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The late Canadian folk-pop legend Gordon Lightfoot’s final album will be released on July 14.
The pioneering artist passed away on May 1 at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center at the age of 84, his publicist Victoria Lord has confirmed.
Gordon’s death came after his deteriorating health led him to abandon his tour three weeks earlier.
And now his latest release has been announced, the double live album At Royal Albert Hall, recorded at his seventh concert at the famous London Hall in 2016.
It includes the hits “If You Could Read My Mind”, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “Early Morning Rain”.
Fans can expect “an unembellished live mix of that evening’s performance, with no edits, overdubs, remixing or resequencing.” It captures every song played in the order it was played, right through to the encore.”
Gordon died of natural causes.
However, the guitarist suffered from Bell’s palsy and once fell into a coma in 2002 after an artery ruptured in his stomach.
Gordon’s songs have been revered by music legends like Bob Dylan, but also covered by the likes of Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Cash and even punk rockers Jane’s Addiction.
His fellow Canadian, Bryan Adams, paid tribute to the man who shaped the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s.
He wrote on Instagram alongside a picture with his idol: “This one is really hard to write. Once in the blue moon you go to work and meet up with one of those people you admired as a kid. I was lucky.” I say Gordon was my friend and I’m sad he’s gone. The world is a smaller place without him. I know on behalf of all Canadians I’m saying thank you for the songs Gordon Lightfoot. Bless your sweet songwriter heart, RIP dear friend.
Bob Dylan once said of Gordon: “I can’t think of a Gordon Lightfoot song that I don’t like. Every time I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever… Lightfoot became a mentor for a long time ago. I think he probably still is to this day.”
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