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Lightfoot rides Carefree Highway to Napanee
By Jim Barber/Napanee Guide
Posted -41 second ago
The experience of chatting with this soft-spoken, funny, humble man at the end of the telephone line belies the fact that he may be Canada's greatest musical contribution to the world.
For a man with multiple number one records, whose songs have been recorded by a who's who of the music industry, who has garnered wide acclaim both nationally and internationally, and for whom the word 'legend' seems a little inadequate, Gordon Lightfoot is remarkably easy-going, friendly and down to earth. Maybe it's because he is Canadian - and quintessentially Canadian at that.
At age 72, the singer/songwriter, who hails from Orillia, Ontario, still performs between 70 and 85 concerts a year, mostly in Canada and the United States, but also does a few international dates. Next month, he is doing a short jaunt in Ontario including a first-time-ever appearance in Napanee, at the Strathcona Paper Centre, on Sunday, May 22.
The tour begins in Windsor on May 19, and then he and his crew will travel the breadth of the province to play Cornwall the next night, before moving on to Brockville, May 20. Lightfoot wraps things up with a four-night stand at Toronto's venerable Massey Hall, May 25 through 28.
Lightfoot told The Napanee Guide, that he is "very curious" about Napanee, and playing a show their for the first time in his 52-year professional career.
"We heard that it's a nice venue. We're going to set things up like a concert bowl. We have a very good sound system. We've got a great crew, great sound and lights, so it should be a good experience for everyone," he said from his Toronto home.
"I like the idea of playing Napanee. I like playing anywhere. It will be a nice new experience. I have never really played over in that particular section of Eastern Ontario before. I know I have played Kingston a couple of times, but I know I haven't played in any of those other places, and I am very curious."
Fans will have a chance to hear some of the most significant songs to ever come from the Great White North, sung by the man who penned them.
Lightfoot confirmed that his set will include classics such as Carefree Highway, Rainy Day People, Sundown, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, If You Could Read My Mind and Baby Step Back, among others.
"Even though I have been doing these songs for so long, it's fresh every time. And I only do my very best stuff on stage, musically. And I know that the ones that I am doing are the ones that work best. I have some songs and people say, 'well, why don't you do that onstage?' And I say because it doesn't work very well on stage. But these ones, they all really work, and they are effective. They get the kind of communication that we need. I think I actually encourage people when I do these songs, because it's such a tough world," he said.
Growing up Orillia, Lightfoot was kind of the Justin Bieber of his day ... although not to the same degree. His mother encouraged his nascent musical talent and he soon became a popular child performer in the area, and made a number of forays to the big city of Toronto to perform.
"I first played Massey Hall when I was 13 years old. I was one of the winners of the Kiwanis Music Festival, the last year I was in it. I won for best boy soprano, unchanged voice. I sang Who Is Sylvia [by Franz Schubert]. And my accompanist was May Wedlock, and we used to drive down from Orillia to come to compete in Toronto, and that was before they had Highway 400, so it was quite a journey down old Highway 11."
At age 20, Lightfoot moved to California to study music, and came under the sway of the burgeoning folk music movement, and soon began writing and performing his own folk songs. He came back to Canada and soon became a fixture on the Toronto-based Canadian folk scene, and soon not only was he recording his own tunes, but others were recording them as well.
Early Morning Rain and For Lovin' Me were recorded first by Ian and Sylvia Tyson, and then by American folk legends, Peter, Paul and Mary, and his reputation as a top-flight songwriter soon drew international acclaim for Lightfoot.
His debut album, 1966's Lightfoot, was released to rave reviews and Lightfoot became one of the first Canadian recording artists to become a star in the United States and abroad.
Over the years, his songs have also been recorded by the likes of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Judy Collins, Barbra Streisand, Sarah McLachlan, John Mellencamp, Toby Keith, and Anne Murray.
And as he sold millions of records, and played thousands of shows to an increasingly broadening and devoted fan base, the industry accolades came tumbling in for Lightfoot.
He has won an astonishing 16 Juno Awards, and won major songwriting awards throughout the 1970s. In 1980, he was named Canadian male recording artist of the decade for the 1970s, and in 1986 was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. In 1998, he was amongst the inaugural group to be inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame, and in 2003 became a Companion of the Order of Canada.
After a health scare in 2002 that saw him spend much of that year and 2003 recuperating, Lightfoot was back recording and performing, and even made an appearance as one of the 'mentors' on an episode of the Canadian Idol reality show in 2005.
"They asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said sure. It was great fun. The best part was the workshop, when they all came in and they all sat down at the piano and did a song. And it was amazing, as I sat right there and listened to them at this workshop doing my songs," he said.
"And then later on I got to go to the show and hear them do the songs. And I was able to get my young daughter [now 16] involved and take her down there a couple of times."
In talking with someone like Lightfoot, whose songs are so well known, and such a part of the cultural fabric of Canada, one can sometimes lapse into overly-intricate interpretations and try to get all deep and philosophical in trying to determine their meaning.
For Lightfoot, it's a pretty simple proposition.
"Basically, I write stuff about human relationships, and that sort of thing: what people feel about the world. I wrote my first song when I was 17, and I didn't stop after that. And I don't even know why I did it. It was a topical song. It was about a fad - the hula hoop. It was a toy that all the kids had, and I wrote a song about a father who couldn't learn how to do it, and how his two children were hula-hooping better than he was," he said with a chuckle.
"It's all so vague anyways, and I have been trying to explain it all my life. Basically, I like to write travelling songs, and I am kind of a lone ranger at heart, a real travelling troubadour."
From hula hoops to lost love, and infidelity, to historical narratives about Canada's railroad heritage and a tragedy at sea (the still-haunting 1975 epic, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald) Lightfoot's music continues to speak to new generations of fans looking for real storytelling and real, authentic music, in contrast to the overproduced, pristine Autotune era stylings.
He said that he gets a good demographic cross section at his shows, and everyone seems to know his songs, young and old alike.
"Most of them hear about the music through their parents and maybe even grandparents. We have a meet and greet after each show. We go out and talk to people, and I get to meet a lot of people, including younger folks, and it seems to be a family thing. They hear about the music from other family members," he said, adding that the feedback he gets is positive, even from the youngest of audience members.
"Now whether they are telling me the truth or not, or just being polite, but they say that they like it. I know that what we're doing is good, and I really love the work, and we get lots of nice compliments about how much they like the songs, and that they like the lyrics. The young people are very polite and they seem to be knowledgeable about the music."
Lightfoot said he has no immediate plans to do any writing or recording, as his record company obligations are now done. He said that he tries to spend as much time living a 'normal' life as a father and grandfather when he is not on the road performing.
"When I am home, I am looking after my family duties and all the various routines of the normal life. I live in two different worlds, two totally different worlds, and to make it all blend into one and to have a happy family, you have to work on it," he said.
"I have all the normal family drama going on, so the music business is one world, and the family is the other world. My kids range from 16 to 46 years old, and I have grandchildren too. And we all visit back and forth and we talk a lot on the phone.
"Even when I am up on stage doing my thing, I am thinking of them, because I am always with them in spirit when I am out on the trail."
And as to when that trail will end, Lightfoot basically said he will stop when there is no longer a demand to hear him play or if his health declines to a degree that it prohibits him from playing.
"So it's either going to be the demand, or if the economy holds or a health issue. If none of those things happen, we'll just keep going."
For tickets to the May 22 show in Napanee, call 613-532-5997. For more information on Lightfoot, visit his website at
www.lightfoot.ca. Show time is 8 p.m.
- Jim Barber is the editor of the Napanee Guide and a veteran music industry journalist. Contact him at
news@napaneeguide.com.
Napanee, Ontario article
