Lightfoot
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Narrated by:
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Nicholas Jennings
About this listen
Shortlisted for the 2017 Legislative Assembly of Ontario Speaker's Book Award
Nominated for the 2018 Heritage Toronto Award - Historical Writing: Book
The definitive, full-access story of the life and songs of Canada's legendary troubadour
Gordon Lightfoot’s name is synonymous with timeless songs about trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness. His music defined the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and ‘70s, topped charts and sold millions. He is unquestionably Canada’s greatest songwriter, and an international star who has performed on the world’s biggest stages.While Lightfoot’s songs are well known, the man behind them is elusive. He’s never allowed his life to be chronicled in a book - until now.
Biographer Nick Jennings has had unprecedented access to the notoriously reticent musician.
Lightfoot takes us deep inside the artist’s world, from his idyllic childhood in Orillia, the wild '60s, and his canoe trips into Canada’s North to his heady times atop the music world. Jennings explores the toll that success took on his personal life - including his troubled relationships, his battle with alcohol and his near-death experiences - and the extraordinary drive and tenacity that pulled him through it all.
Rich in voices from fellow musicians, close friends, Lightfoot’s family and the singer’s own reminiscences, the biography tells the stories behind some of his best-known love songs, including “Beautiful” and “Song for a Winter’s Night,” as well as the infidelity and divorce that resulted in classics like “Sundown” and “If You Could Read My Mind.”
Kris Kristofferson has called Lightfoot’s songs “some of the most beautiful and lasting music of our time.”
Lightfoot is an unforgettable portrait of a treasured singer-songwriter, an artist whose work has been covered by everyone from Joni Mitchell, Barbra Streisand and Nico to Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, and Gord Downie. Revealing and insightful, Lightfoot is both an inspiring story of redemption and an exhilarating audiobook.
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Critic reviews
“Perhaps the greatest gift of...Lightfoot is that [it leads] you right back to [his] music. Feels like you never left, only better.” (Maclean’s)
“Jennings as always is a master storyteller... His deft manipulation of narrative, told in clear language, draws the reader in immediately...Jennings’s true gift might be his ability to slowly reveal Lightfoot to us - over the course of the book, the complexity of his character emerges, through a peeling away of the many layers the notoriously reticent singer has kept hidden. . . the best reward for Lightfoot fans who have waited for so long: Lightfoot is your chance to finally know him deeply.” (National Post)
“This is the definitive book on Gordon Lightfoot's life and lengthy career.” (FYI Music News)
“an informative, highly readable book...Lightfoot fans should rejoice.” (The Globe and Mail)
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The Ballad of Bob Dylan
- A Portrait
- By: Daniel Mark Epstein
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a vivid, full-bodied portrait of one of the most influential artists of the 20th-century - a man widely regarded as the most important lyricist America has ever produced. Acclaimed poet and biographer Daniel Mark Epstein frames Dylan against the backdrop of four seminal concerts - all of which he attended. Beautifully written, The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a unique, eye-opening portrait of an artist who has transformed generations and continues to inspire and surprise today.
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Excellent book, excellent narration
- By L chandler on 12-22-11
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So Many Roads
- The Life and Times of the Grateful Dead
- By: David Browne
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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No longer dismissed as relics of the hippie era, a new generation has lionized the Dead for creating a culture that paved the way for social networking, free music swapping, and the uncompromising anticorporate attitude of indie rock. Now, fifty years after the band first began changing rock 'n' roll both sonically and psychically, So Many Roads paints the most vivid portrait yet of the Grateful Dead, one of the most enduring institutions in American music and culture.
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Great first book on the Dead
- By robert on 10-30-15
By: David Browne
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Paul McCartney
- A Life
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of the definitive biography of former Beach Boy Brian Wilson offers new insight into the life and music of Paul McCartney, one of the world's most popular and influential musicians. Informed by new, exclusive interviews with friends, bandmates, and collaborators, the book describes McCartney's many triumphs as well as his failures, from the Beatles era through his decade with Wings and his subsequent solo career.
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Great...But
- By Diego on 05-02-10
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Who I Am
- By: Pete Townshend
- Narrated by: Pete Townshend
- Length: 17 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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From the voice of a generation: the most highly anticipated autobiography of the year, and the story of a man who wanted The Who to be called The Hair; wanted to be a sculptor, a journalist, a dancer and a graphic designer; became a musician, composer, librettist, fiction writer, literary editor, sailor; drank too much and nearly died; detached from his body in an airplane, on LSD, and nearly died; planned to write his memoir when he was 21; and published this book at 67.
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Glad To Meet You
- By Mel on 10-12-12
By: Pete Townshend
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Outlaw
- Waylon, Willie, Kris, and the Renegades of Nashville
- By: Michael Streissguth
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Waylon Jennings. Willie Nelson. Kris Kristofferson. Three renegade musicians. Three unexpected stars. Three men who changed Nashville and country music forever. Streissguth's new book brings to life an incredible chapter in musical history and reveals for the first time a surprising outlaw zeitgeist in Nashville. Based on extensive research and probing interviews with key players, what emerges is a fascinating glimpse into three of the most legendary artists of our times and the definitive story of how they changed music in Nashville and everywhere.
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Revealing little-known Details does Captivate!
- By Cody Meyer on 11-20-17
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John Lennon
- The Life
- By: Philip Norman
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Abridged
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Philip Norman turns his formidable talent to the Beatle for whom belonging to the world's most beloved pop group was never enough. Drawing on previously untapped sources, and with unprecedented access to all the major characters, here is the definitive portrait of John Lennon. This biography takes a fresh and penetrating look at Lennon's much-chronicled life, including the songs that have turned him, posthumously, into almost a secular saint.
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Really Bad Abridgement Job (slash job)
- By Let's Be Reasonable on 12-04-08
By: Philip Norman
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Small Town Talk
- Bob Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Friends in the Wild Years of Woodstock
- By: Barney Hoskyns
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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When musicians in the New York folk scene of the 1960s grew tired of city life, they decided to "get it together in the country". They headed for Woodstock - not to the site of the infamous music festival of 1969 but to the Catskills, to Bearsville, to Woodstock proper. Counterculture revolutionaries like Janis Joplin, Richie Havens, and Paul Butterfield got "back to the land", turning the once sleepy hollow into a funky Shangri-La.
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Captured the era - too many mistakes
- By Frank Canino on 04-17-16
By: Barney Hoskyns
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Kicking and Dreaming
- A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock and Roll
- By: Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson
- Narrated by: Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Two sisters. Two voices. One Heart.
The mystery of "Magic Man." The wicked riff of "Barracuda." The sadness and beauty of "Alone." The raw energy of "Crazy On You." These songs, and so many more, are part of the fabric of American music. Heart, fronted by Ann and Nancy Wilson, has given fans everywhere classic, raw, and pure badass rock and roll for more than three decades. As the only sisters in rock who write their own music and play their own instruments, Ann and Nancy have always stood apart - certainly from their male counterparts but also from their female peers.
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Good Behind-The-Scenes Look At "Heart"
- By Kathy on 11-13-12
By: Ann Wilson, and others
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Uncommon People
- The Rise and Fall of The Rock Stars
- By: David Hepworth
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The age of the rock star, like the age of the cowboy, has passed. Like the cowboy, the idea of the rock star lives on in our imaginations. What did we see in them? Swagger. Recklessness. Sexual charisma. Damn-the-torpedoes self-belief. A certain way of carrying themselves. Good hair. Interesting shoes. Talent we wished we had. What did we want of them? To be larger than life but also like us. To live out their songs. To stay young forever. No wonder many didn't stay the course.
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INSIGHTFULL!
- By CLAUDIA R KENNEDY on 02-18-18
By: David Hepworth
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Lynyrd Skynyrd
- Remembering the Free Birds of Southern Rock
- By: Gene Odom, Frank Dorman - contributor
- Narrated by: Arthur Flavell
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1964 Jacksonville, Florida teenager Ronnie Van Zant and some of his friends hatched the idea of forming a band to play covers of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds, and the country and blues-rock music they had grown to love. Naming their band after Leonard Skinner, the gym teacher at Robert E. Lee Senior High School who constantly badgered the long-haired aspiring musicians to get haircuts, they were soon playing gigs at parties, and bars throughout the South.
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A tragic sorry, but honestly told
- By Mark D. Schnittman on 09-27-21
By: Gene Odom, and others
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Tearing Down the Wall of Sound
- The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector
- By: Mick Brown
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Phil Spector, born in the Bronx in 1940, grew up an outsider despised by his peers. But he formed a band, and had a number-one hit with "To Know Him Is to Love Him". He quickly became the top producer of early rock and roll and the originator of such girl groups as the Ronettes. Hit followed hit, and for all of them he used a new recording style called the "wall of sound". But the reign of the boy-man who owned pop music was doomed, and Spector spiraled into paranoid isolation and peculiar behavior.
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Descent Into Madness
- By Chris on 06-11-12
By: Mick Brown
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Catch a Wave
- The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In Catch a Wave, Peter Ames Carlin pulls back the curtain on Brian Wilson, one of popular music's most revered luminaries, as well as its biggest mystery. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and never-before heard studio recordings, Carlin follows the Beach Boys from their earliest days through Brian's deepening emotional problems to his triumphant re-emergence with the release of Smile, the legendarily unreleased album he had originally shelved.
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Not great
- By J. Barker on 08-08-16
What listeners say about Lightfoot
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- S in Seattle
- 05-28-23
Comprehensive without conjecture
This retelling of Lightfoot's life, ending relatively close to the time of his passing, seems to cover the major events and relationships of his life. The book doesn't conjecture much about the subject's or his circle of companions' inner thoughts and motivations; through this book, the reader is left to imagine these by way of historical events, interactions, songs.
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- Chad Torbet
- 07-24-20
Finally!
This book has been out for a few years now, and it should be heralded as a treasure! Gord has always been known as highly private and guarded about his life and this book gives wonderful insights into this legends life. The book is so freaking enjoyable, it makes you wish you were born in Orillia!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Lydjahh
- 12-19-20
Insightful!
I needed this book but didn’t know it. I’m a “Light Head” from way back starting about 1970 when I was 16. My Dad loved folk music and that love was carried on to me. Whenever I was feeling down about a thing I listened to Gord. He sorted me then and still does. His life is interesting with a few twists and aha moments. Some stories and anecdotes are repeated, but in appropriate places. Gord literally saved my life at least once. Great job with this book! And thank you!
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Interesting Life Story of a Musical Professional
Very well told story. I am familiar with a few of the songs Mr. Lightfoot wrote because most of them are still playing somewhere. If You Could Read My Mind I have heard many times at many places. He writes classics that do not age. Very interesting background. A serious professional from an early age. Very admirable legacy. Now I will explore his other music I have read about in the book.
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- RDale40
- 01-24-19
Lightfoot!
History of a great in the world of music. A living legend, and my favorite artist!
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- Lydia Phinney
- 12-29-22
Interesting slice of musical history
I've been a Gordon Lightfoot fan since "If You Could Read My Mind." This biography provides interesting insights into the real-life inspirations for many of his best-known songs. In places it gets tedious, listing every venue and every public appearance he made in a given year. I learned more about his problems with women and alcohol than I really wanted to know, but I was glad to hear that he got sober and quit sleeping around. All in all this is an interesting slice of musical history that will especially interest listeners of a certain age, who remember the decades covered in this biography. The author did a fine job with the narration.
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- howard bascom
- 07-22-19
If you like Gordon Lightfoot.Read this
It fills in the backstory behind the songs and helps you understand what a man of substance Gordon Lightfoot is.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-14-21
A Legend in His Own Time!
Now I know why he survived the aortic aneurysm and my dad didn't. Great Bio!
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- dennison
- 11-10-22
great for Gordon fans
Fans of Gordon should really enjoy this book covering his remarkable career. It made me want to play his songs again and check out his latest work that i was unaware of.
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- J Worthen
- 04-25-20
Wow!
Fantastic insight to one of my all time favorites! My older sibs raised me on Gordon and this book helped me to really get to know the man through his music
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1 person found this helpful