Gordon Lightfoot’s “Carefree Highway.” It came out in August of 1974, making it exactly Fifty Years old. This song means so much to me, and if I had my druthers, I’d play it for you twenty times. This is the stuff that really feeds me. It was Terry Clements who played the iconic guitar leads on the LP for this one, and for me to write a solo guitar arrangement without them would be like painting the Mona Lisa wearing a covid mask. (Lucky for me, he played it the same way all three times; otherwise, I doubt that I’d uh had the patience to arrange this.) What I finally came up with was more of a transcription, because the guitar takes on vocal harmony and orchestra parts, and through that process it becomes something “other.” Different from the original, it inhabits a different space. I think of it as an homage, le hommage; in other words: I loved it so much that I couldn’t stop messing with it, fiddling around with different voicings, alternate routes. It wasn’t like work. It was pleasure, like following a mountain trail toward a waterfall, I knew it was going to be worthy, beautiful, even though I hadn’t gotten there yet. It was inviting me … and I followed. Be well, be happy. Be You.
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