Gordon Lightfoot

The anthemic "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" stands as one of Gordon Lightfoot's most enduring songs, breathtaking in its scope. "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is the most popular historically based folk song since perhaps Woody Guthrie sang about Pretty Boy Floyd or Sacco & Vanzetti. But G.L. also can sing a tender love song with the best of them, as heard in "Song for a Winter's Night."

One of the better tunes from Gordon Lightfoot's latter-day career is a cover of Bob Dylan's "Ring Them Bells." He takes a rare turn singing in French with "Nous Vivons Ensemble." And in songs like "10 Degrees and Getting Colder," the elegance of his imagery is revealed: "He was standing by the highway/With a sign that just said 'Mother'/When he heard a driver comin'/'bout a half a mile away." Pure poetry.

Hearing horn and string arrangements in early songs such as "I Want to Hear It from You" will shatter preconceptions of those familiar only with Gordon Lightfoot's Warner Bros.-era recordings. On the other hand, some early tunes, such as "Long Way Back Home," are quite spare in their arrangement. And be sure to check out two great latter-day sea songs: "Ode to Big Blue" and "Ghosts of Cape Horn."

Gordon Lightfoot is so ingrained in Canadian culture, many people actually believe that he wrote the Canadian national anthem. Considering that "O Canada" didn't become the national anthem until 1980, the confusion is not entirely unexpected, but the tune actually predates the tunesmith by nearly 60 years. Lightfoot has been recording for more than 40 years, but his primary commercial success in the U.S. came during the singer-songwriter-friendly '70s. He's a member of the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame. Between 1965 and 1977, he won a Juno Award (the Canadian equivalent of the GRAMMY®) for either Best Folk Singer or Best Male Singer every year except 1973.