Javier’s English Corner

There are certain songs that the moment you hear them somewhere for the first time, they make such an impact on you that you have to find out about the singer immediately and they make you go to the nearest music store to buy the record. I say ‘record’ because the first time I heard Suzanne on the radio, there were no CDs yet, so I grabbed some money and I bought my first Leonard Cohen LP album, The Best of Leonard Cohen , which was released in 1975, but I bought it when I was a senior in high school in 1983. As it often happens when you’re a teenager, all the songs in that album were a discovery for me and there was something in most of the lyrics that I actually felt and understood at an emotional level.

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Now that gospel music is becoming fashionable again and that festivals devoted to this kind of music are sprouting everywhere, I’ve seen fit to post a couple of videos of Mahalia Jackson, who is widely regarded as the best singer in the history of this genre. We are so fortunate now to enjoy the technology that enables us to watch and admire some of the classics in her repertoire. Her biography is fascinating and I recommend you take a look at her Wikipedia site.

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On my last post I mentioned Gordon Lightfoot, a prolific Canadian singer, writer and poet. He may not be that popular in Spain, but he’s a whole institution in Canada, and most of his songs have been covered by many international singers. He was born in 1938 and he’s still touring, even though he was rather sick a few years back.

I have chosen perhaps his most popular song, If you could read my mind, in his original album version from 1970. You will notice that the video is actually only a picture of Gordon Lightfoot, but all the live videos I’ve found show Gordon only a few years ago, and I wanted you to listen to the first recording. If you’d like to see a video of a recent live version by this brilliant singer, go to the following link live version

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