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Without Gordon Lightfoot’s song, the Edmund Fitzgerald might have faded from memory along with the names of approximately 6,500 other ships that went down. great Lakes Before this.
Lightfoot was inspired to write her poem for Fitzgerald and the 29 men who died on the ship after reading it for the first time. associated Press Story about the wreck and a November 24, 1975 article in Newsweek magazine. The song was released less than a year later, in August 1976.
Lightfoot’s sob story catapulted the tragedy into notoriety. Attachment to the song and interest in the wreck persisted for half a century, although it was not even the deadliest song recorded on the Great Lakes. The deadliest accident in open water was the Lady Elgin in 1860, which historians estimate killed about 400 people.
John U., author of “The Gales of November” “This song has made it the most famous Great Lakes shipwreck of all time,” said Bacon, whose recently published book coincides with the 50th anniversary of the wreck. He said that the Edmund Fitzgerald is surpassed only by the Titanic and possibly the Lusitania as the most famous shipwreck in the world.
Rick Haynes, 80, played bass solo and in the Lightfoot Band for 55 years. He said that the first recorded take of the song was released on the album “Summertime Dream”.
“When you listen to Edmund Fitzgerald’s record, it’s like he’s keeping you there, like he was right there,” Haynes said in a telephone interview from his home. Canada“And that’s very hard to do with such a tragedy, you know?”
Debbie Gomez-Felder was 17 when her father, Oliver “Buck” Champeau, died in Fitzgerald. At first she could not bear to listen to the song.
“I put it on the record player and I thought, ‘Oh no, this music is terrible,'” she said. “I turned it off.”
But he fell in love with it.
Gomez-Felder said, “The part that says ‘All that is left are the faces and names of the wives and sons and daughters,’ I thought there was not a single word that he missed.” “There was nothing he didn’t recognize.”
Lightfoot died in 2023. His widow, Kim Lightfoot, said in a statement to The Associated Press that “Edmund Fitzgerald was always present in Gordon’s mind.”
Kim Lightfoot said, “Just as he glorified the tragedy in song to the world, he kept the memory alive in our home; paintings, models, and tributes decorated the walls and followed us from room to room.” “If Gordon were with us today, he would intend to help keep the candle of memory burning.”
Lightfoot regularly visited family members and famously changed the lyrics of a song at their request, removing reference to an unproven theory that an unsecured hatch cover caused the crash. The exact cause remains a mystery.
That mystery and song continue to draw people to The Wreck, with new generations encountering the story as well tiktok And social media. Bruce Lynn, executive director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, said children come to the museum dressed as Fitzgerald.
“There’s something about Fitzgerald that really catches the eye,” he said.
Haynes estimated that he has played “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” more than two thousand times without getting tired. Lightfoot’s band still tours and plays it at every concert.
Haynes remembers flying from Lightfoot to Whitefish Point, michiganTo commemorate the anniversary of the wreck. He met with the victims’ families, then Haynes took a walk along the shore of Lake Superior, overlooking where Fitz drowned, about 17 miles away.
“I sat there for about 15 or 20 minutes and thought about all these things that had happened in connection with Edmund Fitzgerald,” Haynes said. “And it was very emotional for me. It always has been.”
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Associated Press writer Isabella Vollmert contributed to this report from Lansing, Michigan.