There are over 11,000 reviews on the Daily Vault.<\/p>\n
\tI have written (if my count is correct) 363 of them, during which I have waxed poetic and enthusiastic about my favorite artists and bands. Jason says I give out a lot of high grades, and he\u2019s right; I won\u2019t review an indie album that\u2019s not good. I\u2019d rather say nothing.<\/p>\n
\tBut I have never \u2013 WE have never \u2013 done a Gordon Lightfoot review. It took the Bard of the Northlands dying to make me realize this.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWell,\u201d I thought to myself, \u201cwe\u2019ll have to fix THAT.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThus cometh this review, hight Summertime Dream<\/i>. Released in 1976 at arguably the height of Lightfoot\u2019s chart success, it was recorded with a simple five piece band that included Terry Clements, Lightfoot\u2019s guitarist for four decades. While some list Lightfoot\u2019s genre as progressive folk, to me he is a storyteller who happens to have musical accompaniment, equal or superior to such luminaries as Jim Croce, Dan Fogelberg, and Harry Chapin. He\u2019s at his best in stripped down numbers like \u201cI\u2019m Not Supposed To Care\u201d… but I\u2019m getting ahead of myself.<\/p>\n
\tBecause the first question has to be, has anyone in folk music \u2013 hell, anyone everywhere \u2013 ever come up with as powerful an opening pair of songs for an album as \u201cRace Among The Ruins\u201d and \u201cThe Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald\u201d?<\/p>\n
\t\u201cRace\u201d is a powerful song whose musical tone is deceptively light; a deep and sorrowful song about someone who is losing everything, one infinitesimal bit at a time. It\u2019s deceptive; it doesn\u2019t seem to be much, and then the words begin to sink in. And \u201cWreck:…<\/p>\n
\tWhat do you say about \u201cWreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald\u201d that hasn\u2019t already been said? It is the greatest musical elegy of our time, recorded in two takes. The lyrics are bone-chilling (my favorite: \u201cThe wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound\u2026\u201d) Every single note is in place, nothing is extra, nothing is superfluous. It\u2019s perfect.<\/p>\n
\tThe night Lightfoot\u2019s death was announced, the Mariners\u2019 Church in Detroit rang their \u201cbells and chimes\u201d 30 times \u2013 29 for the men on the Fitz<\/i>, 1 for the man who immortalized and mourned them.<\/p>\n
\tThere are other notable songs on Summertime Dream<\/i>; I like the damned-be-the-consequences of \u201cI\u2019d Do It Again\u201d, the haunting anti-war \u201cProtocol\u201d, the rollicking title track \u2013 really, there are almost no miscues here.<\/p>\n
\tLightfoot was, at his best, simple, powerful, and moving. Those three adjectives suit Summertime Dream<\/i> very well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":34769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10851],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-46626","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-gordon-lightfoot","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46626"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}