Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. CC OOnt (born November 17, 1938) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s. He is often referred to as Canada's greatest songwriter and is known internationally as a folk-rock legend. Lightfoot's biographer Nicholas Jennings said "His name is synonymous with timeless songs about trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness. He is unquestionably Canada's greatest songwriter."