It may be surprising to Baby Boomers to learn that Gordon Lightfoot isn’t a name familiar to everyone.
But play “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Carefree Highway” or “Sundown,” and in a few bars everyone knows those iconic songs of a generation.
Go to YouTube. You will too. (Plus, “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”)
This news will certainly thrill the Boomers: Gordon Lightfoot will be performing a benefit at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 31, at the Foothills Performing Arts & Civic Center.
The proceeds will be use to buy the stage curtains necessary so Oneonta’s recently completed 634-seat theater – Foothills’ centerpiece – will be able to host national acts routinely.
“He’s a wonderful singer and a songwriter,” said jazz singer Dana Marcine of Cooperstown, who has performed at the Autumn Cafe and other local venues.
While the wavy-haired, dreamy-eyed folk singer of yesteryear is now 72, recent reviews conclude that, backed up by “a terrific band,” he still delivers.
“...The lifelong habit of top-loading every phrase with emphasis has paid off in the autumn of his career, when it is truly difficult for him to sustain the volume throughout,” Curtis Scheiber wrote in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch. “His attack sounds nearly as natural today as it did 40 years ago.”
And “If You Could Read My Mind” is a vibrant part of the North American musical canon, performed by such other artists at Barbra Streisand, Johnny Cash, Don McLean, Olivia Newton-John and Glen Campbell.
The version by The Spotnicks was adopted like an unofficial theme for the 1972 Summer Olympics.
His honors include 16 Juno Awards and four ASCAP awards for songwriting, and he has been nominated for five Grammys. In 1974, Lightfoot’s song “Sundown” was named pop record of the year by the Music Operators of America.
Tickets are $75 and $60 and may be purchased online at www.foothillspac.org and at the following Oneonta locations: The Eighth Note Music Store, Five Star Subaru, The Green Toad Bookstore and Music Square.
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| Grodon Lightfoot |
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