November 17, 1938: Gordon Lightfoot Was Born

Folk singer Gordon Lightfoot was born in Orillia, Ontario. Lightfoot is often considered one of Canada's greatest songwriters, along with the likes of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen and the likes of Bob Dylan, Jim Croce and Jimmy Buffett have all recorded songs of his.

His 1974 Sundown album featuring the title track and "Carefree Highway" sold platinum and went number one in both Canada and the United States.

Lightfoot's best remembered songs are likely mariner mourning ode "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and "Sundown," a track about his mistress Cathy Smith, who'd eventually become a drug runner for the Rolling Stones and was the person who injected John Belushi with the cocaine/heroin speedball that caused his overdose death.