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Gord's golden

Lightfoot 'happy' to still be around to accept his Hall of Fame honours

By JANE STEVENSON, TORONTO SUN

The inaugural gala for the Canadian Songwriters Hall Of Fame proved to be an intimate and classy affair of patriotic pride last night at the Glenn Gould Theatre. And the undisputed star of the evening was none other than Orillia, Ont., singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, one of the hall's first five songwriter inductees.

Back from the brink of death just over a year ago after suffering an abdominal hemmorhage, and on the verge of releasing a brand new album, Harmony, next spring, the 65-year-old Lightfoot acknowledged he was just glad to be around to accept the honour.

"I'm very happy to receive the award and I'm happy to be a part of this very first one," said the tuxedo-clad Lightfoot, who received a loud and sustained standing ovation from the audience of several hundred.

"It's nice to be available for me to do it because I wasn't quite sure there for a while, but I'm progressing along and I hope to reappear somewhere around early 2005."

Lightfoot, who also recalled driving down to Toronto for the first time with a bunch of his songs in 1957, received his award from fellow singer-songwriter Tom Cochrane, who was part of the evening's two-hour-plus heartfelt musical tribute to various artists.

'CLASSIC POETRY'

"He's every bit a deeply branded part of our collective sense of Canadian identity and culture as Robbie Burns is to the Scots and James Joyce is to the Irish," said Cochrane, whose introduction was preceded by an acoustic performance of Lightfoot's classic Early Mornin' Rain.

"Gordon's songs are works of art, every bit as relevant as classic poetry."

Lightfoot was joined last night by four other songwriter inductees, who all received the honour posthumously -- Felix Leclerc, Hank Snow, Madame Bolduc and Alfred Bryan -- although some of their descendants were in attendance.

Like the Reverend Jimmy Snow, son of Hank, and actress June Lockhart (Lost In Space), whose father Eugene Lockhart co-wrote The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise, one of 12 songs to be inducted.

LEGACY

Included among the dozen were Red River Valley, Snowbird, I'll Never Smile Again, Aquarius and the Christian hymn What a Friend We Have in Jesus, while the Legacy Award recipients were Pierre Juneau and Marius Barbeau.

Appropriately, last night's two-hour ceremony was mostly about song -- so you had everyone from the all-female Quartette harmonizing on Song for A Winter's Night and Blue Rodeo beautifully tackling If You Could Read My Mind.

And that was just the Lightfoot tribute.

Elsewhere, the 1969 Toronto cast of Hair reunited to perform Aquarius, another song inductee, and Ron Sexsmith sweetly crooned Gene MacLellan's Snowbird on just his acoustic guitar.

The event will be broadcast on CBC Radio's OnStage on Sunday, Dec. 7, at 8:05 pm ET and CBC Radio Two at 2:05 pm ET.

The Canadian Songwriters Hall Of Fame was founded in 1998 to honour, celebrate and educate Canadians about the accomplishments of the country's popular music songwriters and those who have contributed to their legacy.

Eventually, the Hall Of Fame will exist as a physical museum but in the meantime a virtual one will be created online next year.

"We've got a whole lot of really great songwriters here in Canada right now, singer-songwriters, both male and female, and we all know who they are and who's working and who's being successful," Lightfoot said from the stage. "And this is going to be an event that's going to go on for a long time."