After coming back from the Vietnam Battle, Tom Treece joined a band named Brussel Sprout.
One winter night time in 1976, the Brussel Sprout band members have been in Canada to file their first album after they met a music legend.
Gordon Lightfoot and his band additionally have been recording at Toronto’s Japanese Sound Studio. Due to a recreation room with a again entrance, Treece bought to observe the famed Canadian people singer/songwriter file his hit tune “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Lightfoot died earlier this month at age 84. His well-known tune recounts the November 1975 sinking of the freighter the SS Edmund Fitzgerald throughout a storm on Lake Superior. All 29 males aboard died.
“Gordon Lightfoot was within the studio, simply ending the ‘Summertime Dream’ LP,” Treece, of Monroe, recalled. “He didn’t have sufficient time to complete the final tune and requested us if we’d take into account letting him purchase in the future of our reserved time within the studio. As a substitute of letting him purchase it, we requested if he may play on one among our songs as a visitor artist.”
Lightfoot by no means sang on the Brussel Sprout’s album, however Treece witnessed music historical past that night time.
“The remainder of my band left. I caught round and snuck right into a aspect room. There was a recreation room all of the artists waited in to file. I hung on the market. It was darkish, and no one was round in any respect. I sat there silently. It was late within the night,” Treece stated.
Then, Lightfoot entered the recording room.
“I used to be 10 or 12 toes away from him. He didn’t know I used to be there. He would have kicked me proper out of there. He was adamant, no one within the studio. He turned out all of the lights within the studio and bought as distant from the glass as he may very well be. Simply the overhead gentle was shining down on his paper, the place the lyrics have been scribbled on. You couldn’t have scripted it higher,” Treece recalled. “I used to be silently watching via the window as he recorded the tune.”
Lightfoot sang the ultimate model of the almost six-minute “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in only one take. Then, he observed Treece.
“He confirmed me the ‘Time’ journal and instructed me how he had written the tune based mostly on studying in regards to the sinking of the ship. We had a half-hour dialogue on that tune. It was a wide-eyed younger child’s and songwriter’s dream to have the ability to sit there and simply get pleasure from speaking with one of many nice songwriters of historical past,” Treece stated.
Lightfoot even requested Treece to return to the band’s after-album social gathering.
“He invited me to his home to hang around with him and his band,” Treece stated. “There have been gold data all around the partitions and three grand pianos on the primary ground. It was in downtown Toronto and was a mansion. It was only a magical time for me.”
The subsequent day, again within the studio, Lightfoot performed “Summertime Dream” for the Brussel Sprout band members and requested them which single he ought to launch first to radio stations.
“The others stated, ‘Summertime Dream,’ the title lower,” Treece stated. “I used to be simply enamored with ‘Edmund Fitzgerald.’ It was so haunting and so good. I stated, ‘I feel that’s the one.’ However it was lengthy. Hit songs then have been 3 minutes to three minutes, 20 seconds,” Treece stated. “’Edmund Fitzgerald’ shouldn’t have been successful.”
Treece nonetheless enjoys listening to and singing Lightfoot’s tune.
“It was only a fantastically recorded and produced tune. It definitely was one among his nice songs and an actual basic. It’s stood the take a look at of time. It nonetheless will get performed. I nonetheless get requests to play it,” Treece stated.
Three weeks after the Lightfoot encounter, Brussel Sprout recorded its first and solely self-titled album. The seven-man band additionally included fellow Monroe residents Roger Manning, who sang and performed harp, and John Vass, who sang and performed drums. Treece sang and performed rhythm guitar.
“We toured coast to coast and in Canada. It was an incredible expertise. We wrote all our personal music. I simply liked it. We bought a recording contract with MCA Data. Our labelmates have been Lynyrd Skynyrd, Elton John, Conway Twitty,” Treece stated. “However our music by no means caught on. It was forward of its time.”
Treece and his spouse, Renee, went to a number of Lightfoot concert events via the years. Their final one was about six years in the past in Toledo. Treece stated Lightfoot didn’t appear effectively then.
“He was not in fine condition. That he was in a position to proceed enjoying at a complicated age and situation sort of shocked me. However he bought up on that stage and cranked them out. We have been in a position to go backstage and join with him. I attempted to remind him of our time collectively. He didn’t even bear in mind it. He simply wasn’t in a situation to recollect it. He signed Renee’s shirt; she was all excited,” Treece stated. “He positive liked singing and performing his songs. I feel he couldn’t give up. It was in his blood, in his soul. I may nearly see him doing what I would like, having a coronary heart assault and dying on stage doing what I like doing.”
A couple of yr in the past, Treece bought a guide in mail. It was a biography on Lightfoot. The creator discovered Treece’s 2006 Monroe Information column about assembly the music legend.
“He discovered my column on-line and used an excerpt within the guide. He despatched me an autographed copy. It stated, ‘Tom, in appreciation for our shared tales about this superb man,’” Treece stated. “I used to be honored that he used a few of my writing to explain Lightfoot in his guide.”
