Gordon Lightfoot plays guitar in his Toronto home, on Nov. 3, 2016. An auction of Lightfoot’s belongings will feature several of the items seen in this photo, including a custom 1975 acoustic guitar made by Ed McGlincy, a Martin D-28 acoustic guitar on the stand, two Fender amplifiers to the right and Lightfoot’s briefcase on the left.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
Speaking with Gordon Lightfoot at his house in Toronto’s Bridle Path neighbourhood in 2019, I noticed the cast fixtures in the foyer looked out of place. Lightfoot said he salvaged the pieces from his previous home, the turreted Rosedale mansion and party place where he once entertained the likes of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.
“I didn’t want to leave that house,” he lamented. “It was my former wife’s idea, to get away from downtown distractions.”
Lightfoot died on May 1, 2023. An auction of his instruments, clothes, amplifiers, gold records and assorted whatnots is currently underway online, handled by Texas-based Heritage Auctions. It closes with a live auction on Sunday, which would have been his 86th birthday.
Someone already has purchased the ultimate object of Lightfoot memorabilia: The Bridle Path house, his last residence, was sold months after he died for $16.5-million. Lightfoot earned his living as a songwriter who lyrically mourned losses – women, innocence, the Edmund Fitzgerald, etc. He sold his publishing rights a few years ago to Warner Music.
Everything, eventually, must go.
Among the noteworthy items up for auction are recognizable wardrobe pieces and a 1967 Gibson B45-12 sunburst acoustic featured on the cover of the 1974 album Sundown. Some people don’t want the cultural Canadiana to leave the country.
“I always lean toward preservation,” said Lightfoot biographer Nicholas Jennings. “It’s important that things be saved for posterity, for future generations to learn about an artist and their career, and perhaps to be inspired by the physical objects.”
In addition to penning the definitive 2017 biography Lightfoot, Jennings is a curator for the Friar’s Music Museum on Toronto’s Yonge Street strip, near the famed Lightfoot venues Massey Hall and the long-gone Steele’s Tavern. He is also one of the directors of a new initiative the Toronto Music Experience, a non-profit, charitable organization established to honour the city’s musical past and celebrate current artists, too.
According to Jennings, some non-auction Lightfoot items are earmarked for Library and Archives Canada. And although he winces at the idea of the Carefree Highway singer’s writing desk or denim duds ending up in someone’s man cave, Jennings understands why it is happening. “I feel these items should be on public display for Canadians, but this is how Gordon chose to disperse his things.”
Lightfoot plays a Gibson B45 12-string sunburst acoustic guitar during the first concert at the newly re-opened Massey Hall in Toronto, on Nov. 25, 2021. In addition to instruments and amplifiers, the auction will include clothing, gold records and a variety of other items.COLE BURSTON/The Canadian Press
Hilary Van de Kamer, a partner with Robinsons Law, confirmed to The Globe and Mail that “the executors and trustees are respecting Mr. Lightfoot’s clear directions to auction his music memorabilia, including his guitars, with the proceeds to be distributed in accordance with his written directions.”
Lightfoot was survived by his third wife and six children from different relationships. While alive, he donated a number of items. The titular vessel named in his song Canary Yellow Canoe now lives in the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ont. At Massey Hall, where the balladeer played more than 170 times and recorded two concert albums, fans can gaze at his first guitar (an ancient looking Harmony acoustic), which is in a glass case with a set list and the copyright papers for the international hit If You Could Read My Mind.
Lightfoot also gifted an autographed 1910 Steinway grand piano to Toronto’s Avenue Road Music and Performance Academy.
Items such as Lightfoot’s two Gibson 12-string acoustic guitars from the 1960s or the 1948 Martin D-18 six string or three performance contracts from 1966 or a groovy turquoise-bracelet fashion statement will not necessarily disappear once the final gavel is slammed down.
It is not uncommon for an important musical instrument or piece of equipment to be bought at auction and later loaned out for public display or even continued use. Other times, a benefactor will purchase an instrument and bequeath it to a museum or music school upon their death.
“Private collectors invest in keeping these things in great condition and a proper state of presentation,” said Colin Tait, a Canadian expat and senior cataloger with Heritage Auctions. “Many of them don’t see themselves as owners, but more as stewards.”
In addition to the Toronto Music Experience, which does not have a bricks and mortar location at the moment, there are at least a couple of other organizations deeply interested in the 137 Lightfoot possessions going once, going twice, going three times in Texas.
Pam Carter is president of the Mariposa Folk Festival, held annually in the troubadour’s hometown of Orillia, Ont. She is also part of a mayoral committee to establish an archival Lightfoot presence in the small city near Lake Couchiching, whether it be a new standalone museum or a dedicated space in the existing Orillia Museum of Art & History.
“We have submitted a proposal to the Lightfoot executors in terms of what we would see as a museum,” Carter said.
In Calgary, the National Music Centre (NMC) is home to four Canadian music halls of fame. It houses more than 2,000 rare instruments, equipment and artifacts including the ground-breaking TONTO synthesizer, an Elton John piano and the 1959 Les Paul guitar upon which the Guess Who’s Randy Bachman invented the ear-grabbing American Woman riff.
Many items at the NMC are utilized regularly for recording sessions. The Rolling Stones’ mobile studio from the 1960s is still in use, as is a high-end microphone of Neil Young’s. On the other hand, guitars from the collection of the late April Wine frontman Myles Goodwyn were offered to the museum for display purposes only.
With no acquisition budget, the non-profit NMC depends on artists, artist managers, record labels, benefactors and collectors for its accumulation of instruments and equipment.
“We’re always having conversations with these people about imparting an object or visuals or anything that help us tell stories,” said Jesse Moffatt, senior director of collections and exhibitions at the NMC. “It takes a village, or in this case, a nation, to help support these type of cultural objects to stay in Canada.”
