http://www.tulsaworld.com/scene/arti...1_ULNSog749054
Singer-songwriter Lightfoot is healthier than ever
http://www.tulsaworld.com/scene/arti...1_ULNSog749054
By JENNIFER CHANCELLOR World Scene Writer
Published: 1/22/2012 2:21 AM
Last Modified: 1/22/2012 4:14 AM
In recent years, he's suffered a minor stroke onstage, written and partially recorded an album from a hospital bed and still plays close to 80 live shows a year.
No, after 50 years in the music business, Gordon Lightfoot is not pushing himself too hard, he said. He's healthier than ever.
He dropped the bottle and picked up the weights in the early 1980s. "I've paid a price for my years of hard living," he admitted. "But I work out every single day that I'm not performing. I'm in a gym. I'm lifting weights. I've worked out every day since 1982. I'm 73 years old and I'm ready to rock!" he said.
The Canadian singer-songwriter has "re-invented myself five times." Each decade is a transformation. He's crossed over from coffeehouse folk to folk-rock, pop and even country. If he was a cat, well, you know.
Believe it or not, his earliest influences rely heavily on jazz - he studied jazz arrangement, writing and playing for several years as a teen in California.
"I loved jazz, played it all through high school," he said during a recent telephone interview from his home in Canada. "That's where I learned how to arrange and write music, how to play in every key.
"People thought I was this strange, tiny, small-town kid, the son of working-class parents, going to California to learn jazz. My family was in the dry-cleaning business. But that jazz training built the foundation for all these years."
Those years in the late 1950s were the only time he ever lived in the United States, but his music is synonymous with many American acts who have covered his songs, including everyone from Bob Dylan to the Dandy Warhols, John Mellencamp, Glen Campbell and dozens of others.
"I'm most honored by Elvis' version of 'Early Morning Rain' and 'For Lovin' Me,' " he said. Also topping his list of favorite versions of his tunes includes Toby Keith's "Sundown" and Barbara Streisand's "If You Could Read My Mind."
Not once has he stopped playing music, even during a 28-month stretch where he couldn't tour and was rehabbing from health issues.
"Perseverance," he said, like a true folk singer. "I will take days, weeks, months to write a song. I don't give up. It's a very strong element of who I am."
He first arose from the Toronto folk club scene in the early 1960s and has since earned five Grammy nominations and 17 Canadian Juno awards. He was recently inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In 2004, he released his 20th album, "Harmony." It's how he lives.
Much of it was written and "roughed out" while hospitalized with an abdominal hemorrhage. While touring for the album in 2006, he suffered a small stroke - he returned to the stage just days later.
" 'Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated,' isn't that what Mark Twain wrote in 1897?"
In 2010, he was driving down an Ontario highway with the radio on when a local station broadcast the news of Lightfoot's death.
"I drove to work and called the radio station." A newspaper snapped a photo of him walking into the building. "I called my family and most of us had a really good laugh about it."
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GORDON LIGHTFOOT
When: Doors 7 p.m., showtime 8 p.m. Friday
Where: Brady Theater, 105. W. Brady St.
Tickets: All ages. Tickets start at $57, plus fees, available at Reasor's, Starship Records, Ida Red, Buy For Less stores, by phone at 866-977-6849 and online at tulsaworld.com/bradytheater
Online: tulsaworld.com/lightfoot
Jennifer Chancellor 918-581-8346
jennifer.chancellor@tulsaworld.com
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