GORDON LIGHTFOOT The Very Best Of Volumes 1 & 2 (Beat Goes On)

Aug 4 2008 By Bev Bevan

SLIGHTLY misleading title this, as these two albums, now re-packaged onto one CD, do not include Gordon Lightfoot’s US top tenners Sundown, The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald, Carefree Highway and If You Could Read My Mind. What this compilation does have, though, is a concise overview of the Canadian singer-songwriter’s formative years.

Born in Orilla, Ontario in 1938, he went on to attend the Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles, but soon returned home and by 1965 was voted Canada’s Singer of the year.

Pick of these tracks is the beautiful Early Morning Rain (recently covered by Paul Weller ), For Loving Me, Did She Mention My Name, and a folky arrangement of the Ewan McColl song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (later a big hit for Roberta Flack).