''Harmony'' is

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

singer-songwriter

Gordon Lightfoot Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (November 17, 1938 – May 1, 2023) was a Canadian singer-songwriter who achieved worldwide success and helped define the singer-songwriter era of the 1970s. Widely considered one of Canada's greatest songwriters, ...

's nineteenth studio album. Recorded in 2001 and released in 2004, it reached #35 on the Independent albums chart.

History

''Harmony'' was released in May 2004 by Linus Entertainment (Linus/Warner in Canada and SpinART/Ryko in the U.S.). It was an album that almost never happened. Lightfoot had laid down demo tracks for the record not long before he suffered a near-fatal ruptured artery in September 2002. During his recovery, in whose course he lost enough weight for his appearance to become shockingly gaunt, he directed the recording of backing tracks and was well enough by the time it was released to begin touring again. He says in the liner notes: "In the final analysis, the job was what mattered. It was good being preoccupied in a very constructive way with a project in the works; one which would carry itself forward, right up through the artwork and editorial, until its ultimate completion." The album was generally well received.

Reception

In his

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

review, critic James Christopher Monger praised the album but also wrote "By no means as inspired as the classics Summertime Dream and If You Could Read My Mind, Harmony listens like a good book, and fits snugly into the impressive Lightfoot canon."

Track listing

# "Harmony" – 3:11 # "River of Light" – 3:48 # "Flyin' Blind" – 2:49 # "No Mistake About It" – 4:03 # "End of All Time" – 3:41 # "Shellfish" – 3:45 # "The No Hotel" – 5:54 # "Inspiration Lady" – 3:08 # "Clouds of Loneliness" – 2:52 # "Couchiching" – 3:20 # "Sometimes I Wish" – 3:37 All compositions by Gordon Lightfoot. "Shellfish" and "The No Hotel" were recorded live in 2001.

Personnel

* Gordon Lightfoot - vocals,

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

* Terry Clements - guitar *

Red Shea Patrick Henry "Red" Shea (November 29, 1898 – November 17, 1981) was a Major League Baseball pitcher who played in with the Philadelphia Athletics, and and with the New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American foot ...

- guitar * Bob Doidge - classical and hi-string guitar,

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

panpipes A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

clay drum A clay drum is a variety of percussion instrument found in various parts of the world. It may refer to: Idiophones *Ghatam, from India * Udu, from Nigeria Membranophones * Alligator drum once used in Neolithic China, made from clay and alligat ...

* Mike Heffernan - keyboards, synthesizer * Barry Keane -

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

* Sean O'Grady - drums * Rick Haynes -

* Raphael Keelan - backing vocals

References

External links

Linus Entertainment
{{Authority control Gordon Lightfoot albums 2004 albums