Can-Con 45 Of The Day - April 14

Can-Con 45 Of The Day - April 14

Postby radiofan » Fri Apr 13, 2018 9:17 pm

Today's Can-Con 45 is from 1967 ... An early Gordon Lightfoot hit that's been covered by numerous artists ... "For Lovin' Me" ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWAgbUL87qU

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Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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Re: Can-Con 45 Of The Day - April 14

Postby jon » Fri Apr 13, 2018 10:00 pm

Other than Gordon Lightfoot's singles on Chateau, before his singing evolved dramatically after hearing Bob Dylan, I thought all his singles were on UA until he signed with WB/Reprise in 1970.

So this was a surprise.
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Re: Can-Con 45 Of The Day - April 14

Postby Richard Skelly » Sun Apr 15, 2018 4:27 am

Excellent point, Jon.

So I reached out to former Lightfoot associate Alexander Mair to find out about Gordon’s brief initial link to Warner Bros. Lightfoot joined the Warners fold again in 1970, signing for the longterm with subsidiary label Reprise.

Alexander Mair took on the role of manager around 1970, replacing Albert Grossman as Gordon also left longtime label United Artists. Grossman was no stranger to artists leaving the fold. Bob Dylan took a hike after penning songs like Dear Landlord targeting the alleged business practices of his manager. Although he died in 1986, the larger-than-life Grossman still ranked #6 on a July 2011 list compiled by LA Weekly magazine. The article ran under the headline Top Ten Music Managers Who F’d Over Their Clients.

According to Alexander Mair, Gordon had a one-shot deal with Warners covering the release of I’m Not Sayin b/w For Lovin’ Me. But Grossman apparently didn’t expend much time determinining if a longer-term arrangement was possible. Instead, he directed Gordon to UA. Perhaps not so coincidentally, UA paid Grossman a purported $250,000 talent-finder’s fee. Mair, an Apex/Compo promo manager for Lightfoot’s 1965-1969 output, Messaged me: “AG (Grossman) got a release from Warner and signed GL (Lightfoot) to UA. (Lightfoot) didn’t see any of that quarter of a million. He produced five albums for UA (which) kept picking up options because of his Canadian success.”

Despite that Canadian acclaim, Gordon never saw any of his United Artists 45s ever make the Billboard Hot 100. Hard to believe that material the calibre of The Way I Feel, Go Go Round, Spin Spin, Bitter Green, Pussywilliws Cat-Tails and Black Day In July wouldn’t have reached the lower echelons of Billboard. In retrospect, he likely would have had a better chance of flourishing with Warner Bros. After all, that label’s Peter, Paul and Mary successfully covered For Lovin’ Me, reaching #30 in February ‘65. Gordon’s own version, on the B side of I’m Not Sayin’ came out that spring. United Artists released it almost a year later as the flip side to Spin Spin.

Lightfoot himself was long baffled at the longevity and fan affection accorded For Lovin Me. In liner notes to a 1999 box-set compilation, he described it as “likely the most chauvinistic song ever written.” Peter Yarrow apparently detected enough tongue-in-cheek quality that he convinced Noel (Paul) Stookey and the late Mary Travers to cover it. AllMusic takes a gentler tack, concluding For Lovin’ Me was no more love-‘em-and-leave-‘em harsh than Dion’s The Wanderer or Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe.
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