Gordon Lightfoot poses beside the bronze statue unveiled in his honour at Barnfield Point, on the Gordon Lightfoot Trail in Orillia, Ontario, on October 23, 2015. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Thornhill)

Gordon Lightfoot ‘Canada’s folk laureate’ is 80

Gordon Lightfoot, Canada’s folk troubadour, celebrated his 80th birthday on Saturday November 17th.

And to honour the milestone, Lightfoot gifted his hometown, Orillia, Ontario.

He performed a benefit concert for the Opera House and the Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital.

Gordon Lightfoot performs at Toronto’s Massey Hall on Sunday, July 1, 2018. The 124-year-old concert venue then shut its doors for a “revitalization project.” THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

As a new CBC TV series reveals, Gordon Lightfoot’s first foray into the spotlight began on the CBC TV program Country Hoedown, where he performed as a square-dance singer, and dancer. or foot-stomper.

The much-loved singer-songwriter has written and performed many of Canada’s now iconic ballads, such as the Canadian Railroad Trilogy about the building of the Canadian railway.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is the ballad commemorating the sinking of the Great Lakes bulk carrier, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in a terrible storm on Lake Superior, on November 10, 1975.

His tour continues.with dates in Ottawa, Kitchener, and Peterborough, Ontario.

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