Gordon Lightfoot

Once Upon a Red Eye is a compelling memoir that offers rare insight into the behind-the-scenes life of a Canadian musical icon. Here are the colourful recountings of Richard Harison, who spent a dozen years serving as Gordon Lightfoot's road/stage manager, concert sound engineer, and lighting designer/director. In the time of his employ with Lightfoot, Harison enjoyed all manner of adventure. He accompanied the famed singer/songwriter and his band on concert tours of the world, celebrity meetings, thrilling performances in halls grand and small, and travel mishaps, including three bomb scares and two consecutive aircraft engine failures.Woven expertly into the background of Harison's stories of music, tours and elaborate pranks, history plays out in iconic bursts. The Vietnam War, an encounter with the Black Panthers, and a UK tour during the serious political/religious upheaval in Ireland all provide context to Lightfoot's international presence in this epic stretch of time.Between 1970 and 1981, Richard Harison was part of Lightfoot's remarkable story, serving as a source of friendship, personal, and practical support for Lightfoot and basking in his special glow....

Once Upon a Red Eye is a compelling memoir that offers rare insight into the behind-the-scenes life of a Canadian musical icon. Here are the colourful recountings of Richard Harison, who spent a dozen years serving as Gordon Lightfoot's road/stage manager, concert sound engineer, and lighting designer/director. In the time of his employ with Lightfoot, Harison enjoyed all manner of adventure. He accompanied the famed singer/songwriter and his band on concert tours of the world, celebrity meetings, thrilling performances in halls grand and small, and travel mishaps, including three bomb scares and two consecutive aircraft engine failures.Woven expertly into the background of Harison's stories of music, tours and elaborate pranks, history plays out in iconic bursts. The Vietnam War, an encounter with the Black Panthers, and a UK tour during the serious political/religious upheaval in Ireland all provide context to Lightfoot's international presence in this epic stretch of time.Between 1970 and 1981, Richard Harison was part of Lightfoot's remarkable story, serving as a source of friendship, personal, and practical support for Lightfoot and basking in his special glow....

Nominee for the 2012 Silver Birch Express Award in the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading Program This lavishly illustrated book brings Gordon Lightfoot's heart-stirring song, "Canadian Railroad Trilogy," to readers young and old. The song was commissioned by the CBC in 1967 to mark Canada's centennial year and it has been a classic ever since. It eloquently describes the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway -- "an iron road runnin' from the sea to the sea" -- a great feat of nation building that changed Canada forever for good and for ill, as in the process many people died and were dispossessed of their land. Highly acclaimed, award-winning illustrator Ian Wallace brings the song to visual life with his sweeping landscapes and evocative portrayals of the people who lived the building of the railroad -- from the financiers in the east to First Nations people across the country to the thousands of navvies themselves, many of whom came from as far away as China.