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Kenneth Wright: Gordon Lightfoot's iconic song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, has to this day told the story of November 10, 1975, when the ship and 29 lives were lost in a horrific storm 50 years ago next week. WCMU's David Nicholas spoke with musician Mike Fornes, whose Lightfoot tribute band has celebrated the singer's music for 30 years.
Mike Fornes: People remember where they were when that music came out. They remember what they were doing, who they were associated with. They remember relationships. It hits people; it takes people back.
David Nicholas: How did you first come in contact with that song?
MF: Well, when the shipwreck occurred, I was living in Michigan, so I certainly heard a lot about, you know, what had happened. When the song came out, I was living on the East Coast. And so, that took me right back to Michigan in terms of hearing that music. I just found it absolutely haunting that it had a quality about it that was just such an emotional thing. You could feel it going up and down your spine.
DN: What does this song bring together for you, and how does it resonate differently with you, especially when so much of the focus right now is on that one song?
MF: Well, I think unquestionably the reason that the song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, resonates so much with me personally is because of the connection I've had with the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point. That's where the bell is that was raised from the ship, and that's where the family members, those surviving family members, gather every year on November 10th to remember their lost loved ones and to ring the bell in memory of those that were lost. And I was very fortunate to be asked to play Gordon's song at that ceremony. And this will be my 15th year to play at Whitefish Point, and when you're there and you're next to the bell and you're next to the family members that come to that ceremony, you really feel a kinship. You can see the pain. You can see the grief that is still with them. Those 29 men are still in the ship; none of them were ever recovered. And the ship is 17 miles away, 530 feet down in Lake Superior. It hurts them to come there. That's the closest they can get to those lost loved ones. And you honor that, and you're humbled by that, of being asked to be part of that ceremony.
MF: Well, it's an honor to play his music, and I think I had played at the Shipwreck Museum one year, and the very next year, when I saw him, he came up to me and said, 'well, I understand now you're a pinch hitter.' I said, 'that's right, Gordon. I'm pinch hitting for you. I'm playing your music.' But he liked it that I was doing that, and he felt a close connection to those families, and I certainly, you know, am honored to keep that going.
DN: Well, I think your presence and obviously the presence of the family, it will be a way to bring all of those 29 sailors together; reunite them with the families, reunite you with a musician that you honor very, very much, and I'm sure that the feeling of that connection will be especially powerful here as we look back 50 years.
MF: I certainly agree.
KW: That was musician Mike Fornes of the Gordon Lightfoot Tribute Band, speaking with WCMU's David Nicholas.
