Saturday, November 17, 2018

Early Morning Reign: Gordon Lightfoot 80

Today's Saturday Evening Post takes place in the Early Morning Rain, in honor of another of the greatest songwriters ever.
He is turning a milestone 80 today, always a rare achievement and one not reached by the majority of us hoomans.
Bob Dylan once said that when one of this guy's songs comes on, he wishes it would never end.
His songs have been covered hundreds of times, but nothing speaks like the original.
And no one of the last 50+ years can claim to be more of an original than Gordon Lightfoot, born this day in 1938 and firmly chiseled into the Mount Rushmore of songwriters Canadian and otherwise.
When I was in the 6th grade, we sang The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in chorus. I lobbied for additional shipwreck songs like Gentle Giant's Wreck, but being only 10 the teachers weren't having a word of it.
As I sit here and think about it, this man's decades-deep catalog is so ridden with megahits and songs that will remain standards for centuries, he's got to be thought of in the conversation for best writers ever born, up there with the Dylans and the Neil Youngs and the like.
Which is one reason I clouded this set from Montreux -- taped at the peak of his 1970s chart-shredding powers -- as it plays almost like a live "greatest hits" thing of sorts.
Gordon Lightfoot
Montreux Jazz Festival
Casino
Montreux, Switzerland
6.26.1976

01 Race Among the Ruins  
02 The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald   
03 Summertime Dream  
04 I'd Do It Again
05 Never Too Close
06 The Last Time I Saw Her 
07 If You Could Read My Mind  
08 Don Quixote  
09 High & Dry  
10 Sundown
11 The Auctioneer
12 All the Lovely Ladies 
13 Christian Island
14 Old Dan's Records
15 I'm Not Supposed to Care
16 Canadian Railroad Trilogy 
17 Beautiful
18 Early Morning Rain
19 Spanish Moss

Total time: 1:13:24  

Gordon Lightfoot - guitar, vocals
Terry Clements - guitar, vocals
Pee Wee Charles - pedal steel guitar
Rick Haynes - bass, vocals
Barry Keane - drums

sounds like an off-air FM master reel
This is likely the most commonly circulated GL show, and for good reason.
The band is on, the man's in great voice, and the crowd is going wild for each and every song.
Someday a preFM source will surface -- like the remains of that steel hauling ship -- from the murky, archival depths, but for now this master FM grab sounds mighty spiffy if I do say so.
I will return on Thanksgiving in a few days with some more things for which to be thankful, but it's Gord's golden day and you should get this show if you don't already have it, and let it filter into your post-Summertime dream this weekend. Enjoy!--J.