A newfound energy could be heard on his next album, Salute, and songs such as Knotty Pine and Whispers of the North, two further contemplations on the Canadian wilderness. An alcohol-free lifestyle, along with a new regimen of regular exercise to replace the marathon canoe trips, brought dramatic changes, as he dropped 20 pounds. Lightfoot cleaned up his act in 1982, after a drunk-driving conviction and Ms. Marshal Morrie Nathan, a lawman who spends most of his screen time pursuing Bruce Dern’s title character.) Dylan, Levon Helm and Ronnie Hawkins, tried acting. Lightfoot, following the lead of buddies such as Mr. But he also developed a serious drinking problem, which caused his weight to balloon – most noticeably in the Western movie Harry Tracy, Desperado, in which Mr. He responded in typical fashion, throwing himself even deeper into his work, spending long hours at his favourite writing desk, penning hits like Carefree Highway and Rainy Day People. She received what was then the largest settlement in Canadian legal history. Olaisson, who had two children together, divorced after many affairs and fractious years. Songwriting and touring were all-consuming for the work-obsessed musician. Lightfoot admitted that his highly successful career was having a “devastating effect” on his personal life. Plum Communications Inc.Īs early as 1975, Mr. Pillars of Canadiana: Anne Murray, Lightfoot and Stompin' Tom Connors at the 1973 Junos. As he later explained, he “understood how vicious Lake Superior can be in a gale.” He brought that personal insight to one of his biggest and most beloved hits, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a moving, factual account of the sinking of an ore carrier.

Songs like Canary Yellow Canoe were inspired by his many canoe trips in Northern Canada, while Christian Island (Georgian Bay) and Seven Island Suite arose from his sailing adventures on the Great Lakes. One of his earliest compositions, Steel Rail Blues, came out of an 18-hour pilgrimage he made by train to Moosonee in Northern Ontario, “absorbing the whistle-stops,” as he put it.

Lightfoot’s talent came through in songs that displayed his deep connection with the Canadian landscape.

Lightfoot was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1986, Mr. Lightfoot singing his Ballad in Plain D in an upstairs bedroom. Dylan, who was making a film at the time, recorded Mr. Lightfoot invited the entire cast back to his Rosedale mansion for a party, Mr. Dylan took his Rolling Thunder Revue to Toronto in 1975, he dedicated Dark as a Dungeon, an old folk standard Mr. Dylan once remarked, “it’s like I wish it would last forever.” Lightfoot were members of a mutual admiration club. July 16, 1972: Lightfoot with Bob Dylan at the Mariposa Folk Festival on the Toronto Islands.

The winternight trilogy set