It was there he met fellow musician Ronnie Hawkins.

His first gig was at Fran’s Restaurant, a downtown family-owned diner that warmed to his folk sensibilities. He pledged to move to Toronto to pursue his musical ambitions, taking any job available, including a position at a bank before landing a gig as a square dancer on CBC’s “Country Hoedown.” Life in Hollywood wasn’t a good fit, however, and it wasn’t long before Lightfoot returned to Canada. The trip was funded in part by money saved from a job delivering linens to resorts around his hometown. Attempts to sell the song went nowhere so at 18, he headed to the U.S. After taking the class again, he graduated in 1957.īy then, Lightfoot had already penned his first serious composition - “The Hula Hoop Song,” inspired by the toy that was sweeping the culture.

Perhaps distracted by his taste for music, he flunked algebra the first time. He strummed his first guitar in 1956 and began to dabble in songwriting in the months that followed. The appeal of those early days stuck and in high school, his barbershop quartet, The Collegiate Four, won a CBC talent competition. “I remember the thrill of being in front of the crowd,” Lightfoot said in a 2018 interview. At age 13, the soprano won a talent contest at the Kiwanis Music Festival, held at Toronto’s Massey Hall. He began singing in his church choir and dreamed of becoming a jazz musician.

The folk of the air 3