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If you go ...
What: Gordon Lightfoot -- “50 Years on the Carefree Highway Tour”
When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, June 16
Where: Helena Civic Center, 340 Neill Ave.
Cost: $45
Contact:
https://helenamt.showare.com/ or 447-8481
Legendary singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot and his “50 Years on the Carefree Highway Tour” will swing into the Helena Civic Center 8 p.m. Tuesday, June 16. It’s part of a 22-show stretch.
“I’m always planning a tour,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Toronto. “I have been for 56 years. I love doing the work -- love the show. I love my songs.”
And so do his fans.
A few of the Lightfoot classics that he’s likely to sing include: “If You Could Read My Mind,” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway” and “Early Morning Rain.”
“We have three different ways of changing the show up,” he said. “We don’t lose the standards. That way we get to cover the entire repertoire.”
Lightfoot has recorded 20 original albums, was nominated for five Grammy Awards and been awarded 16 Juno Awards -- the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy.
He’s been called Canada’s greatest songwriter and “a national treasure” and was even featured on a Canadian postage stamp. He is in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and is considered one of Canada’s greatest and most prolific singer-songwriters of all time.
In 2012 he was inducted into the U.S. Songwriters Hall of Fame.
At this time the 76-year-old performer is not writing new songs, he said, but focusing instead on his singing and physical fitness. “Part of my responsibility is to be in a state of readiness for my performances.
“We love doing the show. It’s what you do best ... your show. It will be lively. ... I’ve always loved to perform. I’m getting to do what I love.”
Lightfoot first began his performance career at age 5, singing at a local church in Orillia, Ontario.
His mother recognized his talent and lined up music lessons.
“My mother, she was great,” he said. “She got me into the church choir really young. She got me into the piano lessons really young.”
By the time he was 8, he knew he wanted to sing as a career.
“Most people do get that bug by that point,” he said.
By age 10, he’d made his first record with his sister accompanying him on piano. By 13, he was already winning singing contests in Toronto. And although he was composing songs in his head, he "could not write the music down.”
“I wanted to learn how to write notation,” he said, and at age 19 convinced his parents to send him to arranging school at Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles, which he credits in helping launch his successful songwriting career.
Once out of school, he worked as a copyist in a music publishing company and was a copier for CBC’s orchestras.
“While doing that, I worked as a banker at the Royal Bank. I enjoyed being a banker,” he admitted, but he liked music more. He became a dancer and choral performer on TV.
At that time the folk revival was kicking in, and he was performing his songs at various folk clubs in Toronto, he said, and was “discovered” at age 25 or 26, getting him noticed by music industry folks in New York City.
“I used to do a lot of covers,” he said of his early years. “I had to have an act. I had to have a set. I was learning other people’s tunes and I was good at it. And I kept adding in my own material -- to the point my own material was winning out over the others'.”
By age 30 or 32, “I was doing all my own songs,” except for an occasional Bob Dylan or Kris Kristofferson song.
While his voice is his “flagship,” he knew he always had to keep writing songs.
“Songs must have momentum that build your interest as you listen to them,” he said of what makes a song work.
One of his finest is the “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” a ballad about a ship that sank during a gale on Lake Superior Nov. 10, 1975.
“I’m really happy I wrote that song,” Lightfoot said. Many people have come to him, including families of those killed, and told him about the comfort it gave them. He wrote it to the tune of an Irish dirge he heard when he was 3. It went on to win a Juno Award for Songwriter of the Year.
Lightfoot’s been beloved by not only his fans, but his peers. Many of them recorded his songs, including Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Richie Havens, Hank Williams Jr. and Johnny Cash.
"Lightfoot became a mentor for a long time,” according to a published quote by Dylan. “I think he probably still is to this day. I can't think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don't like. Every time I hear a song of his, I wish it would last forever."
Kris Kristofferson was quoted as saying, "Gordon Lightfoot has created some of the most beautiful and lasting music of our time. He is Bob Dylan's favorite singer/songwriter -- high praise from the best of us, applauded by the rest of us."
In the past decade, Lightfoot has had to overcome several setbacks from health issues.
In 2002, during a concert, he suffered severe abdominal pain and had to be flown to a medical facility for emergency surgery of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.
In 2006, during a performance, he suffered a minor stroke that initially paralyzed two fingers in his right hand.
“The first night, I practiced all night long,” he said, and has since regained full use of his hand and plays all his guitar parts.
Accompanying him on tour is his longtime four-member band.
Some reviewers find his health and age have weakened his voice, while others, particularly fans who have followed his music, claim his show is not to be missed.
“It will be lively. It will be well-paced. You’ll know we’re going full energy. It has a lot of power. We try to radiate enthusiasm to the audience. I’m going to be larger than life up there,” he said.
Over his five-decade-plus career, he’s played every major city in Montana, he said -- from Butte to Missoula to Helena and more. “I’m really looking forward to being there. I love doing the shows.”
Reporter Marga Lincoln can be reached at 447-4083
marga.lincoln@helenair.com
HELENA MT article-June 2015
