Sundown

CD reissue of this 1974 album from the legendary Canadian Folk/Rock singer/songwriter who has had numerous Billboard charting albums throughout his career, which began in the mid '60s. His most commercially successful period ran through the '70s, although he remains one of the most influential and admired songwriters of the Rock era. Sundown reached #1 on the Billboard album charts and features the #1 single, "Sundown". It also features the Top Ten single "Carefree Highway".

This album wasn't Lightfoot's breakthrough recording, but it was both a demonstration of the rocking electric turn most folkies would make after Dylan's revolution, and a commercially successful marriage of soulful, R&B sensibility with folk narratives. The title cut is probably engrained in the memory of anyone with an A.M. radio in the '70s, but 20 years later, it sounds suggestive, even bluesy. "Carefree Highway" perhaps excessively romanticizes the road, but less familiar tracks like "Watchman's Gone" and "Too Late for Prayin'" are convincing statements of Lightfoot's lyrical endurance. --Roy Francis Kasten