Part One<\/a> \u2026 <\/i><\/p>\nAnd he had another fleeting concern. All those years had gone by, and then he returns with a simple, unadorned album? \u201cI didn\u2019t want people to think I was getting lazy,\u201d he says with a laugh. Compared to the highly polished East of Midnight<\/i>, Solo<\/i> would represent a radical departure. \u201cBoy, I made some slick albums in my time,\u201d Lightfoot says, laughing again. \u201cEast of Midnight<\/i> was one of the best I ever did that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
He had largely forgotten about the existence of the demos he recorded at home in 1998. \u201cHere were these tunes; I didn\u2019t recognize them,\u201d he admits. \u201cI had to play them to remember what they were all about.\u201d The sound and character of the shelved solo recordings truly appealed to Lightfoot. He says that Solo<\/i> \u201cwas like a gift. It appeared out of nowhere, out of a mound of gifts that I\u2019ve been moving around with for the last 59 years. But there it was. It got buried in there somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The contemplative \u201cWhy Not Give It a Try\u201d is vintage Lightfoot; even in its spare voice-and-guitar arrangement, it echoes the gentle melodicism of his biggest hits. The breathy whistling that occupies the spaces where lead guitar breaks might go serves to underscore the you-are-there feel of the recording. \u201cWhy Not Give It a Try\u201d and \u201cOh So Sweet\u201d were both released as singles from Solo<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Lightfoot says that the austere, intimate quality of Solo<\/i> is what makes it special. \u201cWhat I like most about it,\u201d he muses, \u201cis that I can actually hear one of my feet tapping on a couple of the takes.\u201d His acoustic guitar playing is solid and expressive, and though his vocals on the album have an offhand, homespun texture, they\u2019re right in line with the up close and personal feel of the record.<\/p>\n
After more than a half century as a singer, Lightfoot has almost certainly developed a regimen to keep his baritone voice in shape. Right? Not so, it happens. \u201cI do absolutely nothing,\u201d he admits. \u201cIt looks after itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guitar? That\u2019s a different story. \u201cI practice the guitar a lot,\u201d he says. \u201cI do that while I\u2019m watching sports reruns on TV. I get set up, watch a sporting event \u2013 a hockey game or a basketball game \u2013 and then I\u2019ll sit there and practice and practice. Really, it\u2019s a great way to practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reading His Mind<\/b>
\nGordon Lightfoot has had many years to figure out what works for him. And though to listeners in the U.S. he might have seemed an overnight success when \u201cIf You Could Read My Mind\u201d became a hit, he had been a recording artist for some eight years. By 1968 he had landed seven songs on the Canadian Top 40, and even scored the #2 spot on Canada\u2019s Country singles chart with 1965\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m Not Sayin\u2019.\u201d In those days, he was known as a songwriter more than a performer.<\/p>\n
In the \u201860s, a wide array of artists \u2013 Chad & Jeremy, Judy Collins, Richie Havens, Ian and Sylvia, the Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary, Elvis Presley and Marty Robbins among them \u2013 covered his material. Lightfoot did play high-profile festival dates, and earned a spot on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson<\/i> in 1965, but his success remained limited to Canada. As the \u201860s ended, success in the United States seemed out of reach.<\/p>\n
That all changed suddenly with \u201cIf You Could Read My Mind,\u201d but no one was as surprised as Gordon Lightfoot. \u201cWe never had a feel about\u201d it becoming a hit, he admits. \u201cBut we did have some interest in certain quarters.\u201d He enjoys telling the story of the one-woman focus group that unintentionally helped launch the single\u2019s stateside success. \u201cI can\u2019t even believe it myself, how they got \u2018If You Could Read My Mind\u2019 going,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Released in April 1970, Lightfoot\u2019s fifth album initially sold about 80,000 copies, but then it seemed to stall on the charts. \u201cOut on the West Coast, where Warner Brothers\u2019 main promotion department was, one of the guys there had his younger brother play it for his girlfriend,\u201d Lightfoot recalls. \u201cThey were down for a weekend get-together down in Hermosa Beach or something like that. The kid came back and said, \u2018The girl likes \u201cIf You Could Read My Mind.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n
He continues the story. \u201cSo the promotion guy called a person up in Seattle who could program the record, who could put it on the playlist.\u201d Released as a single in December, \u201cIf You Could Read My Mind\u201d started its climb up the chart eight months after it had been released as an album track. \u201cAfter the guy\u2019s young brother had the girlfriend pick out the single,\u201d Lightfoot says, the incredulity still evident in his voice. \u201cThe whole story was so insane!\u201d<\/p>\n
Lightfoot wasn\u2019t initially pleased when Warner Brothers changed the album\u2019s title from Sit Down Young Stranger<\/i> to match the newly-minted hit single\u2019s title, though. \u201cI was so irate about it,\u201d he says, admitting that he \u201cwas a bit of a prima donna at that point.\u201d He recalls getting on a plane to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI flew to LA and said, \u2018Why are you changing the title of my album? What difference would it make?\u2019\u201d A representative from Warner\/Reprise\u2019s accounting department quickly set him straight. \u201cGordon, did you take algebra in high school?\u201d Lightfoot said yes. \u201cOkay,\u201d the accountant continued. \u201cWhat\u2019s the difference between X and 7X?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI got on a plane and turned around and flew back here to Toronto,\u201d Lightfoot says. \u201cAnd about two months later, they\u2019d sold 600,000 copies. The record was up to number five or something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Click here to continue<\/a> \u2026 <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Continued from Part One \u2026 And he had another fleeting concern. All those years had gone by, and then he returns with a simple, unadorned album? \u201cI didn\u2019t want people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19161,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,41,49,51],"tags":[3802],"class_list":["post-19153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folk","category-interview","category-new-release","category-pop","tag-gordon-lightfoot","cat-30-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19153"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19401,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19153\/revisions\/19401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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