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Text from Rhino-Records:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: APRIL 15, 1999
RHINO READS GORDON LIGHTFOOT'S MIND!
Gordon Lightfoot Songbook. Due June 15 Features Previously Unreleased
Tracks and Other Rarities Lightfoot Tours in Support of Songbook
LOS ANGELES -- Warner Archives/Rhino proudly announces the June 15
release date of GORDON LIGHTFOOT SONGBOOK, a comprehensive 4-CD box
set spanning 1962-1998 and featuring 88 tracks, including 16 previously
unreleased and 17 making their CD debut. Lightfoot will embark on
a tour in support of this release. (Tour dates are included).
"In the folk world," says Thane Tierney, GORDON LIGHTFOOT
SONGBOOK co-producer and Rhino's Director of Catalog Development,
"Lightfoot is virtually without peer. His praises have been sung
by Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan, and many others."
Showcasing the singer-songwriter's catalog of folk, country, and pop
performances, the GORDON LIGHFOOT SONGBOOK is the first-ever cross-licensed
Lightfoot package and will carry a suggested retail price of $59.98/CD
only. Lightfoot, to Rhino's delight, took an active role in compiling
this definitive collection.
"The wheels for this project started turning in the summer of
'98, when Thane Tierney came out to see our show at Concerts By The
Sea in San Diego," says Lightfoot in his self-penned forward
to the box set. (After a few discussions, the wheels were set fully
in motion, and Lightfoot agreed to help select tracks from his 19
original Albums in addition to rarities.) "Rarities were a challenge
at first. Some legwork had to be done. Some earlier judgment calls
had to be reversed and emotions kept at bay. By the time the sleuthing
was done, we had uncovered a number of tracks that surprised even
me."
Artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Jerry Lee Lewis,
Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, Fairport Convention,
Olivia Newton-John, Jane's Addiction, and Bob Dylan have sung Lightfoot's
songs. Even fellow Canadians Ron Sexsmith and Sarah McLachlan have
recently recorded Lightfoot-penned compositions. Many of those original
recordings appear on GORDON LIGHTFOOT SONGBOOK, including "Early
Morning Rain," "For Lovin' Me," "If You Could
Read My Mind," and "The Way I Feel."
Best known in the United States for his pop hits "If You Could
Read My Mind" (1970) and "Sundown" (1974), Lightfoot
remains one of popular music's most underrated performers. A troubadour
of the `60s Canadian folk scene, the Ontario, Canada, native established
himself as a prolific songwriting talent with a romantic's poetic
vision and a storyteller's knack for capturing the moment. With the
1970 release of Sit Down Young Stranger and its pop hit, "If
You Could Read My Mind," Lightfoot became a success in his own
right. With "Sundown," "Carefree Highway," and
"The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald," he became an international
star.
For more information, review copies, or to request an interview with
Gordon Lightfoot, please contact Cathy
Williams at Rhino Media Relations.
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An institution north of the Canadian border, Gordon Lightfoot is
practically the living embodiment of what many think of as the national
character. Stoic, weathered, and hard-working, Lightfoot practices
a husky brand of folk music that's as timeless as the Canadian landscape
that seems to loom above his most memorable melodies. This overdue
four-disc retrospective stretches all the way back to 1962, when the
Ontario-born performer tried to make it in Nashville, up to 1998;
16 previously unreleased tracks and another 17 previously available
only on vinyl add meat to its frame. Yes, the familiar tunes are here--"For
Lovin' Me" (a hit for both Peter, Paul & Mary and Ian &
Sylvia), "Early Morning Rain," "If You Could Read My
Mind," "Sundown," "Carefree Highway," and
the oft-parodied but truly evocative "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
But Songbook, like the artist it commemorates, isn't defined by radio
staples. It's about the splendid expanse that is the decades-long
career of a true musical workhorse. --Steven Stolder
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