Before its own ritzy transformation, Yorkville changed Gordon Lightfoot.
Yorkville transformed musicians, from Lightfoot to Neil Young to Joni Mitchell, almost as thoroughly as it was transformed in the second half of the 20th century. The neighbourhood now known for its multimillion-dollar condos, high-end restaurants and luxury boutiques was just 60 years ago a haven for hippies and a"hothouse" for future folk legends.
In the liner notes, Lightfoot describes the setting as"what used to be an old house, about the size of a shoe box." The club was a dark room downstairs, he wrote, and the air was thick and sticky, filled with smoke. "The newspaper reviews of Gordon's first appearance at the Riverboat in the spring of 1965, and then the reviews in the fall of 1965, the development that these critics talk about is just incredible," he said.Sylvia Tyson, who was herself a Yorkville folkie as one half of the duo Ian & Sylvia, recalled rubbing shoulders with Lightfoot at the time.
Real estate in the area was undervalued at the time, he said, so it was cheap and easy to rent a space and bring musicians in to attract customers. "It was a scene in the sense that Haight Ashbury in San Francisco was a scene. Yorkville had its own distinctive vibe. There were lots of shops offering drug paraphernalia, people smoking pot all over the place -- back before that was legal, obviously," he said.
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