jonesthecurl wrote:I have to admit, I've heard the name, but couldn't name any of his songs. Maybe he wasn't as big in the UK?
Yeah, definitely not big in the U.K.
That special blend of rock + folk + country seems to be a North American phenomenon. Besides Gordon Lighfoot, other artists that fit the bill are his contemporaries like Peter, Paul & Mary or John Denver. They too were huge in North America and not so huge in Europe. The closest commonwealth equivalent would be someone like the Australian band The Seekers.
Just out of curiosity, I looked up his U.K. hits, meagre as they were. "If You Could Read My Mind" hit #30 on the U.K charts and was his biggest hit there, if you can even call it that. Second came "Sundown", which hit #33 on the U.K. charts. The same song was #1 in the U.S. and Canada. Coming up third was "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" at #40 on the U.K. charts. The same song was #2 in the U.S. at the time, and #1 in Canada for months.