Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ Was An Unlikely Hit Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 folk ballad told the true story of a shipwreck on Lake Superior. One of his old friends called it “a documentarian’s song.”
Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian Folk Singer, Dies at 84 Mr. Lightfoot’s rich baritone and gift for melodies made him one of the most popular artists of the 1970s.