Gordon Lightfoot's forgotten country-rock classic

Vox Populi, the people have spoken, and even though they didn't speak in masses, they did wish for more Gordon Lightfoot, and more Gordon Lightfoot there will be. But before I get to A Secret Life In Song, the outtakes and rarities companion piece to the recently finished A Life In Song career retrospective, let's take a quick turn into this, Lightfoot's for long years most mysterious and long-forgotten album, which also turned out to be one of his absolutely best. Because or despite being a country rock record, that is the question...

So, why is Old Dan Records so damn mysterious? Mainly because it had been out of print forever, the only album from his mid-70s heyday to have vanished...and pretty much vanished without a trace. When I got into listening to Lightfoot, I knew there was a record named Old Dan's Records because Gord's Gold featured the album's title song and Gord's Gold Vol. 2 featured "It's Worth Believin'" as one of its CD bonus tracks. Two odd choices, finally, as the first one was always an album track and thus never a hit, while the latter was a single b-side, albeit a charting one. As a matter of fact, "It's Worth Believin'" is Lightfoot's first entry in the country charts, which makes sense, since it comes from the only album of Lightfoot that can honestly be called a country record. But the real lead single, country-rock corker "You Are What I Am" is strangely mistreated, never showing up on any greatest hits or anthology package, despite being a top three hit in Canada (and number one in both the adult contemporary and country charts), but yeah, it didn't do well in the States, only scraping in the AC Top 40, while follow-up "Can't Depend On Love" did even worse, only charting in Canada. Weirdly enough, the b-sides did better, as "That Same Old Obsession", "You Are What I Am"'s flip, also hit number three in Canada and also went top three in the Canadian adult contemporary charts, and it has effectively replaced the former as the representative single from the album, having shown up on Songbook. 

As Lightfoot's worst seller from his commercial heyday, it's not entirely surprising that Reprise let it fall out of print, and then it was simply never issued on CD until 2002 when I picked it up. The vanishing act was so complete, that the printed Allmusic Guide from 2000 has two separate feature length reviews for the same album (one for Sit Down Young Stranger and one for If You Could Read My Mind), while Old Dan's Records isn't even listed in his discography, whereas every other album is. When the album finally made its CD debut, there were no liner notes or such to explain its disappearing act, either. But my, am I glad I picked it up, if only out of old habit. 

Because, well, the album is excellent, and among Lightfoot's most consistent. Lightfoot was in fine form with this batch of songs, from his typical love ballads, to the uptempo hoedowns. Old Dan's Records might be a transitional album - in all senses of the word - but that makes it important, showing the way to Lightfoot's most comercial sound reached a year and a half later on Sundown. This is the first album where Lightfoot employs a drummer, and uses bundles of steel guitar. Both would be big parts of his sound going forward for the next years. So why did Gordon Lightfoot cut a country rock record? Let's flash back to late 1971. 

Lightfoot had been going hard after the success of If You Could Read My Mind, perhaps too hard, ignoring a constant ringing in his ears for months. Then half of his face went numb, and he was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy, severely impacting his ability to sing, as his mouth was also partially paralyzed. Luckily, the tracks for Summer Side Of Life were already in the can, so Lightfoot could rest up and get better, for once not supporting an album with a tour. But he of course had the time to write new songs, then decided to head back to the studio to record them. But, given his situation, he wanted to record closer to home, literally, booking time in Toronto's RCA Studios while hooking up with local bluegrass group The Good Brothers, whose contributions on banjo, autoharp and steel guitar are all over Old Dan's Records. 

Old Dan's Records is a very fine album with exactly one flaw, the proverbial fly in the ointment: "My Pony Won't Go" should have been called 'This song won't go' as it is simply a slog. When I figured I might muck around with the running order a bit, there was simply no good place to put it somewhere. So it went elsewhere. Lightfoot was a strict 10-songs-per-album guy, but fortunately there is an excellent outtake cut during the Old Dan's Records sessions that can more than take its place: "Too Much To Lose" was first demoed in 1967, as Lightfoot wrote it for inclusion in the Paul Newman movie Cool Hand Luke, but it didn't get picked up. As Lightfoot reminisced for the Songbook liner notes: "I guess after that I didn't want it either." That didn't stop him from having another go at it during the Toronto sessions, and it's a sprightly, beautiful, oh-so-slightly countryfied folk song, truly the bridge between Summer Side of Life and Old Dan's Records. And yet it was inexpliocably left in the can. Again. 

Not here at One Buck Records, though, of course, where it is not only restored, but elevated to side opener for the second half of Old Dan's Records. The rest is simple resequencing. I love "Farewell To Annabel", but it was an odd choice for an album opener. The singalong title track always seemed like a better and more rousing opening. However, the back half ran really well, so the last three songs are unchanged. Sometimes you need to tweak a lot, sometimes you need to tweak only a little. The swap of a single track made a very good album even better. This really is Gord's country gold, so dig in.