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Gordon Lightfoot in concert
Frill-free approach to songs
Steve Begnoche - Managing Editor
Friday, March 28, 2008
By Steve Begnoche
Daily News Managing Editor
MANISTEE TWP. — Gordon Lightfoot is nearing 70 years of age, and his once rich and resonant voice betrays that. It’s thinner, and breathier. Yet his honesty, openness and frills-free approach to music showcased Thursday night at the Makwa Endaat Event Center at Little River Casino Resort put the focus on the songs he has penned over four decades of writing.
In doing so he connected with his fans softly singing hits such as “Carefree Highway,” “Sundown,” “If You Could Read My Mind” and a Lightfoot song Elvis Presley recorded, “Early Morning Rain.” Lightfoot’s band backed him in a subdued and respectful manner that kept the singer-songwriter in the spotlight.
“Thank you for having me back,” the Canadian songwriter said early in the set. “Thank you for letting me in your country.
“I have a new hobby this year, watching the American elections. Boy, I’ll tell you, it’s the best show on television.”
He told how he now tours in “pockets” of performances and that Thursday night was the first of 10 shows in this particular “pocket.” Fifty-five, he said, is the magic number of concerts he aims to perform a year. “We’re having a great time,” the grandfatherly singer said.
He wasn’t alone.
“Loved it,” Larry Woodhall of Holland said after Lightfoot came out for one final bow. Woodhall’s wife Shelly nodded in agreement. The couple has a cottage at Emerson Lake.
“I thought it was great,” Shelly said.
Larry knew his favorite of the night: “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
Based on the reaction from the crowd, he wasn’t alone in that feeling.
“I get chills from ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,’” Larry said. “I just love it.”
The song, Lightfoot’s biggest hit, has transcended popular success to become something of a memorial not only to 29 sailors who lost their lives on the oar boat when it sank in Lake Superior, Nov. 10, 1975, but also to the Great Lakes and mariners in general. Lightfoot calls it, “The Wreck.”
He told the audience how for the first time he as allowed it be used for a commercial venture. It will be the theme song for an IMAX movie, “Mystery of the Great Lakes.”
“We’ve never let it go for anything else,” he told the full house in Manistee.
When he finished singing the ballad, the crowd erupted in its biggest ovation of the evening, short of the ovations at the end of the concert and encores. A few snuck out after “The Wreck” was sung.
A couple songs later, Lightfoot noted how glad he and the band were to be on tour. “I’ll turn 70 this year,” he said.
He said he couldn’t remember what year Elvis recorded his “Early Morning Rain,” quipping, “It’s hard to keep things straight … but he won’t mind.”
(It was 1971, it turns out, and it was one of two Lightfoot songs that Peter, Paul and Mary turned into hits that Elvis recorded just prior to entering a hospital for treatment of glaucoma, according to an Elvis Web site. “For Lovin’ Me” was the other song.)
Lightfoot ended the show with “Early Morning Rain” before returning for encores of “Rainy Day People” and “Old Dan’s Records,” a song about friends playing the 78 RPM records of “Old Dan” and enjoying the music as “Old Dan” would have wanted them to.
Shelly Woodhall enjoyed the old songs of Lightfoot as much as the friends of Old Dan liked his music.
“I love them all,” she said of what Lightfoot sang Thursday night. “Every one is a favorite.”
sbegnoche@ludingtondailynews.com
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