A great cover of "The Wreck."

 Hey, Sis.  I remember lots of Gordon Lightfoot songs from when we were young-  on AM radio,  played on the pool PA at Prosel Park, and everywhere else.   Gordon Lightfoot's passing has all sorts of people thinking about his songs, which is a good thing.   

It's amazing to think that "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was done in a couple of takes.  Tom Treece was there: "I remember the haunting sound his guitarist produced by playing through a new device called a synthesizer, and how - when he recorded the vocal - Lightfoot cleared the studio and killed all the lights save the one illuminating his parchment of scribbled words."   Alone in the studio, because of course he did it that way- no longer the song still gives me chills. 

And you can hear what Rick Beato is betting is a Moog playing arpegios in the middle verses, adding another layer.  There's the amazing steel guitars, driving that melody home again and again. Peewee Charles (yes, I found this on Wikipedia),  said "I remember Terry Clements & myself coming up with the haunting guitar & steel riffs...We cut it later in the evening & believe it was the second take that made the record & became such a huge hit for Gord...."

Billy Joel is among the many posting his adoration of Lightfoot's songs, saying that "Always a Woman To Me" was his effort to make a song Lightfoot would sing.   I found this ressurected snippet of Joel playing a bit of "If You Could Read My Mind", which is a trip:

But most covers of "The Wreck" just ... suck.  Most are weird in tempo,  or they lack the layers of the original. Forget the moog, even the bass playing adds complexity at certain points.  One group covers the song with a slew of instrumens, and yet it just seems repetitive and self-invovled.  Yeah, I know I sound like a rock critic.  But the original is so powerful.  Reached #2 in 1976,  beating out songs by KISS, ABBA,  the BeeGees, and Captain and Tenile, for crying out loud.  There is a cover by a group who gets the song, and it's powerful.   So dig into  The Longest John's cover: 

One last note- being  a history geek-  mom's influence there,  it's amazing to know that an expedition led by Joseph B. MacInnis went down to retrive the Edmund's bell (it's been restored and rests here) and left a new one in its place engraved with the names of the crew--- and they also left a beer in the wheelhouse.  I figured you'd like that last part. 

Love,

Bro