Gordon Lightfoot died on May 1, theNew York Timesreported.
According to the outlet, the 84-year-old singer died at a Toronto hospital.
Lightfoot was also an incredibly busy artist.
Gordon Lightfoot’s early love of music
For Gordon Lightfoot, music was a way of being.
At just 5 years old, Lightfoot began singing in church.
However, California wasn’t quite his scene.
He decided to move back home instead, where he was drawn once again to folk and country music.
By the time 1963 came around, however, Lightfoot decided to trek out on his own.
By 1966, Lightfoot accepted another contract offer.
This time, it was a recording contract with United Artists Records.
In 1970, he left his recording contract for a new one with Reprise label.
The song worked its way up to the top five on theBillboardHot 100 Chart in 1971 and wasBillboard’sNo.
1 Adult Contemporary song for 13 weeks.
As a result, the album was later renamed after the hit single.
Lightfoot finally found himself as an international success story.
But by the 1980s, Lightfoot seemed to be slipping out of the spotlight.
However, his popularity in the U.S. was on the decline.
Still, Lightfoot’s mark on music was unwavering.
In the late 1980s, he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Gordon Lightfoot’s health and personal life
Gordon Lightfoot suffered from his fair share of health scares.
PerAll Music, he was diagnosed withBell’s Palsyin 1972.
He had not only a tracheotomy but four surgical operations.
By the end of it all, he was in a coma for six weeks.
Yet another serious health scare arose in 2006 when astrokeleft him unable to play the guitar for months.
Still, Lightfoot plowed on.
He used a guest guitarist on occasion and was back to playing on his own in 2007.
Through it all, Lightfoot had several romantic relationships and fathered six children, according to theOrangeville Citizen.
He married his first wife, Brita, in 1963, perAlchetron.
The pair had two children together, Fred and Ingrid, before divorcing in 1973.
In 1989, Lightfoot married Elizabeth Moon who gave birth to Miles and Meredith.
The couple divorced in 2011, though Lightfoot said they had been separated for nine years.
In 2008, Lightfoot met actor Kim Hasse at a concert in Florida (viaZoomer).
The two got married in 2014.
