Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot passed away Monday night from complications related to emphysema. He was 84.
Just last month he canceled over a dozen upcoming concerts in Arizona, California and Florida due to “some health-related issues” with his spokesperson asking that his privacy be respected as he "continues to focus on his recovery."
Lightfoot wrote hundreds of songs, including iconic hits like “Early Morning Rain,” “If You Can Read My Mind,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway,” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
Lightfoot recalled Bob Dylan as an influence, and Dylan was a fan of Lightfoot’s, saying, “Every time I hear a song of his it’s like I wish it would last forever.”
Dylan inducted Gordon into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1986, and called him a “rare talent.” In the 2019 documentary Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind. Rush frontman Geddy Lee called Lightfoot Canada’s “poet laureate” and “our iconic singer-songwriter.”
Gordon was born on November 17th, 1938, in Orillia, Ontario. Lightfoot battled many health issues throughout his career, including alcoholism, a life-threatening abdominal hemorrhage and aneurysm in 2002 that left him in a coma for six weeks, also a minor stroke in 2006, and emphysema.
Get more Gordon Lightfoot on iHeartRadio, keyword Gordon Lightfoot.
[Source: Classic Hits Today]