Complete Greatest Hits : Gordon Lightfoot

Track Title

1. Early Morning Rain
2. For Lovin' Me
3. Go-Go Round
4. Canadian Railroad Trilogy
5. Pussywillows, Cat-Tails
6. Bitter Green
7. If You Could Read My Mind
8. Summer Side of Life
9. Cotton Jenny
10. Beautiful
11. Sundown
12. Carefree Highway
13. Rainy Day People
14. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
15. Race Among the Ruins
16. Daylight Katy
17. The Circle is Small
18. Baby Step Back
19. Stay Loose
20. Restless

My Thoughts : While 1999's 4-CD collection "Songbook" is a comprehensive look at this terrific Canadian singer/songwriter, Rhino does an excellent job of distilling that sprawling collection to twenty tacks covering songs from his United Artists, Reprise and Warner Bros. releases.

There are quite a few Gordon Lightfoot songs that I really like (e.g., ""Early Morning Rain," "Rainy Day People," "If You Could Read My Mind"), and his voice is a very distinctive, resonant, and soulful. Those three songs are enough to earn this compilation its first three stars.

In 1970, Lightfoot signed with Warner Brothers subsidiary Reprise (highlights of his twenty-plus years at this label make up the remaining fourteen tracks found here). Soon after signing with Reprise, Lightfoot began to make a name for himself as a singer with the introspective top five hit "If You Could Read My Mind." He also continued to write songs that were popularized by others, such as the enclosed "Cotton Jenny" for fellow Canadian Anne Murray.

In the early 70s, singer-songwriters became the rage in popular music and Lightfoot certainly contributed to the movement's success with the big hits "Sundown," "Carefree Highway," and "Rainy Day People." His 1976 six minute-plus epic "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" would prove to be Lightfoot's artistic peak as well as his final major commercial success, although he would continue to make some fine music during the rest of the `70s.

Lightfoot's `80s output is represented here by the set's two most generic, forgettable recordings: "Baby Step Back" and "Stay Loose." The compilers of this collection would have been better off ditching those tracks and selecting a couple of the countless gems not included from his United Artists tenure, such as the breezy "Did She Mention My Name" or "Black Day in July," an intensely hypnotic account of the '67 race riots in Detroit (get the double-disc United Artists Collection for a thorough overview of this period).

Complete Greatest Hits concludes on a positive note with "Restless," a 1993 ode that finds Lightfoot descriptively ruminating about looking forward to the future while not forgetting the past. It reminds us of what a special observer and documenter he has been of life's events, both monumental and trivial.