Cleveland Plain Dealer article
No sundown in sight for Gordon Lightfoot, headed to Cleveland for Playhouse Square gig
by John Soeder / Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic
Wednesday September 17, 2008, 8:00 AM
Denise Grant
CAREFREE HIGHWAYMAN: What keeps Gordon Lightfoot on the road? "It's the love of the work and the communication with the audience and the ongoing quest for the perfect intonation," he says.
Six years after an abdominal aneurysm nearly ended his life, Gordon Lightfoot is back on the good foot. The legendary Canadian singer-songwriter, 69, took our call last week at home in Toronto, as he prepared to hit the road for a six-week tour.
Q: What allure does performing still hold for you?
A: There are quite a few people I could name right now who are a bit older than me who are still doing it. It's the passion, I guess. It's the love of the work and the communication with the audience and the ongoing quest for the perfect intonation.
Q: "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is heard in a new Imax movie, "Mysteries of the Great Lakes." Why did you let the filmmakers use the song?
A: I did it at the request of two of the members of the ladies committee [representing families of crew members who died in the 1975 shipwreck].
We've always conferred whenever one of these things would come up.
I said, "I'll do it, but give $15,000 to the Northwestern Michigan [College] scholarship." [Lightfoot established a scholarship at NMC's Great Lakes Maritime Academy in 1976, the same year "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" became a Top 5 hit.]
Q: Why does that song continue to strike a chord?
A: I would think it's the music -- the music and the idea of . . . wind and water that they see sometimes up in the Great Lakes. The music almost suggests a picture [of] that. It's probably that imagery which drives that song along.
Q: Your last album, "Harmony," came out in 2004. Are you writing new material?
A: I don't get seriously involved in that. I've completed all of my recording obligations. I was under contract to recording companies for 33 years.
My last [album] for Warner Bros. was in 1998. . . . I decided a couple years later I might try for one more ["Harmony"], as an afterthought. I got it down to the point where I had some rough vocal-and-guitar tracks . . . and all of a sudden, I was down with an aneurysm and I was out for two years.
The whole thing had to be put on hold. We never actually got to do any full-band studio performances on those tunes, which is too bad.
But it was nice to have something to work on for 14 months, which is the time it took, because it was happening while I was in recovery. It was taking my mind off my condition and probably helping me get better faster.
The main reason why I'm glad I came back is because I can sing again and I can play again and I can get out in front of a crowd again. For about a year or so there, I didn't think that was gonna happen. I figured I was done.
Q: On any given night, when you sing "If You Could Read My Mind," what goes through your mind?
A: I always think about my first wife, Brita, the Swedish lady that I was married to. We have two children, my two eldest children.
I always think of her when I do that song, because it was written right around the time that our marriage came apart. So she's there. She's with me.
The part about the movie set . . . I don't know where that came from. I guess I was just lucky on that pass.
"A movie queen to play the scene of bringing all the good things out in me. . . ." Yeah. Gee.
Q: That was a good day.
A: Yeah, that was a good day.
Q: If I went back and listened to every album you've made, how good a picture would I have of your life?
A: Well, I hope you never have to do that. But I'll tell you: Yes . . . it would be a very good life story, a story of my life -- that roller-coaster ride through life.
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