Re: "Lightfoot" Album Liner Notes
 

Ron,
ah yes, but Kris is a master of the written word..
;)

Re: "Lightfoot" Album Liner Notes
 

Having resurrected this thread two replies in particular caught my eye
the first very recent
the other from earlier this year

Quote:

Originally Posted by charlene (Post 101851) It seems that my scanner alo has OCR functions..

these reminded me that I have for a while wanted to present a little magnum opus guide showing what can be achieved with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) using as an example an old yellowing cutting.
I use the simply splended HP Director program that is part of the comprehensive scanning suite that is supplied with HP "All-In-One Printer/Scanner/Copiers, so pay attention Jesse Joe (he now has an HP PSC machine that hopefully came with the same or similar software to what I have here) and others who would like to use OCR , for Char with her I believe Canon equivalent things will be somewhat differrent but the same principles will apply
I still have a yellowing cutting from the May 4 1968 issue of the old Montreal Star about the series of GL concerts that week. I did in fact attend my very first GL thrillorama in a proper theatre,
http://old.blueminds.com/pictures/108_020_20_roll2.jpg
as opposed to the splendiferous New Penelope Coffee House where I had previously come under his spell one year before, onMay 10th (click for setlist)
the HP Director program is most intelligent to scan an image it has already found during installation what possible image and text handling/displaying programs are already on your computer. and if you select graphics there is a drop down list

http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lighTfoot/images/OCR3.jpg
and for text
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/images/OCR9.jpg

I produced the primary image scan

http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/images/OCR1.jpg
OK it is itself at that size quite readable
In order to extract the text by OCR it showed the relevant text editing programs: I selected Wordpad (as in many ways I prefer using that to the larger Word, primarily because it opens far quicker

http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/images/OCR2.jpg
trying to OCR complex document in one fell swoop can get confusing

http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/images/OCR4.jpg
So with multiple column pages such as this I find it best to scan then OCR one column at a time and gradually copy and paste into a master wordpad *.rtf (Rich Text Format) file. thus I used the grab handes to limit the are to be scanned progressively starting with the top of the first column

http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/images/OCR10.jpg
it scans direct to wordpad

http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/images/OCR5.jpg
then processes it to convert the scanned image to text

http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/images/OCR6.jpg
following which Wordpad opens to show the text ready for correcting

http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/images/OCR7.jpg
Unretouched image of uncorrected text (click to view it full sized)
Pretty darned good I reckon!
Oh yes there wax on the same page this theatre advert

http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/images/OCR8.jpg
It does not need OCR to read that just a whiff of nostalgia for the days long gone when the best seats at a Gord concerrt were a mere C$5.50 each (OK at the exchange rate then over US$6.00)
(of course ones salary was commensurately smaller too!!)
I completed the scanning and corrections, and here I intended showing the full text but that would grossly exceed the apparent text linit of 1000 charaxters so see my later message:-


Finally "rubbies," (which is as printed in the article)
I googled and could only find that they are some sort of girls clothing . Does anybody have any idea how that word fits into the text??
and note that like the Montreal Star (in its day the superior Montreal daily) the Toronto Telegram has gone to that great printing press in the sky

Re: "Lightfoot" Album Liner Notes
 

OK 1968 here is the text
The new music Lightfoot's impact
By Dick MacDonald
MANY young performers in the folk idiom, to paraphrase former Weaver Lee Hays, no longer suggest "let's play some Flatt and Scruggs." They probabIy say, instead,"let's sing some Lightfoot." And this is as good a yardstick as any to measure the impact the 30-year-old Canadian singer-composer has had on North American popular music.If the success of a song can be judged by its apparent qualities of longevity, there is little doubt a healthy collection of Gordon Lightfoot's tunes will persist.
A year ago, The Toronto Telegram said: "No performer in the nation mirrors the country with more sensitivity and beauty than Lightfoot. And come the second Centennial, many of his compositions will be learned as part of our school system."
Lightfoot, a native of Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Town (OriIlia,
Ont.) , is a folk poet of the first order. He was in Montreal last
year for appearances at Expo 67McGill University and the
NewPenelope coffeehouse.Tuesday, he starts a week-long
engagement at the MaisonneuveTheatre of. Place des Arts.
The smoke is. rising
in the shadows overhead,
My glass is almost empty.
I read again between the lines
upon the page,The words of love you sent me.
The songs display compassion,love, loneliness, anti-romance, the
down-and-outness of rubbies,humor wry or witty, bitterness.
They talk of things real.
The internationall:known artists who have recorded his material form a who's who in con temporary music of all ilks.
With eIoquent simplicity, he speaks of the physically tough men who opened Canada and the mentally-rugged men and women who still are building and creating and exploring this land.
We are the navvies who work
on the railway,
Swinging our hammers in the
bright blazin' sun.
Livin' on stew and drinkin' bad
whiskey,
Bending our backs 'til the rail
road is done.
He writes, too, of today, Black Day in July, stemming from the Detroit tragedy last year. Despite restricted play in northern cities of the United States following the
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, the poem has sold more than 50,000 copies to date - well over sales for previous Lightfoot single recordings.
And the hand. of the have-nots,
Keep falling out of reach..
His recently-released third album is selling beyond all expectations. Accompanied by bass and guitar, as usual, and drums and a violin section, there are hints of
over-arranging. One wouId be hard put to suggest this album,Did She Mention My Name, is either superior or inferior to the two earlier LPs. All are superb.In fact, the contents of the first two albums have been placed in four- and eight-track cartridge form, making Lightfoot the first Canadian artist to have recordings released internationally on tape.
With each passIng month, his schedule becomes busier. Since
February, he has swung from the Atlantic Provinces to central Can-
ada to California. CBC-TV broke a bit of tradition last month by cast-
ing an hour long program around him.
RPM MUSIC WEEKLY named him "top folk singer" in Canada,The Telegram gave him an After Four Award as "best Canadian
male singer." The ,Midem Trophy went to Lightfoot for his most-
record-sales-in Canada achievement in 1967. (Other Midem winners at Cannes,France included The Beatles, Frank Sinatra and
MireiIle Mathieu.) "
His background--a year's study at California's Westlake ColIege of
Music, C(h)oral singing for the CBC, a summer in England with his
own television country and western specials, dancing on Country
Hoedown and a growing number of club and concert engagements
from 1964 on has made him a polished and versatile musician.
Gordon Lightfoot is in the tradition of the troubador and minstrel.
If only you could see the closing
of the day;
If only you could see where the
dawn breaks away;
Where the mountain meets the
sky, and the white clouds
fly,
Where the long river. flows, by
my window.
THE .MONTREAL STAR, Mar 4, 1968

Re: "Lightfoot" Album Liner Notes
 

April 14 2009
I was just looking around some old email advices from corfid and found
a link to one of my old threads, that our newer members have probably never seen and might enjoy
The most recent posting from October 2007 had started with an OCR transcript of an old Montreal newspaper cutting from 1968 that I had left as narrow columns , so I have revised it to make it hopefully a bit more more readable.

Re: "Lightfoot" Album Liner Notes
 

A great article. Thanks for this John!

Re: "Lightfoot" Album Liner Notes
 

Rereading that I was prompted to find the actual Newsgroup posting by Thane (the producer of the wonderful Songbook boxset and a most notable Lighthead)
the post that he made in 1999 was in response to one subject
"An open letter to Thane:" at:-
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.m...d69ebc7d?hl=en
Thane's reply was titled appropriately
"An Open Letter *From* Thane" and is a thread at-
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.m...d66c19c16ff9f4
Elsewhere in this thread you can find the links to the various text articles in the Songbook booklet, itself a memorable work of art
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfo...klet_front.jpg
Enjoy!!