Sundown

Description

EDITORIAL REVIEWS Here it is, the pinnacle of Gordon Lightfoot's career as both a songwriter and a performer: his 1974 #1 smash LP featuring the title classic (also a #1) and the Top 10 hit "Carefree Highway." But those who've only heard the hits have missed many prime examples of the sterling songcraft for which Lightfoot is revered: "Circle of Steel," "Too Late for Prayin'," "High and Dry," "The Watchman's Gone," and more! Warner UK. AMAZON.COM This album wasn't Lightfoot's breakthrough recording, but it was both a demonstration of the rocking electric turn most folkies would make after Dylan's revolution, and a commercially successful marriage of soulful, R&B sensibility with folk narratives. The title cut is probably engrained in the memory of anyone with an A.M. radio in the '70s, but 20 years later, it sounds suggestive, even bluesy. "Carefree Highway" perhaps excessively romanticizes the road, but less familiar tracks like "Watchman's Gone" and "Too Late for Prayin'" are convincing statements of Lightfoot's lyrical endurance. --Roy Francis Kasten