No-one I know has even heard of him which seems incredible to me.
This is going to sound awfully elitist but I put it down to intellectual laziness.
I recently made a compilation cd for a friend, of GL and Warren Zevon, to encourage her to get into them. She loved the WZ but found GL ‘difficult’. Well, I love Warren Zevon, too but there is not (imho) the same thoughtful and poetic imagery in his songwriting as in GL’s. Maybe you do have to try harder to appreciate GL and some people are not prepared to travel that extra mile.
On the other hand, I made a compilation cd of GL (complete with snazzy artwork et al. I hope to god it never turns up on eBay) for my sister’s Christmas stocking (Yes, we still have stockings, even at our age) and she adores it and it goes everywhere with her. She’s already bought Sundown and I’ll give her Songbook for her birthday.
My mother used to love hearing me try to play Edmund Fitzgerald in my teens so I’ve just bought her his Complete Greatest Hits.
Maybe I shall have to make GL my personal crusade for 2004.
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