A friend of ours has looked after Red's garden for a little while now, and I just heard this today. Cancer, sadly.

My wife used to babysit for Red in the late '60s, when Red was playhing with a lot of the top acts around here, including people like Ian and Sylvie, as well as Gordon Lightfoot.

Here's a clip from the Globe & Mail, a Toronto newspaper:
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TORONTO — Musician Red Shea, who played lead guitar with Gordon Lightfoot and later with Ian and Sylvia Tyson, has died of pancreatic cancer in Aurora, Ont. Mr. Shea, whose real name was Laurice Milton Shea, was 70.

With his brother Les Shea and bassist Bill Gibbs, Mr. Shea formed the Red and Les Trio in the late 1950s. They played on Country Hoedown, a popular musical variety show that launched in 1956 and ran for nine years on CBC.

It was on Country Hoedown, in 1960, that Mr. Shea met Gordon Lightfoot, who was a member of the Singin' Swingin' Eight. Mr. Shea began playing lead guitar in The Lightfoot Band in 1965 and “was a pivotal figure” in Mr. Lightfoot's early career, according to music journalist Larry Leblanc. He appeared on many albums including, The Way I Feel, Did She Mention My Name, Sit Down Young Stranger, Summer Side of Life, Sundown, Cold on the Shoulder and Gord's Gold.

Dedicated Lightfoot fans still talk about Mr. Shea's “breathtaking” guitar solo in The Canadian Railroad Trilogy, a performance that was recorded live at Massey Hall in 1969 and released on the album, Sunday Concert.

Mr. Shea left the band in 1971, and was replaced by Terry Clements, although he returned briefly for a time in 1975.
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He will be missed.