Legendary Canadian folk music icon Gordon Lightfoot, whose evocative and poetic songs are etched into the musical landscape of Canada, has died at the age of 84, in a Toronto hospital. The singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s and is referred to as Canada’s great songwriter. Lightfoot’s biographer Nicholas Jennings said, “His name is synonymous with timeless songs about trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness.”
Born in Orlillia, Ontario to a family of Scottish descent, first performed publicly in grade four, urged on by his mother who recognized his early talent. As a teenager, Lightfoot learned piano and taught himself to play drums and percussion. He held concerts in Muskoka, a resort area north of Orillia, singing “for a couple of beers”. Lightfoot moved to California in 1958 to study jazz composition and orchestration for two years at Hollywood’s Westlake College of Music. He lived in Los Angeles for a time, but he missed Toronto and returned there in 1960. Established recording artists such as Marty Robbins (“Ribbon of Darkness”), Leroy Van Dyke (“I’m Not Saying”), Judy Collins (“Early Morning Rain”), Richie Havens and Spyder Turner (“I Can’t Make It Anymore”), and the Kingston Trio (“Early Morning Rain”) all achieved chart success with Lightfoot’s material.
Lightfoot’s songs, including “For Lovin’ Me“, “Early Morning Rain“, “Steel Rail Blues“, “Ribbon of Darkness“—a number one hit on the U.S. country chart with Marty Robbins’s cover in 1965—and “Black Day in July“, about the 1967 Detroit riot, brought him wide recognition in the 1960s. Canadian chart success with his own recordings began in 1962 with the No. 3 hit “(Remember Me) I’m the One“, followed by recognition and charting abroad in the 1970s. He topped the US Hot 100 or Adult Contemporary (AC) chart with the hits “If You Could Read My Mind” (1970), “Sundown” (1974); “Carefree Highway” (1974), “Rainy Day People” (1975), and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (1976), and had many other hits that appeared in the top 40. Several of Lightfoot’s albums achieved gold and multi-platinum status internationally. His songs have been recorded by artists such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Jr., Jerry Lee Lewis, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Harry Belafonte, the Grateful Dead, Olivia Newton-John, and Jim Croce.
Fellow Canadian The Guess Who recorded a song called “Lightfoot” on their 1968 album Wheatfield Soul; the lyrics contain many Lightfoot song titles. Lightfoot was a featured musical performer at the opening ceremonies of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, Alberta. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Trent University in Spring 1979 and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in May 2003. In November 1997, the Governor Generals Performing Arts Award, Canada’s highest honour in the performing arts, was bestowed on Lightfoot. On February 6, 2012, Lightfoot was presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. June of that year saw his induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Lightfoot was married three times. His first marriage in April 1963 was to a Swedish woman, with whom he had two children. Lightfoot was unmarried for 16 years and had two other children from relationships between his first and second marriages: In the early 1970s, Lightfoot was involved with Cathy Smith; their volatile relationship inspired his songs “Sundown” and “Rainy Day People” among others. In 1989, he married Elizabeth Moon. They had two children: Miles and Meredith. They divorced in 2011 after a separation that Lightfoot said had lasted nine years. Lightfoot wed for a third time on December 19, 2014, at Rosedale United Church to Kim Hasse. His declining health had caused him to cancel his tour three weeks earlier. He was the subject the 2019 documentary Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind.