Legendary singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, whose songwriting credits include ‘If You Could Read My Mind, and ‘Sundown,’ will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame during a star-studded gala on June 14 in New York City. Along with Lightfoot, this year’s inductees also include rocker Bob Seger, country songwriter Don Schlitz, Meat Loaf-maker Jim Steinman, and the songwriting team of Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones.
Lightfoot, originally from Orillia, ON, has written many classic songs including ‘Early Morning Rain,’ “Sundown,’ ‘If You Could Read My Mind,’ ‘Canadian Railroad Trilogy,’ ‘Rainy Day People,’ and ‘The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald,’ and country legend Marty Robbins scored a No. 1 country hit in 1965 with Lightfoot’s ‘Ribbon of Darkness.’ Here’s a clip of Gordon from 1974 singing ‘Sundown.’
As a singer/songwriter, Bob Seger‘s catalogue includes some of the biggest hits in American rock, including ‘Against the Wind,’ ‘Night Moves,’ ‘Hollywood Nights,’ ‘Old Time Rock And Roll,’ ‘Beautiful Loser,’ and ‘Like a Rock.’ Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton‘s recording of Seger’s ‘We’ve Got Tonight’ reached No. 1 on the country chart in 1983. One of his biggest hits, ‘Shame On The Moon,’ was not written by Seger, it came from the pen of country singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell. Here’s Seger and ‘Against The Wind’ live in concert in 1980, when the song was brand new.
‘The Gambler,’ Don Schlitz’s first recorded song, was a huge hit for Kenny Rogers, won a Grammy for country song of the year in 1978, and inspired a number of movies. Interesting tidbit… Schlitz once told me that Johnny Cash also recorded the song but it was Rogers’ record label who released the song first. He and co-writer Paul Overstreet won another Grammy for country song of the year in 1988 for Randy Travis‘ ‘Forever and Ever, Amen.’ Schlitz has written hundreds of songs, a few of his credits include ‘On the Other Hand,’ ‘Deeper Than the Holler’ (Randy Travis), ‘I Feel Lucky,’ ‘He Thinks He’ll Keep Her’ (Mary Chapin Carpenter), and ‘When You Say Nothing at All’ (Alison Krauss). Here’s Alison and Union Station with a terrific version of Don’s song…
Jim Steinman wrote and produced every song on Meat Loaf’s 1977 album, Bat Out of Hell, which has sold more than 44 million copies. One of Steinman’s songs on that album that propelled it to such huge sales was the classic make-out song, ‘Paradise By the Dashboard Lights.’
Schmidt and Jones, not to be confused with the singer Tom Jones, co-wrote the 1960 Broadway musical, The Fantasticks, which included the classic song ‘Try To Remember.’
