Spadina Ave...Toronto, eh!
Ya’kinda wonder how long Lightfoot woulda’ lasted without the alcoholism, drugs, cigarettes....he did say he would use alcohol to help him write. I think he stopped drinking after about 1985 or so. I believe he is at least co-equal with Bob Dylan as a writer. His voice was more “mellifluous” than Dylan in his heydey. Hear him do “Softly” on Johnny Cash show. Some of his less popular songs highlighting his ability to view different topics using different musical genres include ,Don Quixote, The Soul is the Rock, Redwood Hill, Ballad of Yarmouth Castle, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Crossroads, Sit down, young Stranger, Face of a Thousand people...too many to list.
Freegards.
Don Quixote when it was released c. 1973(?) sealed the deal for me, and it was more than the opening title track that kept my attention. My teenage sister brought home a copy and I was the one who wore it out by the time she finished high school.
This was a couple of years after Summer Side of Life was released; that was the first of Gord’s albums that I sat down and listened to with the sole interruption of flipping the vinyl LP over halfway through. It was also the first of my Big Sister’s LPs that I wore out.
Good times that I remember vividly while I still have every excuse to fixate on aspects my childhood that were objectively horrific and traumatizing. Go figure.