Re: HOT DOCS -LIGHTFOOT doc to premiere
Quote:
The website for the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema (located at 506 Bloor St. West in Toronto, near the Bathurst subway station) now indicates that the movie "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind" will be also be screened on the following dates in June: Saturday, June 1 - 4:15 p.m. Sunday, June 2 - 3:45 p.m. Monday, June 3 - 1:30 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. Thursday, June 6 - 9:15 p.m. Friday, June 7 - 3:30 p.m. Saturday, June 8 - 6:30 p.m. The website for the Bytowne Cinema in Ottawa (located at 325 Rideau St.) indicates that the movie "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind" will be screened at that theatre on the following dates: Friday, June 7 - 6:55 p.m. Saturday, June 8 - 4:20 p.m. Sunday, June 9 - 12:30 p.m. and 5:25 p.m. Monday, June 10 - 7:15 p.m. The following link has further information: https://www.bytowne.ca/movie/gordon-lightfoot. |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
TORONTO STAR ARTICLE - May 10,2019
https://www.thestar.com/entertainmen...w237wfzZdBMhAo By Ben RaynerPop Music Critic Fri., May 10, 2019 The first image to flicker onscreen in Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind is a long shot of the film’s titular subject standing with hands on hips at the door of his Rosedale mansion, levelling an iron gaze at the camera that veritably screams “tough nut to crack.” And, hey, whaddaya know? Gordon Lightfoot is a tough nut to crack. The final impression of the 80-year-old Canadian folk icon left by Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni’s briskly entertaining and entirely legend-affirming new documentary — which received its world premiere with two screenings attended by Gord himself in Toronto during the Hot Docs film festival late last month and will return to the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on Bloor St. from May 24 until June 7 before landing on the CBC’s Documentary channel at the end of the year — is that of a meticulous, if unpretentious perfectionist and professional who prefers to do his deep thinking in private and channel it into song rather than parading himself before the public as an open book, like so many other pop stars of his stature. So while writer/directors Kehoe and Tosoni do manage to crack open the Lightfoot mystique a little bit in If You Could Read My Mind, the real triumph of their film is that they got Gordon Lightfoot to acquiesce to a documentary examination in the first place. As his longtime personal assistant Anne Leibold, noting that Lightfoot has been approached “hundreds” of times to do similar cinematic projects during her time on the payroll, puts it to the Star: “I applaud them because they got through a thick brick wall with him.” The dry-witted Lightfoot, who has for years been good-naturedly badgered by Kehoe and Tosoni to let them do a film on his life and work during their occasional run-ins, simply shrugs off the decision to participate in the documentary as a matter of trust and timing. “I was sitting with John Brunton (the film’s producer) one day and he was describing how a tornado came through Muskoka and almost tore his cottage in half with him inside with his family. That got me thinking,” he says, wedged into an impossibly cramped and humid office upstairs at the Hot Docs theatre with Kehoe, Tosoni, Leibold, Lightfoot’s wife Kim Hasse, a couple of other extraneous bodies and, for some reason, an actual humidifier before attending If You Could Read My Mind’s second screening on April 30. “This has been suggested at other times. I thought about this a long time ago — a long, long time ago — but about five years ago we were talking about it one day and we said ‘Look at us. We’re still all walking around. Let’s get it done.’ As long as they didn’t go too deep. And I had the feeling that they weren’t going to try to make, like, a hatchet job of this. So here we are. I knew there would be certain things about it that might cause me a little discomfort, but that’s no problem. I mean, it’s a harsh world out there, y’know?” Much of the filming got done at Lightfoot’s house, he adds drolly, “because I had the parking.” The first time Lightfoot saw If You Could Read My Mind was in the theatre with everyone else at its actual Hot Docs premiere on April 27, which made the night of the second showing a slightly less stressful occasion for the filmmakers. He had, Kehoe says, “given us carte blanche” to do what they would with the hours of interviews they began logging shortly after Lightfoot performed a trio of shows at Massey Hall before it went dark for two years of renovations last Canada Day. And yet, although the film doesn’t dig terribly deep for dirt — If You Could Read My Mind really only glances off such potentially contentious topics as Gord’s once-formidable drinking (Anne Murray gets in a good shot nonetheless) and his tempestuous ’70s relationship with notorious groupie Cathy Smith, later implicated in the overdose death of John Belushi and the probable inspiration for 1974’s bitter “Sundown” — there were, no doubt, a few squirmy moments in the cinema to be had on opening night. The film opens, after all, with a visibly disgusted Lightfoot watching a vintage performance of his 1966 ramblin’-man calling card “For Lovin’ Me,” declaring it “a very offensive song for a guy to write who was married with a couple of kids” and musing “I guess I don’t like who I am” before finally calling an end to the session with a snarled “I hate this f--king song.” “I’ll be much more relaxed tonight, I think. I was nervous, Gord — really, really nervous about your reaction,” admits Tosoni. “We’ve had our tiffs, right? And I don’t mean the Toronto International Film Festival. You’ve been ticked at us a couple of times, and I just don’t like him to be. But Martha and I did the film that we thought was right and we’re glad he said he liked it. But it was a little nerve-wracking the first time.” “Joanie and I tossed and turned over it because we did feel that, for one thing, we have this personal relationship with Gord and we also have this huge respect and, also, he had given us his trust,” adds Kehoe. “He didn’t have approval. It was kind of in our hands so we did feel like, wow, we had to do this definitive documentary. But we kinda let go of that idea. In the end, we just said ‘We’re gonna make the film that we’re making about Gord.’ Somebody could come along and make a totally different film about him — and a great one, too — and just take a different angle. We tried to go through the songs as part of the story and kinda create a story around the songs a little bit. So that’s how we wove in the personal life.” The thrice-married Lightfoot shrugs again. “There are things that made me feel uncomfortable at times. But that doesn’t bother me all that much, really,” he says. “It’s mostly about the music. I mean, it’s all basically there — the personal side is there — but the way they handled it, it was, like, ‘Do you want to let it all hang out or do you just want to find a nice spot where you don’t have to go too deep?’ ” The songs do lead the way in If I Could Read Your Mind, providing a loose narrative thread from Lightfoot’s early upbringing in Orillia — there’s priceless pre-pubescent audio of him singing high-register as a church choirboy — to his early tenure on CBC’s Country Hoedown show to his years as a ’60s coffee-house cool cat rolling through Yorkville, New York and Los Angeles with the likes of Ian and Sylvia, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan on through his elevation to one of Canada’s first true international pop-superstar exports with the arrival of monster hits like “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” during the early 1970s. The epochal version of the latter from 1976’s Summertime Dream is revealed to be not just the first take of the song he and his band attempted in the studio, but a recording of the first time they’d ever played it together. And that’s where If You Could Read My Mind’s greatest pleasures lie: in nerding out over the obsessive completeness of each composition Lightfoot still hand-annotates in solitude before giving them up to the world. And nerd out people do throughout the film. Steve Earle, Sarah McLachlan, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson all gleefully go on the record alongside Can-folk contemporaries like Ian and Sylvia Tyson and Murray McLauchlan, as well as such unexpected Gord aficionados as actor Alec Baldwin and Greg Graffin of veteran Cali-punk outfit Bad Religion, professing their love of Gordon Lightfoot’s ageless and prototypically Canadian songwriting. Lightfoot, for his part, doesn’t mind being viewed as a bit of a museum piece in the film because he isn’t a museum piece just yet. The main reason he didn’t watch If You Could Read My Mind until its premiere was that he was out on the road until a couple of days before the screening. “I’m always just getting off the road. We have eight legs of touring this year and we’ve only done three legs so far. Five more legs to go. We gotta pay the bills in our band so we work steadily,” he says. “It’s just all part of the game to me. Y’know, we’re busy. We’re still working. I’m working on an album right now. It’s just one more thing that we’ve got going on here, this documentary. There’s a lot of stuff going on.” A new Gordon Lightfoot studio album would be his first since 2004’s Harmony. He won’t give up details just yet, but he will say he’s determined to finally see it through because “I’ve been talking about it so much that I’ve put myself under the gun.” “The material is completed, but I will have to teach it to my orchestra and that’ll take some time. That might take until the end of the year,” he says. “I’m not sure if it’s gonna take me three months or nine months yet. It’s gonna be one or t’other. It’ll either come out at the end of this year or early in 2020. Once we have it down, we’ll go in and do it — when everything’s ready to be done.” There’s a pause before an expertly timed callback. “It’s a good thing I have all that parking at my house. An entire band can park at my house.” Ben Rayner is the Star's music critic and based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @ihateBenRayner https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...4fcc9e57_z.jpgrene johnston-tor star-apr.30:2019 by char Westbrook, on Flickr |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
Ah, so now it looks like Lightfoot WILL be using the "orchestra" and not doing the album completely solo. I prefer that.
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CTV Feature on the Documentary
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Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
Round/circular building/apartment hopping to have affairs on Alexander St. in Toronto = CIRCLE IS SMALL. Only Lightfoot could meld that building with a small circle of friends knowing what's going on in a relationship.. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/gordon-li...self-1.4430644
David Friend, The Canadian Press Published Tuesday, May 21, 2019 10:28AM EDT TORONTO -- Gordon Lightfoot didn't need much convincing when filmmakers approached him about a documentary on his prolific music career. The iconic Canadian folk singer-songwriter figured their timing probably couldn't be any better. "I'm still walking around," the 80-year-old performer says matter of factly, with a smirk, as he sits between the two documentarians in his Toronto living room. "So let's just go ahead and let's do it." And the way Lightfoot tells it, that's how "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind" came to be -- though its filmmakers Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni, who spent eight years trying to make the documentary happen, tell a different story. The pair were locked into sanding Lightfoot's career down to a tight 90 minutes, leaving scant room for his childhood, rise to fame, struggles with alcohol, tabloid relationships -- oh, and his colossal influence on a generation of musicians. "We struggled with it, and we knew we would," Kehoe says. "You can't make the definitive film about somebody like this. Someone could always come along and do a different film... and you know, we had the feeling that we're women, we're the age we are... we know Gord... We felt we could just make the movie that we would make." When the documentary opens across Canada in the coming weeks, Lightfoot's fans will certainly have strong opinions about what made the cut and what didn't. The musician's children are virtually left out of the picture, while the abdominal aortic aneurysm that nearly killed him in 2002 goes unmentioned. But the film uncovers other aspects of the musician that he usually keeps reserved. It opens with Lightfoot throwing criticism at his early song "For Lovin' Me," a philandering anthem covered by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and others, that he now considers tactless and unacceptable for his concert set lists. Later, a slightly agitated Lightfoot spills the beans on "The Circle is Small," a song he acknowledges is inspired by the "apartment hopping" he participated in while having affairs with women during the 1970s in downtown Toronto. "I didn't have to tell them everything," Lightfoot says of the stories he shared with the filmmakers. "I mean, you've gotta put enough in there to at least make it interesting." It's those "golden nuggets" Kehoe says were difficult to pry out of Lightfoot, who saves his deepest revelations for his music. After Lightfoot leaves the room for another interview, she explains how intensely private he could be during interviews. "He would say, 'I don't even know why I'm doing this film.' And I said, 'Gord, it's not really for you, unfortunately,"' she adds. "I had said to him, 'We really need you to be honest with us. This is your legacy project."' Lightfoot understandably doesn't spend much time dwelling on the bigger questions of his legacy, possibly because in many ways he's still building it each day. He's in the midst of a U.S. tour that runs until late June. After that, he'll put the finishing touches on his first album in 15 years. Much of the material was created by Lightfoot in late 2001 and early 2002 before he suffered health setbacks that complicated the release of his 2004 album "Harmony." He largely swore off writing new material in the years that followed, though Lightfoot says rediscovering "half a dozen songs" while cleaning out his office gave him new inspiration. He's confident the album will be released by early next year. "When I was younger, I always felt that I was really not ready for prime time," Lightfoot says. "I felt like I was too callow, I didn't like the way I spoke. I was in a feature movie and I didn't like the way I acted. It took me a long time to come to terms with that." His perspective has changed in recent years, he adds, and "everything is just up." He's pleased with his band's live performances, and as he sees it, their comradery on the stage is inspiring. "We're all sports-minded," he said. "We're like a team trying to improve itself more." |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
https://nationalpost.com/entertainme...-be-performing
Gordon Lightfoot is happy to still be performing 'I’m still doing it, and I’m so happy I’m still doing it' Gordon Lightfoot may be 80 years old (five years older than Mick Jagger!), but he’s got a new album in the works and 40 tour dates in Canada and the U.S. this year. He has to keep moving; his fans have been following him for decades. “They’re about 10 years behind,” he says, relaxing in his home in Toronto’s ritzy Bridle Path neighbourhood, and temporarily out of the limelight. “It’s always been that way; when I was 28, they were 18.” He does the math. “I cover about 60 years; a couple of generations, I suppose.” What keeps him at it? “I love the work,” he says simply. “I’m still doing it, and I’m so happy I’m still doing it. Everybody’s got that mindset. I like to stay hot.” Lightfoot is flanked by Joan Tosoni and Martha Kehoe, co-directors of the documentary Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind, which premiered at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto this year, and starts its regular theatrical rollout on May 24. Their history with the singer-songwriter goes back to the ’90s, when they did a segment on him for a doc called Country Gold. They later worked with him on the Junos – he’s won 16 in his career, and also performed at various ceremonies. So when the notion of making a feature-length doc about him came up, so did they. “Joannie and I just kept hanging around,” Kehoe explains with a grin. Lightfoot is more direct: “I have faith in their ability.” The doc covers the ups and downs of Lightfoot’s life, including his three marriages, six children, alcoholism and sobriety, and the aneurysm in 2002 that almost took his life, leaving him in a coma. “I woke up from that hearing ‘Minstral of the Dawn,’” he says, referring to one of his 1970 hits. ”For six weeks, I was unconscious, and my sister was getting them to play stuff to see if it would jog my brain enough to wake me up.” Turns out Lightfoot can raise Lightfoot. The documentary also reminds viewers just how many musicians have covered his songs. A partial list includes Neil Young, Liza Minelli, Herb Albert, Olivia Newton John, Johnny Cash, Dwight Yoakam, Don McLean, Petula Clark, Glen Campbell, Barbra Streisand, Kenny Rogers, Judy Collins, Elvis Presley, Diana Krall, Sarah McLachlan and Peter Paul & Mary. But not Frank Sinatra. “Sinatra tried ‘If You Could Read My Mind’ and ended up throwing the music on the floor,” he recalls. “He said, ‘I can’t do this.’ ” The new album — he’s still tinkering with the format, but says it might just be him and a guitar, akin to Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska — will include some new songs as well as some older material that has never been released “I have stuff that I wrote a long time ago that I’m getting ready to use right now,” he says happily. “It was lost and I found it. I found it when I was cleaning out my office one day. As strange as it may sound.” |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
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Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
FOR CANADIAN LIGHTHEADS: List of CANADIAN AIRINGS - CITIES/DATES, OF THE DOCUMENTARY - IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND - (more info regarding viewing by out of Canada fans will be forthcoming asap. CBCTV is airing it in late fall and CBC GEM online/doc page will air it as well.. I am not sure if GEM will be viewable out of country..more to come!)
In Theatres Now 04-27-2019 Toronto, ON Hot Docs 05-03-2019 Edmonton, AB Northwestfest 05-04-2019 Vancouver, BC DOXA Film Festival 05-08-2019 Calgary, AB Calgary International Film Festival 05-24-2019 Toronto, ON Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema 05-31-2019 Victoria, BC Vic Theatre 06-05-2019 St.Catharines PAC Film House 06-07-2019 London, ON Hyland Cinema 06-07-2019 Cobourg, ON Loft Cinema 06-07-2019 Ottawa, ON Bytowne Cinema 06-07-2019 Hamilton, ON Playhouse Cinema 06-07-2019 Waterloo, ON Princess Twin Cinema 06-07-2019 Sudbury, ON Sudbury Indie Cinema 06-14-2019 Calgary, AB Globe Cinema 06-21-2019 Saskatoon, SK Rainbow Roxy Theatre 06-21-2019 Regina, SK Rainbow Roxy Theatre 07-14-2019 Toronto, ON Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
https://www.original-cin.ca/posts/20...lGrU8FLxW1eRZc
HOME REVIEWS INTERVIEWS PODCAST ARCHIVES ABOUT SUBSCRIBE CONTACT GORDON LIGHTFOOT: IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND - AN ILLUMINATING VOYAGE OF AN EXTRAORDINARY SONGWRITER May 21, 2019 By Jim Slotek Rating: B-plus You know the biographical doc you’re watching is not exactly going to be a puff piece when the subject spends the first 10 minutes cringing. Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind – a feature at the recent Hot Docs film fest – opens with the 80-year-old Lightfoot at his Bridle Path home with wife Kim, watching cover-after-cover of what turns out to be the song he’s most ashamed of, (That’s What You Get) For Loving Me. The parade of covers includes Peter, Paul & Mary, Ian & Sylvia, Johnny Cash, etc. Finally, he insists they stop. And when you consider it, the song does contain possibly the most cruel lyrics ever written by a man to a woman. It’s understandable enough if Lightfoot simply regrets his early callowness. But there could be guilt involved too. If this expansive documentary about one of Canada’s true poets reveals much about his astonishing creativity, it also suggests some things about his personality – one of which is that being one of the women in his life was not always easy. Tellingly, Lightfoot’s four children, from two marriages, are not part of the production. He clearly had an ego, one that drove him out of the gravity-well of Orillia where he grew up, to Toronto’s Yorkville scene (and odd turns in a barbershop quartet, a spot as a singer on CBC’s Country Hoedown and half of a folk duo). But what he could do was write songs. There’s the requisite amount of dirty laundry in this archive-laden bio, directed by Joan Tosoni and Martha Kehoe (they obviously weren’t going to let go of his crazily passionate relationship with Cathy Evelyn Smith, who would later be involved in the death of John Belushi). But its insights for music fans are remarkably rich. Self-taught, he wrote his own music and arrangements by hand in hotel rooms. Though he was a perfectionist, one of his biggest hits, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was not only a first-take that made it to the single, it was the first time the band ever saw the song on paper and played it. He was friends with people who weren’t easy to know, like Bob Dylan (there’s footage of the famous 1972 Mariposa festival in Toronto, where Dylan showed up to hang with Lightfoot, (who played for a while on a picnic table, and watch Neil Young perform a surprise set – a game-changing moment for me, since I was a 14-year-old in attendance). The film includes intimate moments of chaotic parties with impromptu songs from Dylan and others. And though the film is full of the usual expert-witnesses (including Steve Earle, Sarah McLachlan, both Ian and Sylvia Tyson, Anne Murray, Geddy Lee and, incongruously, Alec Baldwin), it’s Lightfoot’s own story, with a narrative strung together by songs, that compels. He managed to become an international star while staying as Canadian as maple syrup – a balance that confounds artists even today. The lyrics to Edmund Fitzgerald and the epic Canadian Railroad Trilogy alone should make him required reading in Canadian literature classes. There is a Boomer attraction to all of this, of course. The archival footage of life in ‘60s Yorkville and the Yonge Street strip alone will bring a tear to many an eye. In the end, Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind does not quite read its subject’s mind. But you’ll likely come out knowing much more about him, and appreciating his place in history that much more. Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind. Directed by Joan Tosoni and Martha Kehoe. Starring Gordon Lightfoot, Ian and Sylvia Tyson, Anne Murray. Opens Friday, May 24 at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, and across Canada through June. Lightfoot at 80, with his best friend.https://i660.photobucket.com/albums/...y2019-doc..jpg |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
https://www.straight.com/movies/1232...d-read-my-mind
DOXA 2019: A Canadian icon speaks out in Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind by Mike Usinger on April 24th, 2019 at 11:10 AM A famously enigmatic (and cranky) Canadian icon tells you everything you wanted to know, and some things you didn’t, in Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind. The goal was a daunting one for directors Joan Tosoni and Martha Kehoe when they got famously enigmatic Canadian icon Gordon Lightfoot in front of the camera to tell the story of his life. “We really, really wanted to get something more than what people have heard already,” Tosoni says, in a conference call with Kehoe from Toronto. “And we knew that would take some time, because he needs to trust you. He’s an inscrutable man, and we were aware of that from the beginning.” The fascinating thing about Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind is the way that one of the greatest storytellers in the history of pop music—Canadian or otherwise—seems at once totally open, and yet at the same time leaves one thinking there’s plenty going on inside that he’s never going to share. That’s hinted at by Lightfoot’s peers. At one point in If You Could Read My Mind, Murray McLauchlan suggests that Bob Dylan and Lightfoot have more in common than a mutual admiration and respect for each other’s talent. “Murray says if two enigmatic people could be in a perfect marriage, it would be Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot,” Kehoe says with a laugh. “That’s really true. I was very gratified to hear his drummer say, ‘You could drive across the country with Gord and he’d never say anything poetic.’ He says everything that he has to say in his songs.” If all this makes it sound like Lightfoot is unwilling to pull back the curtain on his career, it shouldn’t. Fans whose working relationship goes back to the long-running CanCon staple The Tommy Hunter Show, the directors began seriously working to get Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind off the ground a half-dozen years ago. That’s when Lightfoot let them know he was ready to tell his story. “I think he had a fear that he never wants his career to end,” Kehoe says. “He didn’t want to do a comprehensive film as if it was over. I think, at this point, he’s getting on, and he feels a responsibility to his body of work. So he wants to bring attention to it, and this is part of that.” If You Could Read My Mind starts off in the present day, with Lightfoot looking back at footage of his younger self performing his ’60s hit “For Lovin’ Me” and being appalled. Not by the fact that it showcased him as a monster talent who’d rack up an endless string of monster hits over the coming decades, including “Sundown”, “Rainy Day People”, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, and too many others to count here. Instead, right before declaring “I hate this fucking song,” he confesses “I guess I don’t like who I am.” His reason? The song is an almost painfully autobiographical account of a messed-up-on-multiple-fronts Lightfoot walking out on his wife and young family. Consider that a heads up that Kehoe and Tosoni don’t just focus on the highs in If You Could Read My Mind. Little moments make it clear how deep the filmmakers dug for the film: an early Lightfoot interview with an impossibly young Alex Trebek; scratchy audio of his earliest live performance, as a choirboy in church in his hometown of Orillia, Ontario. Mixed in with modern-day interviews and performances is a treasure trove of crazily obscure historical moments (Lightfoot as a bit player on the ’60s CBC show Country Hoedown), snaps of old posters and rare archival photos (star-studded ’70s house parties in Toronto where you can almost smell the Crown Royal), and auxiliary interviews with peers and insiders that put his career in complete and important perspective. The 80-year-old is deservedly feted in the film by a long list of artists that includes Steve Earle, Sarah McLachlan, Geddy Lee, Alec Baldwin, Anne Murray, and a clearly thrilled-to-be-there Greg Graffin of Bad Religion. What also emerges is Lightfoot’s deep respect for his craft—as much as he had a golden touch that’s seen his work covered by everyone from Elvis to the Dandy Warhols, he’s also taken a meticulously workmanlike approach to the business of songwriting. What ultimately emerges is a picture of a deeply conflicted and perhaps tormented artist, whose life includes a long path of failed relationships and the profound regrets that come with them. No matter how big a Lightfoot fan you might be, you’ll learn things to the point where you’ll never listen to the timeless “If You Could Read My Mind” the same way again. “He really is an artist, first and foremost,” Kehoe says. “But also within that headspace there’s the workman, there’s the dreamer, there’s the lover, there’s the crabby guy. All these different characters are there within Gord. And then there’s also this guy from Orillia, and that’s who he feels he needs to be a lot of the time.” With that, Tosoni jumps in with, “He’s very, very unpretentious, but not pretentiously so. He’s basically got a very Canadian personality.” https://i660.photobucket.com/albums/...tfoot_2675.jpg |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
GLOBE AND MAIL review: BRAD WHEELER https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts...on-as-does-he/
On his way to the second-floor space of Early Morning Productions, the Yonge Street office where all of his business affairs are looked after, Gordon Lightfoot would pass a homeless man in the foyer of the building. After giving the man $20 one day, every time thereafter he felt compelled to give him at least the same amount. “I started high,” Lightfoot has explained, “and I just had to continue with it.” So it is with him, his whole career. Lightfoot started high and everybody expected him to keep up the pace. People – friends, fans, family members, record labels and lovers – took pieces of him and wanted more. A shy, fair-haired boy from Orillia, Ont., an eager-to-please Lightfoot didn’t like to say no. Write us an anthem, Gordon, something about railways. Give us an encore, play us a song, shoot me a loan, would you? Hands were out, all the time. They took his girlfriend, even – the jealousy of Sundown was not baseless. The pressure got to him. “I was under contract to a record company and I wanted to produce, and that’s what I did.” Lightfoot told Vanity Fair in 2016. “I made sacrifices. The isolation of it all managed to destroy a couple of my [marriages].” Driven and conflicted by expectations, insecurities, loyalties and immense ambition, he broke down eventually. (And did so well before the abdominal aneurysm that nearly killed him in 2002.) A Canadian Club enthusiast, Lightfoot heckled an audience member at London’s Dominion Theatre in 1981, before walking off the stage altogether. Divorces and drunk-driving happened. Worst of all, after his hit-making heyday, Lightfoot began making bad music. The singer-songwriter, now 80 years old and sober since the first Trudeau prime minister, is the subject of a new documentary, Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind. Named after one of his signature songs, the title alludes to his complexity and, according to one of the film’s directors, his impenetrability. “There’s no easy answers with him,” says Martha Kehoe, who made the film with fellow Torontonian Joan Tosoni. “He just isn’t prepared in that moment, with the camera on him, to do any kind of self-mining.” The biodoc’s telling early scene has Lightfoot and his current and third wife, Kim Hasse, watching an old clip of him singing (That’s What You Get) For Lovin’ Me. We see Lightfoot wincing at the song’s blatant misogyny, before telling the directors to turn the thing off. “I guess I don’t like who I am,” he says, in a rare moment of introspection. “It’s not a free ride being Gordon Lightfoot,” Kehoe told The Globe and Mail. “You have regrets. You’ve done stuff. You’ve screwed people over. You’ve put yourself first. You’ve believed your own fame. He doesn’t want to articulate it in every way that that is true, but if you spend time with him, it’s all there, somewhere.” He spoke about some of those regrets when I visited him in his airy mansion in the city’s tony Bridle Path neighbourhood. In his small wood-panelled study and songwriter space, a gaunt but willing Lightfoot was comfortably surrounded by 12-string Gibson guitars, Fender amplifiers and cassette recorders as old as his last hit. The Globe and Mail: Tell me about (That’s What You Get) For Lovin’ Me. Lightfoot: It’s a song about unrequited love. I didn’t understand what the word chauvinism meant when I wrote it. I was married at the time. It could have been offensive, but my wife, Brita, was European. She understood what poetic licence was, I suppose. Globe: Would you write a song like that today? Lightfoot: Probably not. I would take the brutality out. You don’t want to create emotional trauma to people who are close to you. You have to be careful what you say when you’re writing a song. It’s the songwriter’s curse. Globe: The song was covered by Johnny Cash and Peter, Paul and Mary. Is that the ultimate compliment, for a songwriter, to have one’s work recorded by others? Lightfoot: Yes. I think you could say so. I still ask the question “why?” though. Globe: You wrote good songs, that’s why. Why would you ask such a thing? Lightfoot: Because I still question my own ability. I have my whole life, and I continue to do so. Globe: Is that healthy? Lightfoot: I don’t know if it helps or not. Did you say “helping” or did you say “healthy?” Globe: Healthy. Lightfoot: I don’t consider myself to be a genius, by any stretch of the imagination. It bothers me to be referred to as such. In the documentary, Lightfoot is not specifically referred to as a genius, though Burton Cummings does say the Canadian Railroad Trilogy songwriter should be part of this country’s history-book curriculum. Canada chronicler Pierre Berton never rhymed “Gitche Gumee” with “the skies of November turn gloomy," and it was Lightfoot, not Tom Thomson, who wrote A Painter Passing Through. When the lights were raised following the film’s first public screening at TIFF Lightbox, an older gentleman stood up and raised his walking cane in the air. “Let’s hear it for Canada’s one and only, Gordon Lightfoot,” he so much as hip-hip-hooray-ed. Seated on one side of me at the screening was Bernie Finkelstein, something of a Canadian music legend himself. I asked him if he knew who the man with the cane was. “I don’t,” he replied. “But I don’t like him. I can’t stand cheerleaders.” Finkelstein, who started True North Records in 1969 and who still manages Bruce Cockburn, used to promote shows with Lightfoot’s long-time friend and booking agent, Bernie Fiedler. Asked if Lightfoot was a Canadian icon under siege with expectations early in his career, Finkelstein agreed. “Canadians want their artists to succeed in the United States,” Finkelstein answered. “It’s important to them.” |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
Where Joni Mitchell and Neil Young left the country early in their career, Lightfoot stayed in Canada. He became the home team. Mitchell wrote Help Me, Young wrote Helpless, and Captain Canada, the canoe-tripping troubadour, wrote Carefree Highway and record-setting alimony cheques.
But when asked if the demands asked of Lightfoot were unreasonable, Finkelstein waved off the premise. “I’m not sure being a millionaire songwriter was ever all that hard,” he said. “These artists get a lot of phone calls, but I don’t think any of them are going to say it’s upsetting. The only complaints from them I ever heard backstage were about the cold-cut platters.” Seated on the other side of me at the screening was Bruce Good, a musician who has known Lightfoot since the late and 1960s and who had a more sympathetic understanding of the pressures Lightfoot faced and still faces. “He realized people wanted a piece of him,” said Good, featured in the film, speaking about how Lightfoot’s wistful 1968 toe-tapper Did She Mention My Name makes his eyes well up to this day. As part of the seminal Canadian folk-rock group the Good Brothers, Good has faced some of the pressures that Lightfoot does, though on a much smaller scale. “If I’m walking through a crowd of people at a concert, I put the blinders on, because I know if I make eye contact, they’re going to ask me something or want something. I can hardly imagine what it’s like to be Gordon Lightfoot.” What it is to like be Lightfoot is to be asked of constantly. “Here comes mister cool along the walk of fame, I was in demand, always in control,” Lightfoot sang on 1998′s autobiographical single A Painter Passing Through. “The world was in my hands, my touch had turned to gold.” Back in the 1970s, when the Sometimes When We Touch star Dan Hill needed a Learjet in the middle of the night in Moncton, he called Lightfoot. After an indie-rock band recorded Lightfoot’s Great Lakes standard The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, one of the band’s musicians got upset when Lightfoot refused to recognize the cover version and accused him of lifting the song’s melody. In 1966, with Canada’s centenary approaching, CBC needed an instant folk classic that captured the glory of the country’s spike-driven origins. Fuelled by coffee, cigarettes and a fat commission, Lightfoot wrote Canadian Railroad Trilogy in three days. That same year, at a summer post-show party in Toronto, the star Canadian folkie Ian Tyson approached his friend Lightfoot at four in the morning. Earlier in the evening, Lightfoot had a introduced a new song to a crowd at the Riverboat coffee house. “It’s a good one, Gordon,” Tyson said to Lightfoot at the after-party. “What it’s called?” Informed the song was Go My Way, Tyson made a request. I’d like to hear it again. Why don’t you go and get your old guitar and play it for me?” A sleep-deprived Lightfoot acquiesced. There was no end to the requests made upon him. A young John Macfarlane, who would go on to serve as editor of Toronto Life and the Walrus, was a music writer for The Globe in the 1960s. He was at the party where Lightfoot played for Tyson, and included the story about it in a Globe profile, one of the first major Lightfoot features ever published. “It struck me as an important Canadian moment,” Macfarlane recalled recently. In Macfarlane’s interview with Lightfoot, the 27-year-old songwriter described himself as a “cosmopolitan hick” and a “country boy, doin’ the best I can.” As if he were a rube – or worse, a John Denver. “I think that was a glib way of shutting down any further discussion,” said Macfarlane, who back then almost rented an apartment in the three-story home Lightfoot shared with his wife, before the couple wisely decided against sharing a house with a journalist. “He was learning how to deal with incursions into his psyche, which were not welcome. He was a working man, and his work was music.” Indeed, sit-downs these days with Lightfoot rarely result in much reflection. However, when asked about new songs, the songwriter (who hasn’t put an album of fresh material since 2004’s Harmony) gleefully pops out of his chair to retrieve the lyric sheets to a couple of unrecorded songs he’s been working on for a new album. One of them is called The Laughter We Seek. The other one has the line, “I’ve got one too many women in my life.” Lightfoot crows about the latter song: “How’s that for an idea, eh? Now, how would I come up with something like that?” When it is suggested that a song about one woman too many would seem to be in the vein of For Lovin’ Me, the kind which he said he’d never write again, Lightfoot is quick to protest. “No, it’s not!” he says quickly. “That was a hurtful song. This is not hurtful. This is whimsy, you see?” After the interview, we stand in his vaulted front hall, where some of the cast fixtures look out of place. Turns out Lightfoot had salvaged the pieces from the Rosedale mansion where he once played host to Bob Dylan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and all the others. “I didn’t want to leave that house," Lightfoot laments. So, why did he? “It was my former wife’s idea, to get away from downtown distractions.” When asked if he’ll play the first concert at Massey Hall when the venue, currently undergoing extensive renovations, re-opens next year, Lightfoot eyes brighten. “I don’t want to hog the stage,” he says. “But if they want me to do it, I’ll be there.” Lightfoot obliges, as he does. https://i660.photobucket.com/albums/...HOT%20DOCS.jpg |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
https://nowtoronto.com/movies/review...7WfJjzPIRjSXfI
Review: Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind is a candid, revealing music doc Even though the film offers the requisite career arc checklist, the Canadian singer/songwriter offers lots of insights into his music and life BY RICHARD TRAPUNSKI MAY 22, 2019 3:47 PM If you’re worried Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind is the kind of hagiography all too common in music docs, that danger is thwarted before the opening credits. Watching old 1960s footage of himself playing his early hit For Lovin’ Me, the Canadian icon looks down, shuts his eyes and cringes. “I was so naive,” he says of the ramblin’ man country kiss-off song, which was covered by everyone from Johnny Cash to Elvis. “I don’t think I knew what chauvinism was.” While the film could easily indulge in baby boomer nostalgia, Lightfoot doesn’t let it. Now 80, he’s gregarious and reflective, grateful for his accomplishments without overlooking his faults. Considering the depth of his career – which, with songs like The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald and the Canadian Railroad Trilogy, defined a ruggedly sensitive version of Canadiana – that makes him almost the perfect subject. He even sometimes speaks in sound bites (and he even calls them sound bites). It’s rare that Lightfoot provides this type of access, and it gives writer/directors Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni a lot of rich material to work with. There are other talking heads, too – everyone from Sarah McLachlan, Anne Murray and Steve Earle to, for some reason, Alec Baldwin – but it’s Lightfoot himself who provides the most insight. That helps temper the requisite career arc checklist, which is pretty much unavoidable in this genre. He’s an affable tour guide, from his hometown of Orillia (even providing a recording of himself singing in church when he was an eight-year-old soprano) to the 60s folk revival scene in Yorkville, which is intercut with scenes of the bougie Yorkville of today. He’s happy to talk about individual songs, too, revealing a laborious, somewhat isolated approach to writing. And he frankly discusses his 80s alcoholism, without glorifying it in the context of his legendarily excessive, celebrity-filled Rosedale mansion parties. There’s plenty of exceptional archival material, including old and new performance footage – you can see Lightfoot behind the scenes at the final pre-renovation show at Massey Hall last year – and lots of shots of Toronto’s neon past. (There are even a few parallels made between Lightfoot and Drake – both were heavily associated with Toronto in their respective heydays.) For all of Lightfoot’s introspection, he often downplays his actual genius – you use your imagination and make sure it rhymes, he says. And the main reason he’s still as prolific a performer as ever, he claims, is because he has six children (not to mention grandchildren) for whom he still feels responsible. But he admits to feeling some regret about his life, especially for the trauma he’s caused women throughout his relationships. Rather than go into specifics, he hints that it’s there in the lyrics of his songs – that, if you want to really get below the surface into his deeper thoughts and emotions, that’s where you have to look. For the most part, the documentary follows his lead, choosing not to dig too far into any salacious details, even though they provide the weight behind Lightfoot’s self-reflection. Even if it’s not all spelled out, you don’t have to read his mind – there are plenty of his songs to listen to. |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
If You Could Read My Mind offers an entertaining, if shallow, look at Gordon Lightfoot
BRAD WHEELER PUBLISHED MAY 23, 2019 Oddly missing from the documentary is anything on Lightfoot’s near death in 2002. What’s left to say about Gordon Lightfoot, the Early Morning Rain balladeer and stoic Canadian who has weathered decades of examination? Plenty, but a new biodoc on him doesn’t dig too deep into the darker crevices of the man’s life. Instead, we get an entertaining but superficial and laudatory overview of one of his country’s greatest singer-songwriters. Archival film of a young Lightfoot crooning about trains at the long-gone Riverboat Coffee House will thrill the old folkies. Pressed into talking-head service, Burton Cummings, Steve Earle and, yes, actor Alec Baldwin testify on Lightfoot’s behalf. Just Murray McLauchlan hints at his fellow songster’s gloom. Of Lightfoot’s former wives and lovers, only onetime girlfriend Cathy Smith is heard from – and she’s subtly vilified. Oddly missing is anything on Lightfoot’s near death in 2002. Instead there’s footage of the Captain Canada troubadour canoeing, in a film that is not interested in tipping any boats. |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
https://www.thegate.ca/film/039291/r...m13Ddtn5cG567g
4.5 out of 10 Andrew Parker A laudatory, unchallenging, boilerplate pat-on-the-back for one of Canada’s biggest musical icons, Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni’s documentary Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind is the kind of fan service that I find dubious, but I assuredly understand the appeal of it. A lightweight retelling of the life and times of bestselling and beloved singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, If You Could Read My Mind only pays passing lip service to many of the darker, less inviting aspects of its titular subject’s life in favour of focusing positively on all his hits, friendships, and accomplishments throughout the years. What emerges is a fine enough bullet point recitation of facts that are recounted jovially by the documentary’s titular subject, but it’s as deep as an unfolded servillette. Produced in part by the CBC, Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind is the kind of documentary about a famous person that can be made practically by buying a kit off the shelf. It opens with thirty or so minutes talking about some of Lightfoot’s biggest hits (including the numerous songs that would go on to have arguably bigger lives as covers performed by other artists), followed by another third of the film that talks about his early years playing coffee houses in Toronto’s trendy Yorkville neighbourhood and New York’s even hipper Greenwich Village, and then spends a final thirty minutes finally getting around to the harder personal details of Lightfoot’s life. Talking heads that know Lightfoot well pop up here and there to add a bit of context, but they don’t tell the viewer anything that the artist doesn’t already freely offer up about himself. It’s a popular documentary arrangement that’s as reliable as one of Lightfoot’s musically rudimentary, but lyrically poetic folk rock ditties. “Man, weren’t the sixties a great time for music?,” the film seems to ask like it’s trying desperately to sell a K-Tel compilation of Freedom Rock tunes. “Also, did you know that Gordon Lightfoot is one of Canada’s most famous and influential singer-songwriters?” To these questions, it’s hard for me not to respond with, “Yes. I knew that already. So why aren’t you telling me more about his importance and life outside the public eye instead of telling me what everyone already knows while coddling his already well cultivated public image in the process?” Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind isn’t so much a serious documentary as it is a calculated, only vaguely forthcoming charm offensive. Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind is aimed squarely at his legions of fans (especially his Canadian ones, with Kehoe and Tosoni basically painting him as the only singer-songwriter who ever mattered in the country, without ever once comparing him to anyone else in the process) and not for anyone who might be interested in how complex and contradictory he is as a person. Lightfoot is more than willing to open up about his alcoholism and mentions in the film’s closing moments that he’s caused a great deal of pain to some of the women in his life, but anyone wanting to know more about his numerous children, divorces, or failed professional and romantic relationships won’t have any greater insight as to why none of that worked out for him. To hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, Lightfoot just had a terrible drinking problem and there was nothing else that cast darkness over his life. Life isn’t that simple for a successful musician who was operating at the level that he was, but Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind asks viewers to think that it was. And other than an opening moment where Lightfoot talks about the one song that’s too painful to sing anymore and the insinuation that his hit track “Sundown” was a thinly veiled, but laughably hypocritical jab at an ex, anyone hoping to learn more about his actual works will be left equally in the dark. Kehoe and Tosoni have made a film that’s so softball that they might as well be lobbing Lightfoot nerf balls encased in bubble wrap. While the film’s subject appears eager, jovial, or likable at all times (especially during a somewhat embarrassing moment where he prattles on about his love for Drake while driving down Toronto’s Yonge Street like the world’s least cool grandfather), Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind is a film that’s constantly on edge. It’s hard to tell is Kehor and Tosoni don’t want to ask Lightfoot about anything too triggering or if he rebuffed them when they tried. Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind might be a film about an enduring Canadian music icon, but it’s also the story of a man (or possibly those around him) who are extremely protective of his overall legacy. Anything that could be seen as portraying such an icon in a negative light – like his relationship to Cathy Smith, the woman who said she injected John Belushi with the speedball that killed him, or infamous shows in the 70s that ended with the singer storming off after a drunken tantrum – are given a time limit to be talked about and examined. These moments of darkness are paved over quickly in favour of getting back to the hit parade as soon as possible, leaving many dangling questions in the process. It can’t overlook these moments, but Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind isn’t entirely up front with the viewer about how little the subject wants to talk about them. I’m not saying that Gordon Lightfoot isn’t an iconic musical artist (even if most of his songs, like many folk artists of the period, manage to sound the same in spite of their ambitious, sometimes delightfully strange lyrical content) or that every documentary about a famous person needs to dwell in the darkness. What I’m saying is that Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind is a feature length promo clip for an established artist who doesn’t need any more promo clips to pad out his resume. It’s a documentary so stock and uninspired in its aims that one could easily do their own research about Lightfoot and uncover a more richly rewarding story than the one the subject and filmmakers are providing for viewers. It’s a movie about an icon, and everyone involved here will do everything in their power to make sure you don’t forget it. What the film doesn’t want you to know is that Gordon Lightfoot is more complicated than he seems. Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind opens at The Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema in Toronto on Friday, May 24, 2019. It opens at The Vic in Victoria on May 31, PAC Film House in St. Catharines on June 5, at the Hyland in London, The Loft in Cobourg, Bytowne in Ottawa, Playhouse in Hamilton, Princess in Waterloo, and Indie Cinema in Sudbury on June 7, at The Globe in Calgary on June 14, and at the Roxy Theatres in Saskatoon and Regina on June 21. |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
I don't expect every review of the documentary to be totally "glowing" in its tone, but the last one was so unnecessarily nasty, eh? Sounds like a case of sour grapes to me!
Gail |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
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Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
PART ONE:
https://www.fyimusicnews.ca/articles...KPqR2Z1rq78BoU Film Doc Reads Gordon Lightfoot's Mind Jun 02, 2019 by Kerry Doole It is a mite challenging to interview the subject of a film documentary about it when, right at the start of the chat, it is revealed that said subject has not viewed it himself. That was the case recently when we were summoned to Gordon Lightfoot's Bridle Path mansion in one of Toronto's most desirable locales (Drake will soon be the near neighbour of the legendary folk troubadour). Our object was to explore Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind, a feature portrait of the man and his music that is just now being released in theatres. The interview was scheduled a few days before the film had its world premiere at the Hot Docs fest in Toronto, and Lightfoot was deliberately waiting for that occasion to see it for the first time. "I want to to see it as part of the group there that haven't seen it yet," he explains. Given the length of time the project took to come to fruition, what is a few more days after all? The film's co-writers and co-directors, Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni, were part of our interview, and Kehoe acknowledges that "it took us a while to bake the cake, about five years." She also admitted that "Joan and I are nervous [about the premiere]. We want Gord to enjoy it on some level. For him, it's hard, like looking at pictures of yourself through different things. It is a different experience, but we're hoping he'll appreciate the work that went into it and we hope he thinks it's an authentic film." Our sources report that the film was enthusiastically received at the premiere, and Lightfoot guested with pals The Good Brothers at a post-screening party that also featured performances by Cowboy Junkies, Fergus Hambleton, Skydiggers, and more. Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind does a fine job of tracing the ups and downs of Lightfoot's fascinating life, while, perhaps more importantly, also exploring his creative process, the relationship with his long-time band, and the huge impact his work has had on fellow singers and songwriters, from Canada and around the globe. Given Lightfoot's stature, it is surprising to hear that financing the project encountered problems. In a follow-up interview, Kehoe tells FYI that "along with [renowned producer] John Brunton, we’ve had a documentary on Gordon in mind for a long time. About five years ago, Gord felt he was ready and gave the go-ahead. We shot a day with him in Orillia and made a promotional video to help get funds to make the film." "CBC was always behind the project, but to tell the story properly, we needed to bring more funding to the table. A doc with a lot of music and footage rights is not cheap. We worked hard to do that, and everything kind of came together last year. Rogers stepped up with three funds, along with Telefilm and Canada Media Fund. "Finally there was Slaight Communications, without whom we wouldn’t have been able to complete the film. Gary and his father Allan Slaight have been long-time friends and supporters of Gordon Lightfoot, and Slaight Communications played a crucial role in final funding." After its theatrical run, Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind will be broadcast on CBC and CBC Doc Channel in late 2019. Prospects for an international release are also promising, Kehoe reports. "One of our executive producers, John Murray [John Brunton and Gary Slaight are the other two executive producers), was meeting with sales agents at Hot Docs and there’s a lot of interest in the film for international. We were pleased to see how well Gordon is known and admired around the world." Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni have a long professional relationship with Lightfoot. Back in the early '90s, the pair featured a segment on Lightfoot in their acclaimed music documentary Country Gold and later worked with him on one of the Juno awards telecasts they helmed. Tosoni recalls the Country Gold filming, noting that then business manager Barry Harvey was very surprised that Gord was so open. Kehoe adds, "we were in your house in Rosedale, Gord. I remember the piano was behind you, and there was the leaded window out the back. It was a beautiful interview." The trust built up with Lightfoot proved invaluable in the making of the new film. He opened up his house for part of the shoot, noting that "the parking situation is better here than downtown! We had The Good Brothers [longtime friends] in here one afternoon." The filming of Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind began last June, and Kehoe explains that "the first thing we did were Gord's shows at Massey Hall. We wanted to show him in action there before the Hall closed for renovations." The singer's vast and rich catalogue of songs is at the core of the film. "We wanted it very much to be about Gord's music," says Tosoni. "We tried to play the songs a little long for what would normally be in a film, but you can't do full justice to his songbook in just one film, even if it was 88 minutes of song after song." The release of the film comes a year after the publication of Nicholas Jennings' best-selling biography, Lightfoot. Material from that tome has been used for the film, but the timing of the two projects is "coincidental," says Lightfoot. "Nick knew from about 2002 that he was going to do the book. I looked at him one day and said, 'Nick, we're still walking around, let's get it done.' "I am deeply honoured that there is enough interest in me to do any of this stuff," Lightfoot reflects with typical modesty. Few singer/songwriters command as much peer respect as Gordon Lightfoot, and a formidable list of stars sing his praises in the documentary. That group includes Steve Earle, Randy Bachman, Tom Cochrane, Burton Cummings, Ronnie Hawkins, The Good Brothers, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Ian Tyson, Anne Murray, Sarah McLachlan, Murray McLauchlan, and Sylvia Tyson. One seemingly unlikely interviewee was US punk rocker Greg Graffin (Bad Religion). Tosoni explains that "Martha came across a solo album by him and noticed that sometimes he sounded quite a bit like Gordon. We subsequently went to see him play at the Horseshoe in Toronto and decided he might give an interesting and unexpected perspective on Lightfoot, which I think he did." Gordon Lightfoot may have been forced into flipping through his back pages for the film and the book, but he isn't ready for the rocking chair yet. "I just turned 80 years old, and I'm still working," he tells us with obvious pride. This is a man who has done very well financially from his long and illustrious career, though he does complain that "every time we go out I spend 80 percent of the money on the band and expenses. It is a good thing when we get paid in US dollars! " Still a perfectionist, Lightfoot sticks to a physical fitness regimen he has followed since 1982. "I still hate going to the gym, and yet I do it so I know I can do good shows," he says. |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
PART TWO:
Good news for his fans is that a new album is in the works. "I have songs that I've found that I'd forgotten about, so I have filled up the song bucket to the point where I know I can make another album, and there will be one. "We are trying to figure out how to go about it right now. It could be like the Springsteen album Nebraska, but without the harmonica. There is no bass or drums on that record, and that is the way my record will be I think." Lightfoot's determination to pursue music as his career came at an early age, though in our interview he does reminisce about early jobs. "Growing up in Orillia, I worked in a plant and I drove a truck all through high school. I loved doing that. One of the most interesting times was when I ran a laundry route, up through Muskoka, three days a week, up to Parry Sound. "A linen supply company had an agency there. I remember this guy, Roy O'Halloran, as every time I went there something would be lost. I used to dread going there! I told that story recently when I played a show at a beautiful little hall in Parry Sound." Linen delivery's loss was certainly music's gain. Asked to reflect further on his career, the troubadour tells us that "with all sincerity, I am so happy with it. I do wonder where I would be if I hadn't been able to get any covers of my songs. I guess I was trying to prove something at the beginning. I was under contract to write more tunes, and the next thing I knew I'd write another album!" Gordon Lightfoot is rightfully ranked right up there with Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and Leonard Cohen in the pantheon of great Canadian songsmiths, and all four have had their classic material covered by hundreds of artists. Fittingly, as our interview time expires, Gord leaves us with an anecdote about his compatriot, Joni. "I was just talking to Elliot Roberts, her manager, five days ago. I have known Joni since 1964. I remember that she [and husband] Chuck had a 4-story walkup in Detroit. She sat down with Tom Rush and me in her kitchen one night, back before she even had a record deal. She played practically her whole first album for us, at her kitchen table." "Tom went out and recorded three of those songs, and he was the first person to cover Joni's songs." Not even Mitchell can compare to Lightfoot in terms of songs covered, however. Here is just a partial list of those who have covered his timeless material: Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, Eric Clapton, Jerry Lee Lewis, Judy Collins, Johnny Mathis, Anne Murray, Olivia Newton-John, Sarah McLachlan, Barbra Streisand, Peter Paul & Mary, Harry Belafonte, Jane’s Addiction, Richie Havens, Glen Campbell, Headstones, Toby Keith, and Rheostatics. Unsurprisingly, Gordon Lightfoot has been inducted into both the Songwriters Hall Of Fame and The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Martha Kehoe sums up the man's illustrious career this way: "Making Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind reinforced the knowledge that Gord was meant to do what he did, to create what he did, during his life .. that he had a calling, if you will. And that he worked hard at it, and continues to do so." |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
Just saw the documentary tonight. It was an enjoyable view. Especially liked a lot of video clips and photos I haven't seen before. As the producers said, this doc could have been made in a number of ways, but it stood pretty well on its own. Certainly, Gordon's stature and influence were well represented. It was also good to see this on a big screen with good sound system.
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Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
Oh, please bring this documentary to the USA (& the rest of the world)!
Gail |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
VIDEO CLIP from DOCUMENTARY:
He loves Toronto and DRAKE: https://www.instagram.com/p/Byk6p3HAfIj/ |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
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Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot documentary - interviews/photos/articles-Apr.-2019
Earlier this week, I watched the documentary movie "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind" for the second time. (The Mt. Pleasant Theatre in Toronto has been screening the film several times a week for over a month. I saw the movie before in June at the Bloor Cinema.)
When I saw the movie earlier this week, I watched it with two family members who had also seen it before. Each of us enjoyed the movie even more watching it a second time. In the first minute of CTV News anchor Lisa Laflamme's interview with him in May 2019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6vlVNfeJ-Y), Lightfoot states that he would have preferred if the movie featured "more music . . . and less jawboning" and that, for the movie, he would chosen songs from his more recent catalogue. For me, the mixture of music and interviews in the movie was just right. I thought the song selection in the movie was excellent, but I agree with Lightfoot that ideally the movie would have included some of his more recently-written songs. My favourite parts of the movie (among many) occurred when snippets of "Shadows" were played during the segment about Lightfoot's canoe trips and when Lightfoot played "I'll Tag Along" solo in an empty Massey Hall. In my opinion, the movie "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind" is best seen "in the dark, on a screen that's larger than life, with a simpatico audience" (to borrow some words from the movie critic Leonard Maltin used in a different context). According to the IMDb.com website, the Mt. Pleasant Theatre in Toronto (located at 675 Mt. Pleasant Road, just south of Eglinton Ave. East - tel: 416.489.8484) will be screening the movie "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind" on Sunday, Aug. 18 at 2:30 p.m. and Tuesday, Aug. 20 at 7 p.m. Please note that the only form of payment that the Mt. Pleasant Theatre accepts is cash. I encourage Lightfoot fans in the Toronto area to see the movie on the big screen while they can. |
GL Documentary "IYCRMM" Available in Canada on CBC's Free Streaming Service
The documentary movie "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind" is currently available in Canada on CBC Gem (a free streaming service):
https://gem.cbc.ca/media/documentary...5a-01215e77045. Unfortunately, CBC Gem is exclusive to Canada. |
Re: GL Documentary "IYCRMM" Available in Canada on CBC's Free Streaming Service
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https://pixelprivacy.com/vpn/change-...an-ip-address/ which has a lot to say on this subject including:- The IP address system is the ID system used on the internet; every device connected to the internet has a unique IP address, which includes, among other information, your geo-location. Many services geo-restrict their content and enforce those restrictions using IP address detection. This means you may not be able to access your usual services while abroad. Thankfully, a VPN can mask your location by providing you with an IP address from a country of your choosing. It does this by tunneling your traffic through an intermediary VPN server in that country. How do I get a Canadian IP address from abroad? Follow these steps to get your internet freedom back and continue to use all the services you can get in Canada. Choose a VPN (we recommend ExpressVPN). Download and install the appropriate VPN app for your device. Connect to one of the VPN’s Canadian servers. Surf to a Canadian-restricted site, such as the CBC, and you should be able to view content with no issues. But there are a number of alternative free ways to achieve the same result which I intend to check out tomorrow (after today's jollifications are over Happy New Year everybody!! |
Re: GL Documentary "IYCRMM" Available in Canada on CBC's Free Streaming Service
From a friend in Germany:It's possible only with a Canadian IP-address. Outside Canada one has to use a VPN plug in or client. Because I use the browser Mozilla Firefox it’s very simple. I had to go to the add-on settings in Firefox and browse for the add-on “rusvpn” and installed it. After selecting Canada as endpoint I had access to the cbc video server. That was all and it’s free of charge.
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Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
The absolute easiest way to do this if you are outside Canada, is to download a little extension for your Chrome browser called "Hola". You'll see the little symbol on the top of your browser when you do it. Then when you go to the CBC page with the documentary, it should automatically detect that you want to be in Canada. If not you can manually chose Canada.
The whole process should take about two minutes, and has allowed me to view this long wished for and rather excellent documentary!!! Unfortunately I can't insert an image here to show how it works. |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
I've been using the TOR browser for years to get around certain regional restrictions, but I've never needed to actually select a specific country as was needed here to see this content. TOR is random and I think if I kept re-rolling the connection it would have eventually worked, but I wanted to see this vid. So I followed what charlene laid out above... and it worked.
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Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
Great work there Char putting all this up for us. I've watched the video several times and keep wanting to go back!
Being the rabid Gord fan that I am, I tend to get rankled when I read the negative reviews but when that happens I recall the quote from Irish playwright, Brendan Behan: "critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day. but they're unable to do it themselves. |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
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Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
Very nice song there TG. It was sometimes difficult to hear the complete lyric as the keyboard tended to over power the vocal from time to time but I could hear the sentiment and it's really great to hear these kind of tunes being written. They send an important message. When a song is written and gets heard and listeners pick up on it the song will always be remembered.
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Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
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[Verse 1] What do you want What do you want? I'm giving everything I have I'm even trying to see if there's more Locked deep inside I'll try I'll try Can't you see This is me [Verse 2] What do you need What do you need Is it someone just to hurt So that you can appear to be smart? Keep a steady job Play God play God [Chorus] What do you really know You parasite you're dynamite At oversight misunderstanding what you hear Oh you're quick to cheer And volunteer absurdities Musical blasphemies Oh Lord Save us all |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
The film was really good. I thought Carter Lancaster's soundbite about Gord's powerful strumming setting the tempo as effectively as a live drummer was very perceptive. Worth watching.
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Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
documentary news: If You Could Read My Mind nominated for a Canadian Screen Award - 2020 TED ROGERS BEST FEATURE LENGTH DOCUMENTARY .
https://www.academy.ca/2020/if-you-could-read-my-mind/ |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
Streaming on-demand this summer is If You Could Read My Mind, a documentary about prolific Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, directed by Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni.
FOR CANADIAN fans - CBC GEM Online streaming available now. (Not viewable for out of country fans) FOR U.S. fans: THIS SUMMER- INFO on dates and venues yet to come: Greenwich Entertainment Reveals Official Trailer For ‘Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind’ WATCH VIDEO TRAILER at link: GREENWICH ENTERTAINMENT REVEALS OFFICIAL TRAILER AND POSTER FOR THE UPCOMING DOCUMENTARY ‘GORDON LIGHTFOOT: IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND’ OUT THIS SUMMER HTTPS://WWW.PRESSPARTY.COM/PG/NEWSDE...0XITBCZP8I6Q04 Geddy Lee, Sarah McLachlan and Alec Baldwin Appear in Gordon Lightfoot Documentary If You Could Read My Mind arrives this summer By ANGIE MARTOCCIO Rush’s Geddy Lee, Sarah McLachlan and Alec Baldwin appear in If You Could Read My Mind, a documentary on Gordon Lightfoot, streaming on-demand this summer. Directed by Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni, the film chronicles present-day Lightfoot performing a show and signing autographs as he fondly looks back on his nearly six-decade career — from his coffeehouse performance days in Ontario, Canada, to his rise to international fame in the Seventies. “He is one of the greatest examples of timeless singer-songwriter,” Lee says in the clip, sitting alongside his bandmate Alex Lifeson. “He’s a Canadian national hero, but he also speaks with a voice for everyone,” adds Bad Religion’s Greg Graffin. Lightfoot also breaks down the making of his 1966 song “Early Morning Rain.” “I knew that I had to sit down and do the work,” he tells the camera. “That turned out to be one of my biggest, most important tunes.” Photos from the Seventies — including Lightfoot with Bob Dylan — are interspersed throughout the trailer, with a vintage clip of Lightfoot joking to a talk show host that alcohol helps maintain his prolific career. “There was a beauty in what he was writing about, but there was a lot of internal pain that none of us would know about,” Lenny Waronker, a long-time record producer and former head of Reprise Records, says. “And it makes you love him, because you just have to listen to his lyrics, and then you get it.” |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
PLEASE read this whole post:EDIT: “not available in u.s.” DOCUMENTARY NEWS - it seems you can pre-order the IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND doc at APPLE iTUNES.
It is also at GOOGLE Play to be added to a WISHLIST if you have an account. BOTH links are below: I do not know if this is related to the GREENWICH ENTERTAINMENT news that the DOC will be streaming in the U.S. this summer. (already on CBC GEM for Canadian viewers) ****I do NOT know more than these TWO links and info at them. I will find out and post more info asap.**** https://itunes.apple.com/ca/movie/go...d/id1501774247 and https://play.google.com/store/movies...A23MV&hl=en_CA |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
Thanks for the info Char. I watched the trailer and I'm VERY interested in seeing this but I keep bouncing back and forth between the Canadian and USA Apple sites with no joy. And I added it to my google wishlist too.
I would guess (certainly hope) that with the size of the USA market that it will be available to us soon. |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
Pre-order your DVD now for the IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND documentary from AMAZON.COM - release date is August 25, 2020: (at the U.S. site there is an option for GLOBAL shipping)
More info regarding Amazon.ca and Amazon U.K. to come: https://www.amazon.com/Gordon-Lightf...522967&sr=8-10 |
Re: HOT DOCS-Lightfoot doc.-interviews/photos/articles-Apr-2019-AND TV viewing info
Hoping for free viewing for Amazon Prime members...
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