Gordon Lightfoot - Gordon Lightfoot - Complete Greatest Hits
|
List Price: Our Price: $8.06 You Save: $10.92 (58%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $6.25 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Gordon Lightfoot - Complete Greatest Hits
Free Music Review: A Great Album From a Music Legend
Hit: 5 Stars
Gordon Lightfoot is one of my favorite singers/songwriters of all time. He's one of the artists I would love to see in concert someday. This man is such a gifted and beautiful songwriter. Gordon has such a huge catalog of music, it just amazes me how he can remember all the lyrics when he performs his songs live. Not many people can write and perform songs like "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". There are not many gifted songwriters like this man. Gordon Lightfoot's lyrics and his voice just touch my heart and soul. Gordon's voice is like an old caring friend. He's like the legendary gifted Care Bear of music. When I feel down, I will listen to Kelly Clarkson, Vic Chesnutt, or Gordon Lightfoot's music. This is an excellent CD. My favorites are: "Race Among the Ruins", "If You Could Read My Mind","Bitter Green", "Stay Loose", "Restless", "Summer Side of Life", and "Beautiful". The most meaningful and personal song to me is: "Rainy Day People". I had a professor in Graduate School, Dr. Richard Beck, who was one of the best professors and advisors in my field that I ever had in my life. He was like a "second father" to me, and on the side of his professor duties, he was a great musician/guitar player, great husband and father to his Mexican wife and two kids, and he really knew a lot about music. I have a lot of respect for Dr. Beck, and he truly treated me like one of his family members. Anyways, he said that if there was one song in the world that perfectly described me and my personality, it was Gordon Lightfoot's "Rainy Day People". When I read the lyrics to that song and heard that song I was really touched. I was introduced to Gordon Lightfoot's music because of my "second father", Dr. Beck. And I will always remember his wife's excellent Mexican food while visiting Dr. Beck's family at home during my Graduate School years, how they proudly displayed the Mexican and Thai gifts I gave them through my Graduate School years on their desks, bookshelves, and walls, and Dr. Beck guitar jamming with his son and singing songs from Van Morrison, Jimmy Buffett, and the Eagles. Dr. Beck also got me into Miles Davis and Christopher Parkening's music. Anyways, I thank Dr. Richard Beck for introducing me to Gordon Lightfoot's music. Gordon Lightfoot's music is a true revelation. When I listen to "Rainy Day People", it will always remind me that there are people out there who care. Thank you, Gordon Lightfoot, for writing such heartfelt, caring, and touching songs such as "Rainy Day People". Gordon Lightfoot's music equals great memories. I highly recommend this CD. How can you not have a Gordon Lightfoot CD in your music collection? I can see why Gordon Lightfoot has his own postage stamp in Canada. He is a true music legend and icon.Free Music Review: The Greatest From The Greatest
Hit: 5 Stars
OK, I'm a devoted fan. I admit it. But this 20 song collection is just the best single CD hits collection there is. Of course, when you look at the song titles, you will know that it has to be.It is the first Lightfoot single CD greatest hits collection to have the original version of all of his top charting songs, and also his original recording of songs that were hits for others before he was well established as a singer. So you find If You Could Read My Mind, Sundown, Carefree Highway and Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald - the original recordings - as well as beautiful early recordings of such folks standards as Early Mornin' Rain, For Lovin' Me and Canadian Railroad Trilogy. In the only departure from "original" recordings, The Circle Is Small is the rerecording from Endless Wire, but this is the recording that charted. And, in his inimitable style, Lightfoot personally selected the final cut, the song Restless from the out of print 1993 album Waiting For You. Lightfoot loves the song, and when you hear it - perhaps for the first time - you will too.
So, put together, you have an outstanding single CD collection - for the casual music lover or for the devoted Lightfoot fan. Even if you have all these songs on CD already (and the devoted fan probably does), you don't have them sounding like this! The remastering is unbelievably exquisite; it is almost hard to believe, but some of the songs sound even better than on the Songbook boxed set! There are four songs here that aren't on the boxed set, and these sound much better than on the original CD. Also, two of the hits are from the single (vs. album) mix, so they really are somewhat different.
The single mix of If You Could Read My Mind includes harmony vocals (by Lightfoot) that are not on the album version. The boxed set used the album version of every song (that had been on an album ever), while here Bill Inglot (who did the remastering for both Rhino Lightfoot releases) went to the single. The single version was also previously used on Gord's Gold, but the sound doesn't compare.
And for Sundown also, Inglot went to the single. I still don't have a definite explanation of the difference, but you have only to listen to this cut and the one from any other CD and you will know you are hearing something different. And really great.
Finally, Rhino has packaged this new greatest hits CD in their characteristic loving manner: full of photos, biographical text, and complete track notes. Thane Tierney (who co-produced the boxed set with Lightfoot), is the producer of this collection and he has done himself proud.
If you don't have it yet, what are you waiting for?
Free Music Review: Best Single Disc Retrospective Available
Hit: 5 Stars
Until now, Canadian Gordon Lightfoot - the most folk-oriented of the singer-songwriters who made it big on the pop charts in the `70s - has never had a single disc retrospective of his work that was even remotely worthy of him. His prior collections on Reprise (1975's Gord's Gold and, especially, 1988's Gord's Gold 2) were filled with inferior remakes of many of his most celebrated recordings.Complete Greatest Hits is a vast improvement over those sets, with the original versions of all of his best-known songs. It leads off with six recordings from his years at United Artists (1965-1969). While Lightfoot's warm, deep voice and engaging melodies were present even on these early efforts, it was others who initially charted with his songs, such as Peter, Paul, & Mary with the enclosed "Early Morning Rain" and "For Lovin' Me."
In 1970, Lightfoot signed with Warner Brothers subsidiary Reprise (highlights of his twenty-plus years at this label make up the remaining fourteen tracks found here). Soon after signing with Reprise, Lightfoot began to make a name for himself as a singer with the introspective top five hit "If You Could Read My Mind." He also continued to write songs that were popularized by others, such as the enclosed "Cotton Jenny" for fellow Canadian Anne Murray.
In the early 70s, singer-songwriters became the rage in popular music and Lightfoot certainly contributed to the movement's success with the big hits "Sundown," "Carefree Highway," and "Rainy Day People." His 1976 six minute-plus epic "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" would prove to be Lightfoot's artistic peak as well as his final major commercial success, although he would continue to make some fine music during the rest of the `70s.
Lightfoot's `80s output is represented here by the set's two most generic, forgettable recordings: "Baby Step Back" and "Stay Loose." The compilers of this collection would have been better off ditching those tracks and selecting a couple of the countless gems not included from his United Artists tenure, such as the breezy "Did She Mention My Name" or "Black Day in July," an intensely hypnotic account of the '67 race riots in Detroit (get the double-disc United Artists Collection for a thorough overview of this period).
Complete Greatest Hits concludes on a positive note with "Restless," a 1993 ode that finds Lightfoot descriptively ruminating about looking forward to the future while not forgetting the past. It reminds us of what a special observer and documenter he has been of life's events, both monumental and trivial.
Free Music Review: Wow. I thought it was tough cutting down to 88 songs...
Hit: 5 Stars
[Full disclosure: I produced this album (which is to say "selected the tracks on"; I didn't actually twist any knobs) and wrote the liner notes, as well as having co-produced the Lightfoot box set Songbook. Please course-correct as you feel appropriate.]
The inherent hazard in putting together a collection from as prolific and talented an artist as Gordon Lightfoot (not that one often has the chance, mind you --- there aren't many in his class out there) is that something inevitably gets lost. With only 20 tracks available to me, I wasn't even able to pick one song for every year he's been performing, so of course some very fine material got left off. I hate it when that happens. My natural inclination would have been to call the record something like "Gordon Lightfoot: An Introduction," but my inner marketing geek (as well as every other marketing geek at Rhino) told me it wasn't as compelling a title.
The thinking behind this was to put together a single disc with all the Billboard charting hits from both the UA/EMI and WB/Reprise years, plus a smattering of the FM turntable hits and later work. Its purpose was to give the casual fan one-stop shopping (previously, one had to buy Gord's Gold, Gord's Gold 2 and one of the many EMI compilations to amass all the hits), and to serve as a point of entry for someone who has recently encountered Gordon's work for the first time and doesn't know exactly where to begin.
I hope and believe it serves those two purposes admirably, or at the very least, adequately. The sound producer, Bill Inglot, worked his customary magic on the tracks that hadn't been upgraded for the Songbook box set; he has just completed similar magic on Old Dan's Records and Dream Street Rose, which will make their belated CD debut in July 2002 (I just approved the refs today).
Whatever flaws there are in the disc can be attributed to me, and whatever is good about it can be laid at the feet of several people, not the least of whom is Mr. Lightfoot his own self.
My greatest hope is that the music on this disc will inspire you to dig deeper into the rich vein of Lightfoot's art and craft. He truly is a Canadian (and American, in the broadest sense of the word) treasure.
Thane Tierney, Producer, Rhino Records/WEA Distribution
Free Music Review: Terrific Compilation Of Gordon's Greatest Hits!
Hit: 5 Stars
I have always been a fan of Canadian Gordon Lightfoot's music. From the first time I heard Peter, Paul and Mary's wonderful covers of Lightfoot songs like "Early Morning Rain" and "For Loving Me", I knew anyone who could write songs like that was a huge talent. So when I got turned onto his own voice and music I was astonished by just how good he was (and still is). This is a perfect album because it traces the course of his rather singularly spectacular career so faithfully. T the song cycle presented here is unforgettable, because it has so many terrific Lightfoot songs back to back. From the first song in this incredible four CD collection, he shows why he is so famous and so popular. And likewise he threads his way through twenty something beautiful and memorable songs, from the early works like to later works like "Sundown", "Rainy Day People", and "If You Could Read My Mind'. And so on with each of the songs here. My personal favorites are "Sundown", "Carefree Highway", and "Beautiful", but I really love them all. There are literally way too many to list here, so I will resist the temptation to list them all. In addition, one gains access to a number of lovely later songs such as "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald", "The Circle Is Small", "Baby Step Back", and one of my all time favorites, "Race Among The Ruins". If one listens to all of the similarly terrific albums Lightfoot put out over more than a decade one comes up with literally dozens and dozens of wonderful and memorable songs that fill this great compilation, which wonderfully summarizes Lightfoot's long and illustrious career. This guy was far more prolific than anyone else producing work in the sixties, seventies and eighties. Buy this compilation album, and after listening to it for a week or so you will be back for "Sundown", "Don Quixote", "Summertime Dream", "Cold On The Shoulder" and "If You Could Read My Mind". They are all great. Enjoy this one of a kind artist and his amazingly consistent flood of terrific and appealing mainstream folk albums.