Wall Street Journal

2Much2Lose · 05-01-2007, 06:12 PM

There was supposed to be an article in Monday or Tuesdays Wall Street Jouranl on Gord. Anyone see it? I forgot to pick one up the last two days.
Jenney

Jenney · 05-01-2007, 06:12 PM

There was supposed to be an article in Monday or Tuesdays Wall Street Jouranl on Gord. Anyone see it? I forgot to pick one up the last two days.
Jenney

charlene · 05-01-2007, 08:31 PM

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1178...re_banner_left

MUSIC

Gordon Lightfoot's Surprised to Be Here
By JOANNE KAUFMAN
May 2, 2007

New York

In the last week and a half, John Corcoran, an otherwise completely normal-seeming middle-aged guy turned up at nine out of 10 Gordon Lightfoot concerts. The owner of an oil and gas business in Traverse City, Mich., Mr. Corcoran, 52, beamed as the Toronto troubadour performed classic fare like "Beautiful," "Rainy Day People," "Carefree Highway" and his signature "If You Could Read My Mind" in Torrington, Conn.; Easton, Harrisburg, Glenside and Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; Sparta and Red Bank, N.J; Peekskill, N.Y., and here in a sold-out gig at the 1,495-seat Town Hall.

Mr. Corcoran's wife, Peggy, is tolerant. ("She knows Gordon is 68, and he's not going to be touring much longer. So she says, 'It's not heroin, booze or another woman.'")

His three children are bemused, his friends derisive. "I get unrelenting [abuse] from them. They call me a 'Lighthead,'" confided Mr. Corcoran, who as an 18-year-old became acquainted with the baritone voice and sugared folk melodies of Mr. Lightfoot and has seen him in concert some 300 times.

"I'm a little nuts. I'm a lot nuts," he amended as he stood outside Town Hall in a fever of anticipation. "All I know is that in the midst of the madness of this world it's my therapy. The music touches my heartstrings."

The gray-mustachioed object of Mr. Corcoran's curious devotion is reed-thin with a singing voice to match, the result perhaps of a near fatal abdominal aneurysm in 2002. "It took two years to recover and for a while it was touch and go," said Mr. Lightfoot, a few hours before the Town Hall performance. "Then for a year I wondered if I'd be able to sing because everything was thoroughly messed up. But I have a pretty strong constitution and everything is all right now."

Mr. Lightfoot has reached a point in his career where, like it or not, he's frequently dealt with in numerical terms: the five Grammy nominations, the nearly two dozen albums that went gold, platinum or double platinum in Canada and the U.S., the 10 million-plus albums sold, the 17 Juno awards (the Canadian version of the Grammys), including seven for best folksinger, five for best male singer and two for composer of the year.

Despite those impressive stats, copping to a deep fondness for Mr. Lightfoot has never been the best way to establish one's hipster bona fides. Indeed, one embarrassed ticket holder standing outside Town Hall refused to give his name and expressed concern that he'd already divulged too much by identifying himself as a 43-year-old lawyer from Long Island. "People don't look at a Gordon Lightfoot fan as being cool and manly," he said puffing a compensatory Marlboro.

Cool or not so, he and hundreds of others were in their seats waiting eagerly for the first strum of Mr. Lightfoot's acoustic guitar precisely as audiences have been doing for some 40 years. It was a sentimental journey of sorts for the singer-songwriter. He was the opening act here -- his first concert hall engagement -- for Paul Butterfield and his band in the late '60s.

LIGHTFOOT DATES THROUGH JUNE

May 10 St. John, New Brunswick
May 11 Moncton, New Brunswick
May 12 Halifax, Nova Scotia
May 13 Sydney, Nova Scotia
May15 St. John's,NewFoundland
June 22 Austin, Texas
June 23 Ft. Worth, Texas
June 24 Houston, Texas
June 26 Tulsa, Okla
June 27 Wichita, Kan.
June 28 Kansas City, Mo.
June 29 Omaha, Neb.
June 30 Cedar Rapids, Iowa
--For venues and additional tour dates, go to www.gordonlightfoot.com
Mr. Lightfoot and his band have "always been a presence," he said. "We've always toured and worked. We've just kept on, and it's come up to this point in time that I'm quite surprised I'm still around. We're not setting the world on fire on the music charts, but we've got a desire and passion."

Mr. Lightfoot is savoring the freedom of a man who has nothing left to prove -- and no recording obligations to fulfill. "I signed with Warner Bros. twice and I probably could have signed again, but I really wanted that pressure to be off of me at this point.

"I was under contract for 33 years, and when you're like that you're always under the gun to produce. You tend to ignore certain things and to become isolated, and you don't spend enough time thinking about other things like the business end and the family and even the live performances. Now I can concentrate on my shows, which is great because that's what I like best anyway."

What the fans like best during those shows is the old stuff -- tunes like "Sundown," "Rainy Day People" and "If You Could Read My Mind" -- that made Mr. Lightfoot rich, famous, a plot point on episodes of "3rd Rock From the Sun" and "Seinfeld," and the focus of a 2003 tribute album by artists like the Cowboy Junkies and Maria Muldaur. "I know what I really love and I know what they love. I wind up settling on material that bears repetition. I can always pull the emotions out. That's not a problem. I believe in the songs."

The younger of two children, Mr. Lightfoot grew up in Orillia, Ontario, where, as a boy soprano he worked the wedding circuit ("O, Promise Me" and "The Lord's Prayer" were specialties), performed in a church choir, a barbershop quartet and a dance band. "My parents were very supportive," he recalled. "My mother talked to me about Bing Crosby. She told me one day, very casually, 'Bing makes a living as a singer.' I was 8 years old and a little light went on in my head."

After a few semesters at music school in Los Angeles, Mr. Lightfoot came back to Canada where he played the guitar and sang in coffee houses and plugged away at his own compositions. "That's what I tell young performers who come to me asking for advice: write a bag of songs . . . because that's what you have to do. You don't just grab it right off the bat like that," said Mr. Lightfoot. His own particular bag of songs attracted the interest of Peter, Paul and Mary, who made a hit out of "For Lovin' Me." "That song was written early on in my first marriage. It was troubled right off," Mr. Lightfoot said. Anne Murray, Judy Collins, Richie Havens and Mr. Lightfoot's idol Bob Dylan also did well with his material, success the songwriter would share when he began recording his own tunes.

Along the way, there was a fair amount of triumph ("The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," Mr. Lightfoot's sonorous account of the 1975 disaster on Lake Superior, "Sundown" and "If You Could Read My Mind" had pleasant stays at the top of the charts), a fair amount of drinking (though Mr. Lightfoot says he's been sober since the early '80s) and a fair amount of attitude. "I might have been difficult...during the '70s when we were flying a little bit higher in the pecking order," Mr. Lightfoot conceded. "But I never trashed any hotel rooms or set any fires or anything like that."

There was also a fair amount of messing around. Mr. Lightfoot, who's been married twice -- he's separated from wife number two -- has six children by four women. "I've always had women interested in me," he conceded. "I'd be honored if they were interested now, but I can't go for it because I don't want to change my estate. People who read The Wall Street Journal will know exactly what I'm talking about."

And he certainly doesn't want to change his schedule -- there are 60 concerts on this year's itinerary. "I'm coasting into my end game," said Mr. Lightfoot. "But I'll do it as long as audiences come. I'm sure I'll be able to tell when it's time to stop. It'll probably be when I'm lying on the floor."

Ms. Kaufman writes about culture and the arts for the Journal.

charlene · 05-01-2007, 08:31 PM

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1178...re_banner_left

MUSIC

Gordon Lightfoot's Surprised to Be Here
By JOANNE KAUFMAN
May 2, 2007

New York

In the last week and a half, John Corcoran, an otherwise completely normal-seeming middle-aged guy turned up at nine out of 10 Gordon Lightfoot concerts. The owner of an oil and gas business in Traverse City, Mich., Mr. Corcoran, 52, beamed as the Toronto troubadour performed classic fare like "Beautiful," "Rainy Day People," "Carefree Highway" and his signature "If You Could Read My Mind" in Torrington, Conn.; Easton, Harrisburg, Glenside and Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; Sparta and Red Bank, N.J; Peekskill, N.Y., and here in a sold-out gig at the 1,495-seat Town Hall.

Mr. Corcoran's wife, Peggy, is tolerant. ("She knows Gordon is 68, and he's not going to be touring much longer. So she says, 'It's not heroin, booze or another woman.'")

His three children are bemused, his friends derisive. "I get unrelenting [abuse] from them. They call me a 'Lighthead,'" confided Mr. Corcoran, who as an 18-year-old became acquainted with the baritone voice and sugared folk melodies of Mr. Lightfoot and has seen him in concert some 300 times.

"I'm a little nuts. I'm a lot nuts," he amended as he stood outside Town Hall in a fever of anticipation. "All I know is that in the midst of the madness of this world it's my therapy. The music touches my heartstrings."

The gray-mustachioed object of Mr. Corcoran's curious devotion is reed-thin with a singing voice to match, the result perhaps of a near fatal abdominal aneurysm in 2002. "It took two years to recover and for a while it was touch and go," said Mr. Lightfoot, a few hours before the Town Hall performance. "Then for a year I wondered if I'd be able to sing because everything was thoroughly messed up. But I have a pretty strong constitution and everything is all right now."

Mr. Lightfoot has reached a point in his career where, like it or not, he's frequently dealt with in numerical terms: the five Grammy nominations, the nearly two dozen albums that went gold, platinum or double platinum in Canada and the U.S., the 10 million-plus albums sold, the 17 Juno awards (the Canadian version of the Grammys), including seven for best folksinger, five for best male singer and two for composer of the year.

Despite those impressive stats, copping to a deep fondness for Mr. Lightfoot has never been the best way to establish one's hipster bona fides. Indeed, one embarrassed ticket holder standing outside Town Hall refused to give his name and expressed concern that he'd already divulged too much by identifying himself as a 43-year-old lawyer from Long Island. "People don't look at a Gordon Lightfoot fan as being cool and manly," he said puffing a compensatory Marlboro.

Cool or not so, he and hundreds of others were in their seats waiting eagerly for the first strum of Mr. Lightfoot's acoustic guitar precisely as audiences have been doing for some 40 years. It was a sentimental journey of sorts for the singer-songwriter. He was the opening act here -- his first concert hall engagement -- for Paul Butterfield and his band in the late '60s.

LIGHTFOOT DATES THROUGH JUNE

May 10 St. John, New Brunswick
May 11 Moncton, New Brunswick
May 12 Halifax, Nova Scotia
May 13 Sydney, Nova Scotia
May15 St. John's,NewFoundland
June 22 Austin, Texas
June 23 Ft. Worth, Texas
June 24 Houston, Texas
June 26 Tulsa, Okla
June 27 Wichita, Kan.
June 28 Kansas City, Mo.
June 29 Omaha, Neb.
June 30 Cedar Rapids, Iowa
--For venues and additional tour dates, go to www.gordonlightfoot.com
Mr. Lightfoot and his band have "always been a presence," he said. "We've always toured and worked. We've just kept on, and it's come up to this point in time that I'm quite surprised I'm still around. We're not setting the world on fire on the music charts, but we've got a desire and passion."

Mr. Lightfoot is savoring the freedom of a man who has nothing left to prove -- and no recording obligations to fulfill. "I signed with Warner Bros. twice and I probably could have signed again, but I really wanted that pressure to be off of me at this point.

"I was under contract for 33 years, and when you're like that you're always under the gun to produce. You tend to ignore certain things and to become isolated, and you don't spend enough time thinking about other things like the business end and the family and even the live performances. Now I can concentrate on my shows, which is great because that's what I like best anyway."

What the fans like best during those shows is the old stuff -- tunes like "Sundown," "Rainy Day People" and "If You Could Read My Mind" -- that made Mr. Lightfoot rich, famous, a plot point on episodes of "3rd Rock From the Sun" and "Seinfeld," and the focus of a 2003 tribute album by artists like the Cowboy Junkies and Maria Muldaur. "I know what I really love and I know what they love. I wind up settling on material that bears repetition. I can always pull the emotions out. That's not a problem. I believe in the songs."

The younger of two children, Mr. Lightfoot grew up in Orillia, Ontario, where, as a boy soprano he worked the wedding circuit ("O, Promise Me" and "The Lord's Prayer" were specialties), performed in a church choir, a barbershop quartet and a dance band. "My parents were very supportive," he recalled. "My mother talked to me about Bing Crosby. She told me one day, very casually, 'Bing makes a living as a singer.' I was 8 years old and a little light went on in my head."

After a few semesters at music school in Los Angeles, Mr. Lightfoot came back to Canada where he played the guitar and sang in coffee houses and plugged away at his own compositions. "That's what I tell young performers who come to me asking for advice: write a bag of songs . . . because that's what you have to do. You don't just grab it right off the bat like that," said Mr. Lightfoot. His own particular bag of songs attracted the interest of Peter, Paul and Mary, who made a hit out of "For Lovin' Me." "That song was written early on in my first marriage. It was troubled right off," Mr. Lightfoot said. Anne Murray, Judy Collins, Richie Havens and Mr. Lightfoot's idol Bob Dylan also did well with his material, success the songwriter would share when he began recording his own tunes.

Along the way, there was a fair amount of triumph ("The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," Mr. Lightfoot's sonorous account of the 1975 disaster on Lake Superior, "Sundown" and "If You Could Read My Mind" had pleasant stays at the top of the charts), a fair amount of drinking (though Mr. Lightfoot says he's been sober since the early '80s) and a fair amount of attitude. "I might have been difficult...during the '70s when we were flying a little bit higher in the pecking order," Mr. Lightfoot conceded. "But I never trashed any hotel rooms or set any fires or anything like that."

There was also a fair amount of messing around. Mr. Lightfoot, who's been married twice -- he's separated from wife number two -- has six children by four women. "I've always had women interested in me," he conceded. "I'd be honored if they were interested now, but I can't go for it because I don't want to change my estate. People who read The Wall Street Journal will know exactly what I'm talking about."

And he certainly doesn't want to change his schedule -- there are 60 concerts on this year's itinerary. "I'm coasting into my end game," said Mr. Lightfoot. "But I'll do it as long as audiences come. I'm sure I'll be able to tell when it's time to stop. It'll probably be when I'm lying on the floor."

Ms. Kaufman writes about culture and the arts for the Journal.

05-01-2007, 09:18 PM

Char.....having been in New York......and feeling a lot like Mr. Corcoran I enjoyed it immensley. And my wife felt a great affinity for Mrs. Corcoran. I looked for it on line earlier but clearly your sleuthing skills are superior.

Now its on to Halifax!

banjobench12 · 05-01-2007, 09:18 PM

Char.....having been in New York......and feeling a lot like Mr. Corcoran I enjoyed it immensley. And my wife felt a great affinity for Mrs. Corcoran. I looked for it on line earlier but clearly your sleuthing skills are superior.

Now its on to Halifax!

RM · 05-01-2007, 09:34 PM

Beautiful.

Dream Street Rose · 05-02-2007, 12:07 AM

Thank you Char.

daks · 05-02-2007, 10:52 AM

Nice article. I really liked the caricature that was with the actual article! I cut it out & it's on my bulletin board. I kinda chuckle every time I look at it!

LadyA · 05-02-2007, 10:52 AM

Nice article. I really liked the caricature that was with the actual article! I cut it out & it's on my bulletin board. I kinda chuckle every time I look at it!

RJ · 05-02-2007, 11:25 AM

re: "and has seen him in concert some 300 times"..

Holy smokes! I don't ever wanna hear any'a my cohorts up here bustin on me fer seein' 27 shows!

re: "Mr. Lightfoot has never been the best way to establish one's hipster bona fides. Indeed, one embarrassed ticket holder said "People don't look at a Gordon Lightfoot fan as being cool and manly." ..

What a crock.. since I've always described my man Gord as just about the ultimate man: all the guys wanna know him.. and all the girls wanna do him.. etc.. so what's the problem.. I guess, so (to quote Joni) what makes a man a man, in these tough times?.. drives a big truck, hunts, drinks beer and worships Dale Earnhart as a religious icon or something?..
whatever..

re: "coasting into my end game.."

nicely put..

[ May 02, 2007, 11:51: Message edited by: RJ ]

Doug · 05-02-2007, 12:12 PM

"Indeed, one embarrassed ticket holder standing outside Town Hall refused to give his name and expressed concern that he'd already divulged too much by identifying himself as a 43-year-old lawyer from Long Island. "People don't look at a Gordon Lightfoot fan as being cool and manly," he said puffing a compensatory Marlboro."

Re:
Beeing to embarrassed to admit he likes Lightfoots music?? Jeez, I bet he must have severe other 'mental' problems. Sounds like he got stuck in his 'Teen-years'. With 43 years old, everybody should have reached a point where he couldn't care less what other people say!

What amused me was Lightfoots remark about women: "I'd be honored if they were interested now..."
Well, Gordon, believe it - Women are still interested in you...
:D

Claudia · 05-02-2007, 12:12 PM

"Indeed, one embarrassed ticket holder standing outside Town Hall refused to give his name and expressed concern that he'd already divulged too much by identifying himself as a 43-year-old lawyer from Long Island. "People don't look at a Gordon Lightfoot fan as being cool and manly," he said puffing a compensatory Marlboro."

Re:
Beeing to embarrassed to admit he likes Lightfoots music?? Jeez, I bet he must have severe other 'mental' problems. Sounds like he got stuck in his 'Teen-years'. With 43 years old, everybody should have reached a point where he couldn't care less what other people say!

What amused me was Lightfoots remark about women: "I'd be honored if they were interested now..."
Well, Gordon, believe it - Women are still interested in you...
:D

RJ · 05-02-2007, 12:15 PM

It's a very confused macho culture we live in unfortunately.. reinforced 24-7 ad nauseum by the damn truck commercials!.. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!


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