Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr

 Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. CC OOnt (November 17, 1938 – May 1, 2023)

Lightfoot was a singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s. He has been referred to as Canada's greatest songwriter, and was known internationally as a folk-rock legend. Lightfoot's songs, including "For Lovin' Me", "Early Morning Rain", "Steel Rail Blues", "Ribbon of Darkness"—a number one hit on the U.S. country chart with Marty Robbins's cover in 1965—and "Black Day in July", about the 1967 Detroit riot, brought him wide recognition in the 1960s. Canadian chart success with his own recordings began in 1962 with the No. 3 hit "(Remember Me) I'm the One", followed by recognition and charting abroad in the 1970s. He topped the US Hot 100 or AC chart with the hits "If You Could Read My Mind" (1970), "Sundown" (1974); "Carefree Highway" (1974), "Rainy Day People" (1975), and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" (1976), and had many other hits that appeared in the top 40.

Most of his songs are deeply autobiographical with lyrics that probe his own experiences in a frank manner and explore issues surrounding the Canadian national identity. His material has been widely covered, by artists ranging from Bob Dylan and Young to Elvis Presley Lightfoot was a featured musical performer at the opening ceremonies of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, Alberta. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Trent University in Spring 1979 and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in May 2003. In 2002, a ruptured abdominal aneurysm led to a six-week coma, extended hospitalization and further surgery, but by 2004 he had completed a new album. A minor stroke in 2006 led him unable to play the guitar for the better part of a year, but he returned to the instrument on stage. After being diagnosed with emphysema in 2018, he quit smoking.

Lightfoot was married three times, and had six children. He died at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto on May 1, 2023, at the age of 84. A cause of death has not been given at this time, although Lightfoot was in poor health for years. He is buried at
St. Andrews and St. James Cemetery in Ontario, Canada.