Witchita Eagle:
Folk singer Lightfoot performs at Orpheum
"Jiggy-vous."
That slice of French-Canadian patois was a favorite saying of the teenage Gordon Lightfoot. It means "all right."
Now 67, Lightfoot is hardly a boy, but he's still getting jiggy-vous with it. That is, he's all right, or at least as all right as someone can be who's survived Bell's palsy, a condition that once paralyzed one side of his face; a stomach aneurysm that put him in a coma for two months; and a small stroke suffered on stage last September.
Still, Lightfoot the Canadian singer-songwriter whose greatest hits include "If You Could Read My Mind," "Sundown," "Carefree Highway," "Rainy Day People" and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," is on tour now. He will perform at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Wichita's Orpheum.
A prolific songwriter whose songs have been covered by folks ranging from Elvis Presley to Peter, Paul and Mary, Lightfoot has recorded 20 albums, been nominated for a handful of Grammys and won just about every award that Canada has to offer.
His last album, "Harmony," was recorded in 2004, and he's not sure he wants to start on another.
"It's just too isolating a thing," he says. "You have to tear yourself away (from other things) to do an album, and I have a couple of teenagers. I'm just going to keep on playing (live). That's really the fun part for me."
Lightfoot and his band play about 55 shows a year.
"We're like a sports team," he said. "We practice, we work on technique, the show is well-planned. A show is a sum of its parts, and my goal is to make it as perfect a show as I can make it."
Tickets to Lightfoot's concert range from $30 to $59. They're available at Select-A-Seat outlets or by phone at 316-755-SEAT.