Gordon Lightfoot Set Lists and Writing Desks to Auction

The Gordon Lightfoot Estate Collection Music Memorabilia sale held by Heritage Auctions on November 17 will celebrate the legacy of the popular Canadian singer-songwriter who died last year.

Lightfoot wrote a stream of hits in the 1960s and 1970s including If You Could Read My Mind, Sundown, Carefree Highway and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and was feted by many in the music industry including Bob Dylan.

The auction features various examples of his handwritten and typed set lists, including one from an unknown date with more than 30 songs, and a handwritten one with one-word substitutions for full song titles including Wreck and Sundown. Also going under the hammer are hand-signed performance contracts included ones from 1965 and 1966.

There is also a selection of framed photographs of Lightfoot pictured with fellow musicians such as Dylan, Tony Bennett, Kris Kristofferson, Harry Chapin, John Denver, Mary Travers, Johnny Cash, Bill Graham, James Taylor and Rita Coolidge. Additionally, two of Lightfoot’s personal writing desks are among the lots, a large one (29 ½" x 53 ½") with three drawers, and a smaller one (18 ¾" x 27 ½" x 27 ¾") with no drawers and heavily used.

More than a dozen of the guitars Lightfoot wrote songs and recorded and toured with are also among the lots, as well as his amplifiers, gold records, the turquoise he wore along with some of his favorite stage outfits, personally owned artworks and promotional materials, and awards.