Once called a “rare talent” by Bob Dylan, dozens of artists have covered Lightfoot's work, including Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Anne Murray, Jane’s Addiction and Sarah McLachlan.
TORONTO — Gordon Lightfoot, Canada’s legendary folk singer-songwriter whose hits including “Early Morning Rain” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” told a tale of Canadian identity that was exported worldwide, died on Monday. He was 84.
Most of his songs are deeply autobiographical with lyrics that probe his own experiences in a frank manner and explore issues surrounding the Canadian national identity. Singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot strums backstage at the Westbury Music Fair on Sept. 8, 1987, in Westbury, N.Y. “I just like to stay there and be a part of the totem pole and look after the responsibilities I’ve acquired over the years,” he said in a 2001 interview.
The appeal of those early days stuck and in high school, his barbershop quartet, The Collegiate Four, won a CBC talent competition. He strummed his first guitar in 1956 and began to dabble in songwriting in the months that followed. Perhaps distracted by his taste for music, he flunked algebra the first time. After taking the class again, he graduated in 1957.
The singer was living with a few buddies in a condemned building in Yorkville, then a bohemian area where future stars including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell would learn their trade at smoke-filled clubs. That summer, Lightfoot performed at the Newport Folk Festival, the same year Dylan rattled audiences when he shed his folkie persona by playing an electric guitar.
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