Canadian folk music legend, Gordon Lightfoot, has died at the age of 84, according to a family representative. Lightfoot had cancelled his 2023 tour dates due to health reasons which were not specified at the time. He was widely regarded as Canada’s greatest songwriter and was one of the founding fathers of folk-rock. Lightfoot’s music was popular across borders and genres, with songs like “The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald”, “Ribbon of Darkness” and “If You Could Read My Mind” being recorded by the likes of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Barbra Streisand. He was born in Orillia, Ontario in 1938 and began singing in his early childhood. After studying jazz composition and orchestration in California, he moved back to Canada in 1960 and established himself as an artist without capitulating to the US music industry. Lightfoot continued to produce hit songs throughout the 80s and 90s and was performing up to 50 shows a year even in the 90s, despite his heavy drinking and smoking habits. He underwent treatment for cirrhosis in 1982 and survived a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm in 2002 and a small stroke in 2006.
In the music industry, Lightfoot was widely respected, and he was referred to as a “national treasure” by Robbie Robertson of The Band, and Bob Dylan himself said he wished Lightfoot’s songs could “last forever”. Throughout his career, he did not shy away from controversy and recorded a song called “Black Day in July” about the Detroit racial riots in 1967, which many US states pulled from their radio rotations. Despite this setback, Lightfoot’s career continued to flourish. He was commissioned by CBC to write “The Canadian Railroad Trilogy” in 1967 to celebrate Canada’s centennial, which cemented his status in Canadian musical history. Although he suffered from health issues, Lightfoot never stopped performing and writing music. He passed away leaving behind an unparalleled legacy in Canadian and global music history.