Lightfoot, Bachman & More

RIP singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, 84. Born in Ontario, of Scottish descent, he began singing publicly by fourth grade. A boy soprano, he appeared regularly on radio and performed in local operettas and oratorios, and at music festivals. In high school he excelled in Track and Field and Football. He earned scholarships to McGill University and the University of Toronto. In California for two years beginning in 1958, he sang on demos and wrote, arranged and produced commercial jingles. In ’62 he released two singles produced by Chet Atkins, recorded in Nashville. They were hits in Canada. Early Morning Rain was recorded by a slew of artists, including Elvis, Bob Dylan and Peter Paul and Mary. He released 41 studio albums, counting compilations, and 47 singles. They always sold well north of the border. Four of his albums cracked the Top 15 in the USA, Sundown rising to the top. If You Could Read My Mind, my favorite, was the first of his singles to crack America’s Top Ten, rising to #5. Sundown hit #1, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald #2 and Carefree Highway #10. Rainy Day People hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. More than six million of his albums sold. Four went gold. Sundown and Summertime Dream went platinum, the Gord’s Gold compilation double platinum. He was nominated for five Grammys. Married three times, he was a father of six. Thank you, sir. (Facts from Wiki) Photo from Google Images:

RIP Robbie Bachman, 69, drummer of BTO. Born in Manitoba, he was a big part of the band that had great success in the mid ‘70’s: five Top 40 albums, six U.S. Top 40 singles, eleven Top 40 singles in Canada, and more than seven million discs in sales. He co-wrote the smokin’ Roll On Down the Highway. He was a dad of two. Well done, sir. Thank you. Photo from GI:

Headline from nypost.com: “90,000 migrants cross US border in 10 days as panic over Title 42 end sets in.” Ship ’em to Delaware.

Also from NYP: “Casualties of war: Ukraine has killed 20,000 Russian fighters in just 5 months as US reveals ‘stunning’ death toll.” Vlad, a new kind of impaler.

From NYP: “Down the drain: This year’s 3 bank failures held $532B in assets — more than all lenders that collapsed in 2008 crisis.” Why isn’t it bigger news? Does that figure pale these days?

Will there be a more amusing headline in today’s news cycle than this from NYP: “Hollywood writers demanding studios regulate AI so it doesn’t steal their jobs.” Are they admitting that most of their output is rehash that may easily be done by machines?

The floating book shop got the parking spot it needed. It wasn’t a fun session, as there were sprinkles on and off the first half. My thanks to the elderly woman who despite the rain bought five books in Russian, and to the gentleman who took home the last two of ten novels in Mandarin I’d carried; and to Carol, who purchased The Housemaid by Freida McFadden and Field of Bones by J.A. Jance.

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