>> Jeyan: "The Agenda's" week in review is devoted this time entirely to the one and only
Gordon Lightfoot.
>> the first year of Mariposa, 1961 he was not accepted to the in the lineup because he sounded
too much like the Everly brothers and Gord commented on that on our main stage last year
and he said that couldn't be all bad to be compared to the Everly brothers.
1962 he was accepted and his career was taking off.
And I would say Gord's been a huge supporter of not only the community of Orillia and various
institutions in the community.
But also Mariposa.
So in 2000, when Mariposa came back to Orillia after, you know, a very nomadic journey across
Ontario, Gordon was the headliner for the first year back and that ensured the
success of Mariposa going forward.
People bought tickets to see him.
He waved his fee and it really set Mariposa on a road of success that we haven't turned
our back on in the last 23 years so we're certainly grateful for that.
>> Steve: That's an extraordinarily generous thing for him to have done
particularly since the place rejected him hat first.
Wouldn't you want the name and address of the person who had the TEMERITY to reject him in
1961.
>> that's kind of like rock and roll was out and refusing to sign the Beatles but he was in
his formative years in the 1960s.
He hit his stride starting about the mid-60s.
And I think he was embraced by Canada for a number of reasons then.
He was in the right place at the right time.
Because let's go back to '67, '68.
Canada had just celebrated its centennial.
It was this young country with lots of promise.
Expo 67 in Montreal.
We had the Yorkville scene in Toronto that two-square block area north of downtown where it
was a breeding ground, an incubator for so many acts.
Neil young, Joni Mitchell, Buffy Ste-Marie, John Kay, Rick James.
It goes on and on.
By the time we get to the early 1970s his sound was such that, like I said earlier, he was an
international phenomenon.
As a matter of fact, I think that people who did not grow up with Gord in the 1970s, that
time when he was at his commercial peak don't realize exactly how big an artist he was
globally and what kind of an interest he had on so many other songwriters around the planet
including the biggest names you want to mention.
>> Steve: This would have been one of those hits that made him just a superstar.
Sheldon, let's go.
♪ the legend lives on from the Chippewa on down ♪ the big lake they call gitche
Gumee ♪ ♪ the lake, it is said, never gives up her dead ♪.
♪ When the skies of November turn gloomy ♪ ♪ With a load of iron ore
twenty-six thousand tons more ♪ ♪ than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty ♪
>> Steve: I don't know how to answer this question I barely know how to ask it.
But Allen, you first and then to Pam.
You wouldn't necessarily have thought that there was a hit record in a song that goes into
such engineering specifics about the sinking of a ship in a Great Lake and he did it as well with
the Canadian railroad trig that was commissioned by CBC in 1967 to celebrate our centennial and
was an ODE to the railroad that goes into chapter and verse about this in a long, long song.
How do you take that kind of specificity, Allen, and turn it into a hit record?
>> it's very difficult.
I want to say thank you Gordon Lightfoot for "the wreck of an Edmund Fitzgerald" because as a
radio person and we had deadlines every three minutes there was nog nothing like that
song to give somebody a little bit of a bathroom break.
Thank you very much.
Also my favourite Canadian song ever written in 6/8 time.
It was very interesting what Gord was able to do.
Because I think a lot of us of a certain age grew up with Canadian history being forced on
us.
This idea that it was like broccoli.
Like vegetables.
Yeah, it's not as exciting as some of the other histories of other countries but, you know,
this is where you live, this is what you should be paying attention to.
Consume it.
It's good for you.
And there was that sense of, you know, almost cheesiness with some people who were doing that
back in those days but for whatever reason Gordon Lightfoot was able to take all these
Canadianisms and make them palatable and make them compelling.
And make them singable.
And this is something that we have not seen with a lot of our performers.
I guess the best contemporary example would be Gord Downey.
In fact I would go so far as to say if it weren't for Gord Lightfoot there wouldn't be a
Gord Downey and the success that the tragically hip had with all their Canadianisms.
>> Steve: Pam, I have no doubt but that the Canadian railroad trimming was played in
classrooms all over the country and taught kids that there was a time in this fair land when the
railroad did not run and that's how we learned about the laying of the CPR, et cetera.
For you, how do those songs break through despite the fact that they may also be treatises
in engineering as well.
>> the songs have been with me my whole country as they have my mother and grandmother.
Yesterday my nephew sent me a text of his 3-day old nephew listening to Gordon Lightfoot.
His music spans all generations for sure.
I heard an unverified account that not only did the bells ring 29 times for the lost sailors it
rang 30 for Gord.
That's really moving.
In 2007 when Gord sang about the Edmund Fitzgerald at Mariposa the skies open.
The rain poured down.
What more fitting background to that song?
And I tell you the audience did not move.
They stayed in place.
And listened to Gord play on.
It was really quite a moment in time.
>> Steve: That's a beautiful story.
Surprisingly enough, despite all the great songs that he wrote and sang, I think only one
number one hit.
And I think this is it.
Sheldon, if you would.
>> ♪ sundown ♪ ♪ you better take care ♪
♪ if I find you've been creeping down my back stair ♪ ♪ sundown ♪
♪ you better take care ♪ ♪ if I find you've been creeping down my back stair.
♪ she's been looking like a queen in a sailor's dream ♪ ♪ and she don't always say what
she really means ♪ >> Steve: Again, I think there's a back story here about a
tumultuous relationship that went south.
Can you fill in some blanks for us?
>> my all-time favourite Gordon Lightfoot song simply because of the lyrical word play, the
harmonies, the haunting groove that goes along with it.
1974, number one hit in America.
With a back story.
Around that time, Gord, still living in Toronto, was hanging around with a woman named Kathy
Smith.
They had, I guess some kind of relationship.
But in 1975 or 1976, she moves to Los Angeles.
But not before she inspires Gordon Lightfoot to write "sundown."
And maybe one or two other songs.
She goes to Los Angeles where she becomes a drug dealer.
And ends up being the supplier to people like Keith Richards and Ron wood of the rolling
stones.
And then in March of 1982 she becomes infamous as the person who injected that fatal speed
ball into John Belushi.
So there are so many layers to this particular song that you can get lost in that rabbit hole
for quite some time.
>> Steve: The same Kathy Evelyn Smith.
Okay.
I didn't realize that.
That is -- okay.
All right.
Let's in our remaining moments here get your favourite Gordon Lightfoot memories.
Pam, you want to start us off?
What's your favourite?
>> there are so many.
I mean certainly Gord graced the stage at Mariposa so many times.
Sometimes as a hired performer.
Sometimes he would just show up in the parking lot with his guitar and come across.
I think the memory that will stay with me the longest at this point is his induction into the
Mariposa hall of fame in 2022.
He was so happy and so gracious.
And, of course, we had a number of artists who played a medley during that induction ceremony.
Tom Wilson curated it.
And we had blue rodeo on-site and they participated as did blacky and the rodeo kings.
As we were getting ready for the induction ceremony Tom would come out and say the good
brothers are playing now.
Hi it choreographed to the second.
Tom would come out Gord wants the good brothers, okay.
Then he would say Gord wants SERENA Ryder.
No one says no to Gord.
At that point I threw the schedule to the wind and said whatever Gord wants.
Gord played first, which wasn't in the schedule.
But, you know, we just ran with it.
Tom was great.
He was able to get all the artists plugged in and hooked up.
Our production team rose to the occasion and it was such a moment for Gord and for the
audience.
And when I took him to the car -- his car that night he held my hand and he had a tear
in his eye and he just thanked me from the bottom of his heart for that honour.
He was just such a humble and gracious person.
>> Steve: I have to follow up on that because that's a glorious story.
I mean, artists grow up I dreaming of playing Madison Square Garden or dreams of
playing the rose bowl or some massive venue.
They don't necessarily tear up after playing a folk festival in their small central Ontario
hometown.
What do you think it was about you and about it that made him do that?
>> I think it was being back in Orillia.
Playing the second festival.
And playing the festival so many times over and having the industry artists join him in
that honour.
Gord loved to play to people.
He loved to play to his audiences and they loved to have him play.
So I think it was just a moment in time and he was just very gracious and generous.
>> Steve: Allan, how but, a favourite memory?
>> I will take this in a completely different direction.
Here is a list of some of the people who have covered Gordon Lightfoot songs.
Elvis Presley, Johnny cash, Barbara Streisand, Neil young, Glen Campbell, Olivia newton
John.
Johnny Mathis, Paul Willer, the tragically hip.
Jim CROCE and about a dozen others.
But I left the punch line out.
His biggest fan was probably Bob DYLAN.
>> Jeyan: That's just one story we covered this week.
You can find much more on our website tvo.org.
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