THE BIOGRAPHY OF GORDON LIGHTFOOT : A brief look into the life, career, music, background, surprising facts, and death of the most significant Canadian folk music icon Gordon Lightfoot

Book Synopsis: Gordon Lightfoot's biography was written by TOBY LOWE. On November 17, 1938, Lightfoot was born in Orillia, Ontario. He began singing in church at the age of five, and at the age of 10, he placed second in a local talent competition. His mother, who had a passion for music, immediately noticed her son's gift. After winning a music competition at the Toronto Kiwanis Festival in 1951, Lightfoot began studying piano and voice at the age of 12, learning the fundamentals of both pop and classical styles. In 1951, he took part in a special concert at Toronto's Massey Hall, which is widely regarded as Canada's equivalent of New York's Carnegie Hall in terms of prestige. After his voice changed, Lightfoot taught himself how to play the guitar, joined the folk group the Teen Timers, started singing and playing drums, and joined a barbershop quartet. He relocated to California after finishing high school to attend Westlake College of Music to pursue orchestration and jazz composition. While Lightfoot found work in Hollywood singing on demo tapes and commercial jingles, he didn't enjoy life there and moved back to Toronto to concentrate on his folk and country music. He joined the Swinging Eight in 1960 and performed with them for two years on the well-known Canadian television program Country Hoedown. He also established a singing duet called the Two Tones with Terry Whalen. The Two Tones were successful enough to perform at Canada's renowned Mariposa Folk Festival and release an album in 1962, but the group was short-lived. In 1963, Lightfoot tried his luck in Europe by visiting Great Britain and presenting an eight-week BBC-TV series called The Country & Western Show. The song "Remember Me (I'm the One)," a brooding pop ballad, was a regional success in Canada at this point, and he had started doing sporadic solo performances.