''Summer Side of Life'' is

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

singer-songwriter

Gordon Lightfoot Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (born November 17, 1938) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960 ...

's seventh album. It was released in 1971 on the

Reprise Records Reprise Records is an American record label founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operates through Warner Records, one of its flagship labels. Artists currently signed to Reprise Records include Enya, Michael ...

Label. The album marked a departure from the sound Lightfoot had established on ''

Sit Down Young Stranger ''Sit Down Young Stranger'' is Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot's fifth studio album and his best-selling original album. Shortly after its 1970 release on the Reprise Records label, it was renamed ''If You Could Read My Mind'' when the song of ...

'' in its use of drums and electric instrumentation, to which he would later return in the second half of the decade. “Redwood Hill” contains elements of

bluegrass music Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ...

. The album reached #38 on the

pop chart A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often in combination. These include re ...

. "Summer Side of Life" peaked at #98 on the pop singles chart while "Talking in Your Sleep" peaked at #64. The singles reached #21 and #19 respectively in Canada. The track "Cotton Jenny" would later be covered by

Anne Murray Morna Anne Murray (born June 20, 1945) is a retired Canadian singer. Her albums, consisting primarily of pop, country, and adult contemporary music, have sold over 55 million copies worldwide during her over 40-year career. Murray was the fir ...

, for whom it would provide a top-twenty single on the U.S. country singles chart. The song "Love and Maple Syrup" was covered by

Taylor Mitchell Taylor Josephine Stephanie Luciow, known by her stage name Taylor Mitchell (August 27, 1990October 27, 2009), was a Canadian country folk singer and songwriter from Toronto. Her debut and only album, ''For Your Consideration'', received encourag ...

in 2009. She lost her life in a coyote assault later that year.

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covered "10 Degrees and Getting Colder" on her 1993 album, ''Other Voices, Other Rooms''. The song had previously been recorded by

J. D. Crowe James Dee Crowe (August 27, 1937December 24, 2021) was an American banjo player and bluegrass band leader. He first became known during his four-year stint with Jimmy Martin in the 1950s. Crowe led the bluegrass group New South from 1971 until ...

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on their eponymous album in 1975.

Track listing

All compositions by

Side 1

#"10 Degrees and Getting Colder" – 2:43 #"Miguel" – 4:12 #"Go My Way" – 2:13 #"Summer Side of Life" – 4:05 #" Cotton Jenny" – 3:26 #"Talking in Your Sleep" – 2:56

Side 2

#"Nous Vivons Ensemble" – 3:45 #"Same Old Loverman" – 3:21 #"Redwood Hill" – 2:48 #"Love and Maple Syrup" – 3:13 #"Cabaret" – 5:49

Chart performance

Personnel

*Gordon Lightfoot -

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

Red Shea Patrick Henry "Red" Shea (November 29, 1898 – November 17, 1981) was a Major League Baseball pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each p ...

*Jerry Shook - guitar * Chip Young - guitar *Rick Haynes -

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

* Roy M. "Junior" Huskey - acoustic bass *James Rolleston - bass guitar *

Henry Strzelecki Henry Pershing Strzelecki (August 8, 1939 – December 30, 2014) was a Nashville studio musician who performed with Roy Orbison, Chet Atkins, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Eddy Arnold, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Ronnie Milsap, Merle Haggard, and man ...

- bass guitar * Kenneth A. Buttrey -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

Buddy Harman Murrey Mizell "Buddy" Harman, Jr. (December 23, 1928 – August 21, 2008) was an American country music session musician. Career Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Harman played drums on over 18,000 sessions for artists such as Elvis Presley, Jerry ...

- drums *Jimmy Isbell - drums *David Brown -

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

*Farrell Morris - percussion *

Vassar Clements Vassar Carlton Clements (April 25, 1928 – August 16, 2005) was an American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

Charlie McCoy Charles Ray McCoy (born March 28, 1941) is a Grammy-winning American session musician, harmonica player, and multi-instrumentalist. In 2009, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Based in Nashville, McCoy's playing is heard on r ...

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...

Hargus "Pig" Robbins Hargus Melvin Robbins (January 18, 1938 – January 30, 2022), known by his nickname "Pig," was an American session keyboard player. Having played on records for many artists, including John Stewart, Dolly Parton, Connie Smith, Patti Page, Lore ...

- piano *

The Jordanaires The Jordanaires were an American vocal quartet that formed as a gospel group in 1948. Over the years, they recorded both sacred and secular music for recording companies such as Capitol Records, RCA Victor, Columbia Records, Decca Records, Vocal ...

(Gordon Stoker, Neal Matthews, Hoyt Hawkins, Ray Walker) - backing vocals ;Technical *Rick Horton - engineer, remixing *Harry Kemball - cover photography

References

External links

Album lyrics and chords
{{Authority control Gordon Lightfoot albums 1971 albums Albums produced by Joe Wissert Reprise Records albums