The trip was funded in part by money saved from a job delivering linens to resorts around his hometown. Attempts to sell the song went nowhere so at 18, he headed to the U.S. After taking the class again, he graduated in 1957.īy then, Lightfoot had already penned his first serious composition - “The Hula Hoop Song,” inspired by the popular kids’ toy that was sweeping the culture. Perhaps distracted by his taste for music, he flunked algebra the first time. He strummed his first guitar in 1956 and began to dabble in songwriting in the months that followed. The appeal of those early days stuck and in high school, his barbershop quartet, The Collegiate Four, won a CBC talent competition. I was playing at weddings, all the various clubs, the Ladies’ Auxiliary.”

“I remember the thrill of being in front of the crowd,” Lightfoot said in a 2018 interview. At age 13, the soprano won a talent contest at the Kiwanis Music Festival, held at Toronto’s Massey Hall. He began singing in his church choir and dreamed of becoming a jazz musician. While Lightfoot’s parents recognized his musical talents early on, he didn’t set out to become a renowned balladeer. “I just like to stay there and be a part of the totem pole and look after the responsibilities I’ve acquired over the years,” he said in a 2001 interview.īut he was humble about his status: “How does it feel to be an icon? It makes me feel no different as a human entity on the face of the planet.” Often described as a poetic storyteller, Lightfoot remained keenly aware of his cultural influence. “I take situations and write poems about them.”

“I simply write the songs about where I am and where I’m from,” he once said. His 1975 song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” chronicled the demise of a Great Lakes ore freighter, and 1966’s “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” depicted the construction of the railway. Most of his songs are deeply autobiographical with lyrics that probe his own experiences in a frank and unclouded manner and explore issues surrounding the national identity.

Dozens of artists have covered his work, including Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Anne Murray, Jane’s Addiction, Sarah McLachlan and, perhaps most surprisingly, dance supergroup Stars on 54 who turned his classic “If You Could Read My Mind” into a disco-pop curiosity for the 1998 movie “54.”

Half past midnight stephen king