Gordon Lightfoot inducted in U.S. Songwriters Hall of Fame

Great news, for a Canadian folk icon.

Canadian folk music legend Gordon Lightfoot famously got his start in 1964 when Ian Tyson introduced him to rock’s first great manager, Albert Grossman, who also managed Bob Dylan, The Band, Richie Havens and Janis Joplin.

“I’d see Bob Dylan in the office,” Lightfoot once told me . “And Janis was in a corner reading a book.”

This week Lightfoot returns to the city where it all began, New York,  where he will be keeping good company on Thursday night when he is inducted in the American Songwriters Hall of Fame, during a star-studded event at the Marriott Marquis Hotel.

Other inductees at the $1000-per-person benefit are Bob Seger, Don Schlitz, Harvey Schmidt & Tom Jones and Jim Steinman; presenters include Stevie Nicks, Dave Grohl and Meatloaf; and Bette Midler will receive the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award. Lightfoot will perform his best-known hit song If You Could Read My Mind at the ceremony and Lyle Lovett perform Sundown.

My favourite song of Gord Lightfoot’s always has been, and always will be, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

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6 thoughts on “Gordon Lightfoot inducted in U.S. Songwriters Hall of Fame”

  1. Pingback: Musical Interlude: Gordon Lightfoot Edition « Patriactionary

  3. Will S. says:

    Well, deti, ‘best’ is subjective, a matter of personal taste.

    But if one went instead by what song of his has been most covered, that would have to be ‘If You Could Read My Mind’.

    The song has been covered by many other artists, including Jack Jones, Don Williams, Johnny Cash, Duane Steele, Don McLean, Kalan Porter, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, Olivia Newton-John, Liza Minnelli, Glen Campbell, Gene Clark, The Spotnicks, Aurora featuring Marcella Detroit, Amber, Gordon Haskell, Vikki Carr, the Mexican Actress/model/singer Isabel Madow covered in spanish lyrics under the name of “Sí Pudieras Leer Mi Mente”, Beckie Menzie and Joe Dassin (in French lyrics “Si tu peux lire en moi”).

  4. buckyinky says:

    I grew up in Wisconsin in the 80s and I remember my elementary school teacher playing this song for us for our state history unit. He seemed quite proud to do it, for reasons that I didn’t understand much at all back then, but do better now.

    • Will S. says:

      I mean, the song specifically mentions Wisconsin, Whitefish Bay (Ontario), Cleveland, and Detroit, as well as all five Great Lakes:

      Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
      In the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
      Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams;
      The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
      And farther below Lake Ontario
      Takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
      And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
      With the Gales of November remembered.

      So it’s a pan-Great-Lakes, bi-national song, enjoyed by Canadians and Americans alike, esp. those from the Great Lakes Region. :)

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