Гордон Лайтфут (англ. Gordon Meredith Lightfoot, Jr., 17 ноября 1938, Ориллия — 1 мая 2023, Торонто) — канадский автор-исполнитель, получивший широкую известность на международной фолк-, кантри- и поп-сцене — прежде всего, благодаря таким песням как «Early Morning Rain» (1966), «If You Could Read My Mind» (1970), «Sundown» (1974, #1 USA), «Carefree Highway» (1974), «Rainy Day People» (1975) и «The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald» (1976, #2 USA). Семнадцать альбомов Гордона Лайтфута входили в Billboard 200, Sundown (1974) возглавил хит-парад.
В числе музыкантов, исполнявших песни Лайтфута, — Элвис Пресли, Джонни Кэш, Джерри Ли Льюис, Peter, Paul & Mary, Боб Дилан, Джуди Коллинз, Барбра Стрейзанд, Джонни Мэтис, Сэнди Денни, Тони Райс. Робби Робертсон, лидер The Band, назвал творчество Лайтфута «сокровищем национальной культуры».
Умер в Центре медицинских наук Саннибрук[en] в Торонто 1 мая 2023 года в возрасте 84 лет. Ухудшение здоровья заставило его отменить тур тремя неделями ранее.
Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian folk legend, dies at 84.
R.I.P.
Canadian folk-rock icon Gordon Lightfoot has died at the age of 84.
Lightfoot died at a Toronto hospital on Monday night of natural causes, according to his publicist. The singer-songwriter had long suffered from serious health problems that caused extensive hospitalization in 2002.
Lightfoot hailed from a tiny town in Ontario. He first made his name in Toronto's coffeehouse scene. There, he impressed folk music stars Ian and Sylvia, who helped introduce him to the world outside Canada by recording some of his songs. Lightfoot himself found international fame in 1971, with a song called "If You Could Read My Mind."
That song, says former Toronto Globe and Mail music critic Robert Everett Green, contains what would become some of Lightfoot's favorite themes: loss, longing and nostalgia.
"It's a song about inarticulateness," Everett Green said. "But somehow, it really makes an amazing case. Here's someone who really can't say what he wants to say, yet by singing about that inability, he connects."
Lightfoot's voice was raspy and regretful, the perfect complement to his rugged hinterlands look. But the hearty facade hid a roiling personal life.
In a 1983 NPR interview, Lightfoot – one year sober at the time – discussed his struggle with alcoholism. "The people that were very close to me were beginning to question my credibility and my decision-making process," he confessed, adding: "Now, the irony is that they still question my credibility and my decision-making process."
Many of Lightfoot's songs about Canadian wildlife, streets and weather doubled as cultural elegies — like his 1976 hit "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," a dramatic retelling of a real-life maritime disaster.