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Turnpike Troubadours Deliver Haunting Cover Of Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald” Ahead Of The 50th Anniversary Of The Famous Shipwreck
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down…
November 10 is the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a freighter that sank in Lake Superior in 1975 and resulted in the death of 29 crew members.
The ship, commanded by renowned Great Lakes Captain Ernest McSorley, left from Superior, Wisconsin on November 9 carrying a load of iron ore to the steel mill on Zug Island, Michigan. But the next day, gale-force winds moved into the Great Lakes, and snow reduced the ship’s visibility even further.
Shortly after 3 PM on November 10, McSorley radioed to Captain Bernie Cooper of the Arthur M. Anderson, another freighter that was on the same route, to let him know that the Fitzgerald was taking on water and had started to list. McSorley slowed the Fitzgerald to allow the Anderson to catch up to him, and with his radar out attempted to guide the ship to the relative safety of Whitefish Bay.
During the afternoon, the Anderson reported sustained winds of 58 knots, or 67 mph, and gusts as high as 70-75 knots (over 80 mph). The waves increased to 25 feet, with “rogue waves” of up to 35 feet striking the ship as the Fitzgerald was limping along.
At around 7 pm, Cooper radioed the Fitzgerald to ask how they were doing, with McSorley responding that they were “holding their own.”
And after that, the ship was never heard from again.
The Anderson and the US Coast Guard launched a search for the ship, but no survivors were found. The wreckage was located a few days later, revealing that the ship was split in two during the disaster.
The Fitzgerald remains among the largest and most famous shipwrecks on the Great Lakes, where over 240 vessels have been lost on the busy shipping channel.
The tragedy was memorialized by Gordon Lightfoot in his 1976 song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” on his 1976 album Summertime Dream, and remains one of his signature songs.
“When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin’
“Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya”
At 7 p.m., a main hatchway caved in, he said
“Fellas, it’s been good to know ya”
The captain wired in he had water comin’ in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”
And after his death in 2023, the Mariners’ Church in Detroit (which was mentioned in Lightfoot’s song when he sang that “in a musty old hall in Detroit, they prayed in the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral”) rang their bell 30 times in honor of the 29 killed on the Fitzgerald and Lightfoot.
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” gains new attention every year around this time, as we approach the anniversary of the shipwreck. It’s been covered countless times by other artists both online and in concert, and last night in Cleveland, the Turnpike Troubadours even honored Lightfoot and the victims of the shipwreck with a haunting performance of his classic song:
Long live the Edmund Fitzgerald and Gordon Lightfoot.The post Turnpike Troubadours Deliver Haunting Cover Of Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald” Ahead Of The 50th Anniversary Of The Famous Shipwreck first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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