EARLY '70S RADIO: Gordon Lightfoot - "If You Could Read My Mind" (1970)

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Gordon Lightfoot - "If You Could Read My Mind" (1970)

Gordon Lightfoot - "If You Could Read My Mind" (Billboard #5, entered 12/26/70; easy listening #1). Written by Gordon Lightfoot. Produced by Lenny Waronker and Joe Wissert. 45: "If You Could Read My Mind"/"Poor Little Allison" (Reprise 1970). LP: If You Could Read My Mind (Reprise 1970).

When Gordon Lightfoot entered the American charts for the first time in late 1970, he had already become an iconic Canadian chart fixture, with his first hit happening in 1962. But he'd also seen other performers' versions of his compositions do well in the U.S., such as Marty Robbins's 1965 country #1 "Ribbon of Darkness" and Peter, Paul and Mary's Top 40 version of "For Lovin' Me" (1965).

In 1969, Canadian hitmakers The Guess Who memorialized Phase One of the troubadour's career with a tribute song called "Lightfoot" on their Wheatfield Soul album. Lightfoot launched Phase Two with "If You Could Read My Mind" (a musical relative of the poignant Midnight Cowboy theme, with its root-to-flatted seventh opening chord sequence), which became an instant standard and role model for the forthcoming singer-songwriter era.

In 1977, the George Benson hit "The Greatest Love of All," with music by Michael Masser, plagiarized a key musical passage - chords and melody - from "If You Could Read My Mind." When Whitney Houston had an even bigger hit with it in 1985, Lightfoot finally broke down and lawyered up, only to withdraw the suit in the belief that it would do too much indirect damage to Houston.

Gordon Lightfoot - "If You Could Read My Mind"

See also: A KMPC Playlist circa 1971

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Good Words About Early '70s Radio

"Kim Simpson does a superb job analyzing the manifold factors that contributed to the radio format revolution while advancing the reader’s understanding of a transformative period in American culture. Ultimately, Simpson’s astute assessment of radio’s second heyday adds richly to the ever-growing canon of media studies. Early '70s Radio is must reading for anyone interested in the unique role specialized audio programming played in an era of historic social change."

–– Michael C. Keith, Author of The Radio Station

"All of the men and women, though the latter were few in music radio for many years, took radio programming seriously not only as a career, but also with passion for its viability. This included the disc jockey, the program director, and the general manager as more and more of them graduated from programming into management. Thus, I’m pleased to read this wonderful, compelling book by Kim Simpson. He treats with respect what all of us in the 60s and 70s took seriously. It was our life! And he employs penetrating wisdom and astonishing perception to correlate music with the cultural mores of our times and depict what really was and why. Great book!"

–– Claude Hall, B.J., M.Ed. Radio-TV Editor, Billboard, 1964-79, and Assistant Communications Professor, State University of New York at Brockport, 1983-89

"Too often we separate the agendas contained in business plans from the decisions of daily life. Kim Simpson’s Early ‘70s Radio reunites the items found on playlists with the passions and polemics that infused a complicated decade. His skilful scholarship and attention to detail clarify that what we listen to and how we lead our lives do not march to separate beats, for our actions and our aesthetic preferences bear subtle and significant harmonies."

–– David Sanjek, Professor of Music Director, Salford Music Research Centre University of Salford, U.K.

"Early '70s Radio is a fast-paced romp through the formatting revolution that changed the ways pop music continues to be sliced and diced. Surprises pop off every page. Examining everything from monster hits to obscure and often-hilarious novelty tunes, Kim Simpson shows how Top 40 splintered into middle of the road soft rock, album-oriented hard rock, crossover soul and disco, and country pop. Each format promised to serve up a distinct listening demographic to hungry advertisers. Yet Simpson uncovers fascinating commonalities across the dial—including the increasing desire of stations to attract women instead of men—that fundamentally changed the sound of pop music. And who knew there were so many songs featuring children in the era? If you ever wondered about the roots of the Miley Cyrus/Justin Beiber phenomenon or how Glee learned to appeal to parents and their kids at the same time, Early '70s Radio delivers. I’ll never listen to 'Yummy Yummy Yummy' or 'Rubber Duckie' the same way again."

–– Karl Hagstrom Miller, author of Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow

"Music historians are only now discovering what most everybody in the 1970s already knew: commercial radio formats really really mattered. Looking at the five key strands (Top 40, MOR, rock, R&B, and country), Kim Simpson surveys a moment when identity politics and counterculture were becoming niche marketing and new kinds of mainstreams. You can't explain what happened to American popular music after the 1960s without understanding these processes, and Simpson provides an able, accessible guide through a daunting range of sounds and contexts."

–– Eric Weisbard, University of Alabama and editor, Listen Again: A Momentary History of Pop Music