The Gord Lightfoot I Knew

Gord Lightfoot passed away yesterday. He was 84 and he lived a hell of a life. My wife Heather and I were part of that life back in the late seventies. Heather was the first employee of Attic Records, which was started by Tom Williams and Al Mair, who was, at the time, Gord’s manager. They actually started the label in Gord’s Office on Davenport Street, which is where I first met him.

During that time Gord decided he wanted a new house and his sister, Bev and Heather went looking for one. They found a pretty massive house on Beaumont Road, which Gord really liked. The house had a coach house over the garage and so Gord asked Heather if she and I would like to live in it. He didn’t charge us any rent, so all we paid for was the utilities, and away we went on a three-year adventure over Gord’s garage.

Gord did a lot of his gigs on the weekend and part of the deal with us is that we would use the house while he was gone. Mostly it was just turning the lights on and off. But he had a pool table in one of the rooms so we would play the odd game. Gord was drinking a bit at the time and every so often he would shout out to Heather to come and let him in because he couldn’t make his key work. Gord really liked Heather. She knew how to deal with him.

Over the three years we were there all got to know each other pretty well. Gord would take us out to dinner at Bigliardi’s Steakhouse on Jarvis Street. Then we would ride around downtown in his Cadillac convertible Heather and I in the back, Gord and his girl Cathy Jo Coonley in the front.

One day when I was home Gord came over and we had a long talk about songwriting. He explained his process to me, which involved writing all the music for about fifteen songs and then going to his writing room over in Forest Hill and spending two or three days writing all the lyrics. Then he would get his band together and everybody would add to the songs.

Every once in a while he would get an idea for a lyric and find a melody to go with it. I remember one night we were having dinner with some friends and he knocked on the door. He sat down on a chair in the living room with his guitar and played a song called Sundown. He didn’t have the whole thing figured out. But there was real greatness about that song, even in its first draft form. We were blown away that he would actually audition a song for us.

The best night of all was the night the Rolling Thunder Review came to town and Bob Dylan asked Gord to do a couple of songs. We went to the concert and then Heather and I came back and got stuff ready. Within an hour, Gord’s house was filled with legends. Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Bobby Neuwirth, Ronnie Hawkins, Scarlett Rivera.

My job that night was rolling joints. I was sitting at the dining room table I looked up and Bob Dylan was sitting there with a beer in his hand. We started to talk. I told him I lived in the coach house and we kinda kept an eye on things while Gord was touring. I spent a good 45 minutes talking with him and even showed him around the coach house. He said he had one at his place in California. Very interesting fellow. I told him I liked to write lyrics. Dylan told me that I should keep on writing them because lyrics were the key. Lyrics dictate much of what the song is about. Dylan thought the world of Gord and told me as much.

After three years of living this life, and meeting all kinds of incredible people, we finally decided to start a family and bought our first house. We had enough for a great down payment because for three years we lived virtually rent-free thanks to Gord.

Gord was a very interesting man. He was guarded about some things and an open book about other things. He was one of the greatest songwriters in Canada and probably all of North America for that matter. I was always impressed with his stage presence, his taste in wine, and the loyalty he showed to the people he considered friends. He was a good guy. They broke the mould after they made him.

Featured Image courtesy of Piedmontstyle at en.wikipedia, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons