Celebrity

Folk Singer-Songwriter Gordon Lightfoot Dies At 84

Published

12 months ago

2023-05-02

TORONTO, Ontario — Gordon Lightfoot, the folk singer-songwriter known for songs like “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown,” as well as songs on Canadian identity, died on Monday. He was 84.

According to Representative Victoria Lord, the musician died at a Toronto hospital. His death cause was not immediately known.

Lightfoot was one of the most well-known voices to emerge from Toronto’s Yorkville folk club scene in the 1960s, recording 20 studio albums and writing hundreds of songs, including “Carefree Highway,” “Early Morning Rain,” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

Lightfoot had five Grammy nominations, three platinum records, and nine gold records for albums and songs in the 1970s. He played almost 1500 shows and recorded 500 songs.

He toured in his later years. He recently canceled future gigs in the United States and Canada, citing health concerns.

“We have lost one of our greatest singer-songwriters,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Twitter. “Gordon Lightfoot captured the spirit of our country in his music, and in doing so, he helped shape Canada’s soundscape.” May his music inspire future generations, and may his legacy live on in perpetuity.”

Numerous musicians, including Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Anne Murray, Jane’s Addiction, and Sarah McLachlan, have recorded Lightfoot. Bob Dylan even referred to him as a “rare talent.”

Most of his songs are extremely autobiographical, with lyrics that frankly probe his experiences and discuss topics surrounding Canadian national identity. “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” depicted the railway’s construction.

“I just write songs about where I am and where I came from,” he previously explained. “I take real-life situations and write poems about them.”

Lightfoot’s music had its distinct style. “It’s not country, folk, or rock,” he declared in an interview in 2000. Nonetheless, it contains strains of all three.

“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is a mournful homage to the 29 men who died in the ship’s sinking in Lake Superior during a storm in 1975.

Lightfoot had five Grammy nominations, three platinum records, and nine gold records for albums and songs in the 1970s. He played almost 1500 shows and recorded 500 songs.

While his parents recognized his musical abilities early on, Lightfoot did not set out to become a famous balladeer.

He started singing in his church choir and aspired to be a jazz musician. At 13, the soprano won a talent competition at Toronto’s Massey Hall’s Kiwanis Music Festival.

“I remember the thrill of being in front of a crowd,” Lightfoot remarked in an interview in 2018. “It was like a stepping stone for me…”

The appeal of those early days lingered, and his barbershop quartet, The Collegiate Four, won a CBC talent competition in high school. In 1956, he strummed his first guitar and began dabbling in music in the following months. He flunked algebra the first time, possibly due to his musical tastes. He graduated in 1957 after retaking the class.

Lightfoot had already written his first serious work, “The Hula Hoop Song,” inspired by the popular toy at the time. Attempts to market the tune were futile, so at 18, he moved to the United States to study music for a year. The trip was partially sponsored by money saved from a job transporting linens to resorts near his hometown.

However, life in Hollywood was not for Lightfoot, and he soon returned to Canada. He promised to travel to Toronto to pursue his musical dreams, accepting any job he could find, including a job at a bank, until obtaining a role as a square dancer on CBC’s “Country Hoedown.”

His first job was at Fran’s Restaurant, a downtown family-run café that appreciated his folk inclinations. He met fellow musician Ronnie Hawkins there.

The singer was living with a few buddies in a condemned building in Yorkville, which was then a bohemian neighborhood where future stars like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell learned their trade in smoke-filled bars.

Lightfoot made his radio breakthrough with the single “(Remember Me) I’m the One” in 1962.

Lightfoot made his radio breakthrough with the single “(Remember Me) I’m the One” in 1962, which led to a string of hit tunes and collaborations with other local performers. Lightfoot bonded with the Mariposa Folk Festival in his hometown of Orillia, Ontario, that same year and became the festival’s most devoted returning artist.

By 1964, he spread positive word of mouth around town, and audiences began to assemble in greater numbers. The next year, Lightfoot’s song “I’m Not Sayin'” became a smash in Canada, helping to expand his popularity in the United States.

Several other artists’ covers didn’t hurt, either. Marty Robbins’ 1965 rendition of “Ribbon of Darkness” achieved No. 1 on the country charts in the United States, while Peter, Paul, and Mary charted Lightfoot’s original, “For Lovin’ Me,” in the United States. Hundreds of other musicians have covered the tune, which Dylan once claimed he wished he had recorded.

Lightfoot performed at the Newport Folk Festival that summer, the same year Dylan shocked audiences by ditching his folkie character in favor of an electric guitar.

As the folk music boom ended in the late 1960s, Lightfoot was already easing into pop music.

He earned his debut Billboard chart appearance in 1971 with “If You Could Read My Mind.” It peaked at No. 5 and has generated a slew of covers since.

Lightfoot’s success peaked in the mid-1970s when “Sundown,” his song and album, topped the Billboard charts for the first and only time.

Lightfoot won 12 Juno Awards during his career, including one in 1970 when it was known as the Gold Leaf.

He was inducted into the Canadian Recording Industry Hall of Fame, now known as the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, in 1986. He was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001 after receiving the Governor General’s Award in 1997.

SOURCE – (AP)

Celebrity

Dickey Betts, Co-Founder Of The Allman Brothers Band, Dead At 80

Published

13 hours ago

2024-04-19

Kiara Grace

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Dickey Betts, a guitarist and co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, has died, according to a family statement released to CNN on Thursday by his longtime manager.

Betts was eighty.

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Dickey Betts, Co-Founder Of The Allman Brothers Band, Dead At 80

“It is with profound sadness and heavy hearts that the Betts family announces the peaceful passing of Forrest Richard ‘Dickey’ Betts,” according to the statement. “The well-known performer, songwriter, bandleader, and family patriarch passed away this morning at his home in Osprey, Florida, with his family by his side. Dickey was larger than life, and his absence will be felt around the world. During this terrible time, the family requests prayers and respect for their privacy in the coming days. More information will be provided at the proper time.”

Betts’ manager, David Spero, told Rolling Stone that the guitarist had cancer and chronic obstructive lung disease.

Betts, who was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, grew up listening to bluegrass, country music, and, subsequently, rock & roll. Betts, bass guitarist Berry Oakley, drummers Butch Trucks and Jaimoe, and brothers Gregg and Duane Allman formed the Allman Brothers Band in 1969, and are credited with helping create the sound and genre of Southern rock in the 1960s and 1970s.

Betts composed and sung the band’s biggest song, “Ramblin’ Man.” Initially, he created the song with the intention of having another artist sing it.

“I was going to send ‘Ramblin’ Man’ to Johnny Cash,” Betts stated in 2020, later adding that he “thought it was a great song for him.”

“But everyone liked the song. Even my father enjoyed the song before we recorded it or anything. And I’m thinking I’ll email this to Johnny Cash and see if he wants to perform it,” he added. “The producer (Johnny Sandlin) mentioned that we needed another song for the record and asked if I had any. I explained, ‘Well, I got one, but I was going to send it to Nashville for Cash to record.’ He said, ‘Let’s hear it. And then, ‘No! We gotta do it.'”

Betts also wrote the popular Allman Brothers songs “Blue Sky” and “Jessica.”

Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident in 1971, and Oakley died in a motorcycle crash the following year. Betts and Gregg Allman became the band’s leaders, but creative disputes and substance misuse prompted the group to split up and reform several times.

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Dickey Betts, Co-Founder Of The Allman Brothers Band, Dead At 80

Cameron Crowe, then 16, followed the Allman Brothers Band on tour in 1973 for a Rolling Stone cover story that would later serve as the basis for Crowe’s Oscar-winning 2000 film “Almost Famous.” In 2017, Crowe described Billy Crudup’s key rock star character as “a tribute” to Betts.

In an email to CNN later that day, Crowe referred to Betts as “a guitarist for the ages, the musical glue that held together The Allman Brothers Band for many years.”

“Dickey’s quiet warmth, and his timeless contribution to American music was a big inspiration for our film,” said the writer-director.

Betts quit the Allman Brothers Band in a widely publicized separation in 2000. While the band continued to tour for nearly 15 years and issued one more studio album, Betts performed with his Great Southern ensemble, which included his son Duane, and released another studio album of new songs. Betts retired in 2014.

Also on Friday, the Allman Brothers Band issued an official statement, stating that Betts’ “extraordinary guitar playing alongside guitarist Duane Allman created a unique dual guitar signature sound that became the signature sound of the genre known as Southern Rock.”

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Dickey Betts, Co-Founder Of The Allman Brothers Band, Dead At 80

“He was passionate in life, be it music, songwriting, fishing, hunting, boating, golf, karate or boxing,” the statement went on to say. “Dickey was all in on and excelled at anything that caught his attention.”

When asked what he enjoyed most about music, Betts told the Sarasota Herald Tribune in 2020 that it was the impact it had on his listeners.

“I like the crowds mainly, and what the music did for them,” he went on to say. “They enjoyed the music more than I did. I just love how the crowd can drift off into another universe during a concert.”

SOURCE – (CNN)

Celebrity

Taylor Swift Drops 15 New Songs On Double Album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’

Published

15 hours ago

2024-04-19

Kiara Grace

AP - VOR News Image

NEW YORK — Could there be a Taylor Swift new album release without any added surprises?

No.

On Friday, the pop star released her 11th album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” which is an amalgamation of her previous work and reflects the artist who, at the height of her powers, has spent the last few years re-recording her life’s work and touring it, filtered through synth-pop anthems, breakup ballads, provocative and matured considerations.

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Taylor Swift Drops 15 New Songs On Double Album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’

But it was midnight. At 2 a.m. Eastern, she released “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology,” which included 15 new songs.

“I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment,” Swift wrote in an Instagram caption. “And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.”

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Taylor Swift Drops 15 New Songs On Double Album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’

The songs are a natural continuation of the first half of the album, with many returning to her “evermore” and “folklore” style, aided by her partner Aaron Dessner.

Swift has surprised her fans before, and she has surely done so with a surprise album release. A few months after “folklore” was released in 2020, she revealed that “evermore” will be available at midnight on the same day. Speaking of midnight, she released a “3am” edition of “Midnights” with seven new tracks in 2022, just a few hours after the original release.

Taylor Swift’s album “The Tortured Poets Department” is now available.

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Taylor Swift Drops 15 New Songs On Double Album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’

Music Writer Maria Sherman describes it as “an amalgamation of an artist who has spent the last few years re-recording her life’s work and touring its material, filtered through synth-pop anthems, breakup ballads, provocative and matured subject matter.”

Swift revealed a surprise two hours after the album’s release: 15 more tracks.

Swift’s first original album since her record-breaking Eras Tour debuted last year.

SOURCE – (AP)

Celebrity

Britain’s Prince Harry Formally Confirms He is Now a US Resident

Published

1 day ago

2024-04-18

Kiara Grace

AP News - VOR News Image

LONDON — Prince Harry, King Charles III’s son and fifth in line to the British throne, has publicly certified that he is now a US resident.

Four years after Harry and his American bride, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, moved to a villa in Southern California, a travel firm he owns filed paperwork this week alerting British officials that he has relocated and is now “usually resident” in the United States.

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Britain’s Prince Harry formally confirms he is now a US resident

The formal acknowledgment highlights the prince’s growing isolation from Britain, following his and Meghan’s departure from royal duties to chase lucrative media partnerships in America. Since then, Harry has often challenged the royal family, including claims of unconscious racism made in a Netflix series and the prince’s autobiography, “Spare.”

Travalyst Ltd, a company created in 2020 to “promote global awareness of the importance of sustainable tourism,” filed the paperwork. Harry owns at least 75% of the company. Companies House, the government body in charge of overseeing company incorporation in the United Kingdom, received the papers on Monday.

The filing further distinguishes Harry from his status as one of the king’s counselors of state, which are members of the royal family who can be deputized to carry out the monarch’s duties if he is ill or away from the nation.

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Britain’s Prince Harry formally confirms he is now a US resident

While Harry is still a counselor of state, the crown warned Parliament in 2022 that “in practice” only working members of the royal family will be called upon to fill in for the monarch.

Although Harry and Meghan, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have established themselves in the rich enclave of Montecito, where they are raising their baby son and daughter, Harry is also under investigation for his US status.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think organization, has questioned the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to grant Harry a visa to the United States following drug-related admissions in “Spare.”

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Britain’s Prince Harry formally confirms he is now a US resident

The organization, which has petitioned a judge to order the department to release Harry’s immigration records, claims that the prince either lied on his visa application or was given preferential treatment because a history of drug usage would typically preclude an applicant from receiving a visa.

SOURCE – (AP)