afternoon he asked me to play lumberjack. I took an axe and destroyed them
and then took them to the dump. I called him later and said it was the only time I had even considered hitting him in the face with an axe. We both got a laugh out of that.
By the way, out of respect for my friend, I did NOT keep a copy for myself.
I axed them all..

--
All the Best,
Richard Harison"

[Restless]

Here's some questions to add to your quiz. I'm not on here much so there is more than 1 question. So I guess who is the first to win by answering ALL the question correctly.
Answers are pertaining to ONLY the 20 studio albums and no 'best of" or other type complilations.
Good Luck:
Quiz:
1: Gordons Middle Name is?
2: What U.S State is in the background on the Album -Endless Wire?
3: Who or What is the Arthur M. Anderson and how does this relate to Gordons songs?
4: The only Album cover that shows a "microphone"?
5: Name this musician who played with Jerry Garcia and David Grisman in the band Old and In the Way and also played as a studio muscian for Gord on an early Album? Name him and what instrament did he play?
5: Three Parter question: Name this muscian who played on an earlier Gord Album ,who also wrote the theme song to a popular early 70s'TV show staring John Travolta? Name the muscian AND TV Show and ALSO NAME THE popular band that this muscian played for in the 60's that recorded the hit "Do you believe in Magic"?
6: What GORDY album did the "above' person play backup for?
7: How many albums have someone else besides Gordon ON the cover? Also: Name those albums
8; What is the only song that mentions the name of the town of Gordons birth?
9: Reading Gords lyrics, what is the name of the SONG that you could identify how OLD Gordon is by the words to the lyrics?
10: What is the connection between Andy Lamereaux (SP?) who co-stared in HOTEL with Gordon; and the minister who presided over the memorial services at the Maritime Sailors Cathedral after the sinking of the Edmund Fitz in 75 and MYSELF, this quiz poster have in common? Really reaching here Clue- The minister and myself are related to an author who's life was portrayed in a series the Hotel performer stared in? (sorry for this one folks)