Free Republic

If you could read his mind, what a tale his thoughts could tell. So claimed Gordon Lightfoot in his 1970 breakout hit, the song that would launch his career as one of the most consistently satisfying singer-songwriters of the decade and would subsequently be recorded by some 300 other artists. There was a lot of musical confession in those days, with James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell and so many others wearing their hearts on their lyric sleeves. Yet Lightfoot generally kept his mind to himself. A reserved Canadian, he played his emotional cards comparatively close to his vest, rarely...

At age 75, the legendary songwriter and beloved recording artist Gordon Lightfoot is still working hard and enjoying it more than ever. The creator of such standards as If You Could Read My Mind, Early Morning Rain, Carefree Highway and Sundown still performs upwards of eighty concerts a year in North America. "We love the work" is the joyful mantra his associates hear him say all the time. Even after waking up from a six-week coma following a burst abdominal artery in 2002, Gordon worked from his hospital bed and polished the final tracks for his twentieth album. It would...