http://www.cjad.com/content/cjad_new...sp?id=e092437A
Gordon Lightfoot among first five inductees into new Songwriters Hall of Fame
Updated at 15:49 on September 24, 2003, EST.
TORONTO (CP) - At 65, Gordon Lightfoot is considered the "modern era" representative as the Canadian Songwriters' Hall of Fame announced its first five inductees Wednesday.
Although founded five years ago by music publisher Frank Davies, the hall of fame is just now getting around to a public launch with its maiden list of honourees.
The others are Alfred Bryan, considered a forefather of Canadian songwriting, and country singer Hank Snow and early Quebec celebrities Felix Leclerc and Madame Bolduc.
"Canadian songwriters are internationally renowned for being the best in the business and yet, here at home, their extraordinary accomplishments often go unrecognized," says board chairman Davies.
"The CSHF exists to celebrate the talent, passion, diversity and the societal and cultural impact of Canadian songwriters."
Lightfoot, wearing a leather jacket and scruffy beard, showed up for part of the event at the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Toronto, and stood quietly at the back sipping from a bottle of water.
"I'm about to evaporate," the notoriously shy Lightfoot said to fellow singer Murray McLauchlan before slipping away before the celebration ended.
Last year, he spent three months in hospital with an abdominal hemorrhage that nearly killed him. However, he's planning a new album and hopes to begin touring again next year.
The singer has written such classics as Early Morning Rain and If You Could Read My Mind and is the subject of a new tribute CD hitting stores this week entitled Beautiful.
Fourteen artists, including McLauchlan, Blue Rodeo, The Tragically Hip, Bruce Cockburn and the Cowboy Junkies, have recorded covers of Lightfoot standards and the CD - a joint effort by the Borealis and NorthernBlues labels - was to be officially released Oct. 7 but the date was moved up, apparently as a result of consumer demand.
"We were getting pressure from both the public and our distributor," said Borealis' Grit Laskin. "And we saw no reason to delay getting it into the hands of the public as soon as we could."
At Wednesday's event, hall of fame president Sylvia Tyson and Canadian Idol's Ryan Malcolm were on hand, and there were tribute performances to the inductees by Blackie & the Rodeo Kings, Sarah Slean and Jean-Francois Breau.
Over the years, home-grown songwriters' works have been performed by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Elvis Presley and even Leonardo DiCaprio. (The actor actually sang part of Bryan's classic Come Josephine In My Flying Machine to co-star Kate Winslet in the 1997 movie Titanic).
"The words of Canadian songwriters have done more than tell Canada's stories, they've helped shape the political and social consciousness of a nation," says hall of fame executive director Jody Scotchmer, a former CBC Radio publicist.
"In creating an archive and infrastructure for this unique and fascinating heritage, the CSHF will map songwriting against the history of Canada and preserve this legacy for generations to come."
Eventually the hall of fame will exist as a physical museum but in the meantime plans call for a virtual museum on the Internet that will house the significant archival material.
The CSHF is a bilingual, non-profit organization, a joint partnership of the Canadian Music Publishers Association (CMPA) and the Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC), with the assistance of the Societe professionelle des auteurs et des compositeurs du Quebec (SPACQ).
The board of directors comprises seven music publishers and seven songwriters, with an advisory board consisting of 18 of the country's prominent music, arts and cultural leaders. The organization is still compiling an extensive database on Canadian songwriters and their songs over the past 150 years.
© The Canadian Press, 2003
[This message has been edited by Auburn Annie (edited September 24, 2003).]
Now,if only America would just follow suit! 
