Gordon Lightfoot and the hat that got passed

I collect hats. That's what you do when you're bald.                                                              So spoketh Sweet Baby James Taylor.

Gordon Lightfoot was never bald and, therefore, not much inclined to collect hats.

But he did once own a distinctive Homburg. Not the formal, stately kind made famous by Winston Churchill. Lightfoot's was more flamboyant: a wide-brimmed fur one, with an array of feathers tucked jauntily into the hatband.

And that Homburg traveled widely, although not nearly as far or over as long a period of time as the Stradivarius featured in the movie The Red Violin. Or at least as far as we know it didn't.

Gord's brown Homburg was given to him, during the height of his popularity, by his friend Bob. As in Dylan. The man who's always worn a wide variety of hats to suit his ever-changing personas, dating back to the flat cap of his Woody Guthrie-inspired, early Greenwich Village days.

Lightfoot wore his Homburg a lot for short period circa 1973-74, along with a burnished leather jacket given to him by Jerry Jeff Walker that had the look of autumn leaves (the story of the jacket, which Lightfoot wore on the cover of his Don Quixote album, can be found on Page 118 of Lightfoot).

You can see both aforementioned articles of clothing in a colour photo of Gord and a dog on the cover of a Japanese release of the single "Sundown." 

The hat and jacket also appeared in black-and-white shots taken by New York freelance photographer Carl Samrock. One shows Gord sipping a second cup of coffee (still unable to face the day?), while in the other he seems to be sharing a joke with a cop in Central Park.

So what became of the hat? Well Lightfoot, always a generous sort, passed the Homburg along to Larry Good, the banjo-playing member of the bluegrass-country trio the Good Brothers.

Gord had met Larry and his twin brothers, Brian and Bruce, through Red Shea, Lightfoot's formidable first guitarist. "We met Red at the Richmond Inn in Richmond Hill, where we're from," recalls Bruce. "He was having a beer and I introduced myself, telling him I was a big fan of him and Lightfoot. He was a very funny, extroverted guy. After sitting with him for 20 minutes, I felt like I'd known him for 10 years. And that was the beginning of a long friendship."

Brian picks up the story: "We later bumped into Red at the airport and he introduced us as fellow musicians to Gord and his bass player John Stockfish, who were all on their way to a gig." Added Bruce: "And then, gradually over time, Gord became as much of a good a friend to us as Red. He mentored us and took us on tour and had us open for him."

The travellng Homburg wound up with Larry, after Lightfoot gifted it to the youngest of the Good siblings. Knowing its auspicious provenance, Larry wore it on special occasions. He wore it proudly in a sepia-toned photo of the Goods posing outside a barn, with Bruce below him sporting an old-fashioned top hat.

A bit of background. The Goods actually began as James & the Good Brothers. This was when they were led by Winnipeg guitarist James Ackroyd. Their first show was with Grand Fund Railroad at Maple Leaf Gardens. They famous then joined the Festival Express, touring across Canada on a train with such artists as The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Ian & Sylvia, Ten Years After, Traffic and The Band. With a little help from friends the Dead and Jefferson Airplane, they recorded their first album on Columbia. What followed now seems like an hallucination: nights at the renowned Troubadour in West Hollywood, gigs at San Francisco's famed Fillmore West and Winterland Ballroom.

When Ackroyd opted to stay in the States, Brian and Bruce returned to Canada and recruited Larry to join them as simply the Good Brothers. Their first gig was at Yorkville's legendary Riverboat coffeehouse, on May 14, 1974. According to one report, they played "simple, straight from the soul music that encompassed country, bluegrass, folk, Celtic and the occasional taste from their rock & roll songbook. Highlighted by Larry's fiery banjo breaks, Bruce's award winning autoharp styles, Brian’s guitar finger picking and their unique sibling harmonies, they produced enough energy to burn down the barn."

It wasn't long before the Good Brothers were packing Toronto's fabled El Mocambo club five nights a week, breaking  attendance records and exhausting determined dancers.

And it was there, at the Elmo, that the Homburg went missing one night in 1974: a thief stole it from the Goods' dressing room. But, according to Bruce, the last laugh is on whoever took the now-famous hat, because "they never really knew the true value of what they stole."

From Dylan to Lightfoot to Larry Good and to who knows who? That Homburg has a history that's still evolving.