http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/bre...-43690687.html
Mr. Walker was kind enough to e-mail the article to me because you have to have a paid subscription to the paper to see the column on-line.
Battle of the bards
Winnipeg Free Press
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Page: C1
Byline: Morley Walker
For fans of Canadian folk acts of a certain vintage, April 2009 will go down in history.
Two of the best, arguably the two very best, will have performed here within two weeks of each other.
Yes, the "painter passing through" is making room for the man with "the golden voice."
The great troubadour Gordon Lightfoot brought his touring show to the MTS Centre a week ago Thursday, where he performed to 3,000 devoted fans, most of them boomers.
This coming Thursday, also at the Phone Booth, a predicted crowd of 5,500, equally devoted and likely of a broader age range, will bow at the feet of the amazing Leonard Cohen.
"I took in Gordie because I remember him sweeping me off my feet in the '70s, " says Estelle Burtniak, 54, a Winnipeg teacher. "But, Lenny, he's not getting older -- he's getting better!"
One hesitates to make too much of this convergence of icons.
In a blue-collar town where heavy metal rules -- veteran rockers AC/DC reportedly sold 40,000 tickets in half an hour last weekend to their August date at Canad Inns Stadium -- guitar-strumming poets will always be considered a tad precious.
Yet Lightfoot and Cohen are such respected figures, both as songwriters and performers, and have kept on trucking for so many decades, that it's only natural to talk about them in the same breath -- one the mapper of our physical geography, the other our "bitter searcher of the heart."
"Both of them are true artists and gentlemen," says the veteran Toronto- based music promoter Bernie Fiedler, 70, who counts both as friends and who is producing Lightfoot's current tour.
"Cohen may be cresting right now, but in Canada, the one artist people will be listening to in 100 years is Lightfoot."
Unquestionably, Lightfoot has penned the more accessible and populist songbook.
A Charles Dickens to Cohen's Franz Kafka, he is a perfectionist as a guitar player, and his singing voice, until he took ill in 2002, was by far the more felicitous instrument.
Even though he hasn't had a hit in ages, such classics as If You Could Read My Mind and Sundown still get aired on commercial radio.
Cohen, with his atonal drone, has always been an acquired taste as a vocalist, though many would argue that as his pipes have pickled, he has grown into his material.
That said, his radio airplay is confined largely to the public waves of the CBC and obscure college stations. In what might be the ultimate sign of modern mainstream acceptance, the Canadian Idol TV show did a Lightfoot theme week a few years ago.
True, last winter in England, the Cohen song Hallelujah made history when separate covers versions occupied the top two chart positions, following singer Alexandra Burke's appearance on the British show X Factor. Both Cohen and Lightfoot's work has been covered by performers all over the world.
"Lightfoot appeals to a more common level," says Winnipeg folkie Mitch Podolak, 61, currently artistic director of the Home Routes house concert network.
"He's a very good storyteller, but he's not an intellectual like Cohen."
To hell with his brains, says Winnipeg family lawyer Marcia Knight, 56: "Women all across Canada and of all ages want to listen to Leonard Cohen and sleep with Leonard Cohen. He is a poet and a spiritualist."
Neither Cohen's longtime label, Sony, nor Lightfoot's, Warner, have released global sales figures (let alone sexual scorecards). But the Oracle of Orillia has probably outsold the Bard of Montreal by three or four times over their respective 40-year-plus careers.
Lightfoot, 70, has released 20 studio albums between his self-titled debut in 1966 and his most recent, Harmony, in 2004. That would give him a catalogue of recorded songs well over 200.
Cohen, 74, has released 11 studio albums, his first in 1967 and his most recent, Dear Heather, in 2004. His song catalogue is also half that of Lightfoot's (though his list of romantic conquests is reputed to be higher).
Meanwhile, the arcs of their respective careers are very different. Lightfoot started young. He worked his way up the Toronto coffee-house circuit and broke big in the late '60s.
He released a string of seven chart-topping albums in the '70s. But, for a variety of reasons, important among them his battle with the bottle, he has never regained his momentum.
Cohen, meanwhile, was past 30 when he started as a niche musical act. He has stayed a niche act, earning most of his loyalty in Europe.
But he has also written many acclaimed volumes of poetry and two novels. Lately he has added visual artist to his resume.
"Hipsters of my generation who want cred for their music tastes need to have some Leonard Cohen in their collection," says Kenton Smith, 30, of CKUW 95.9 FM in Winnipeg.
"I worked abroad and met all sorts of people my age who knew Leonard Cohen. Many were surprised when I told them he was Canadian."
Cohen's popularity, for some mysterious reason, has taken off since he came out of the closet in 2005 with his legal and financial problems.
Currently two of his greatest-hits albums sit on the Soundscan Top 30, where Lightfoot is nowhere to be seen. Lee Richard of the Winnipeg Folk Festival Music Store estimates that Cohen outsells Lightfoot two to one.
The Cohen tour, which started a year ago, is among the highest-grossing shows in the world, garnering acclaim everywhere.
Fiedler may be hyperbolizing when he says, "Cohen is earning $50 billion, Lightfoot is earning $15 million. That's a big difference."
Winnipeg's Dan Donahue, the folksinger turned record producer, respects both artists.
"They're so different really, almost apples and oranges, especially as the years have passed."
Donahue, 57, says that Cohen has become more electronic and experimental in the studio, while Lightfoot is doing pretty much as he has always done.
"I'd be surprised if any place other than Canada could have produced two such beloved originals."
morley.walker@freepress.mb.ca
Icon-ography
Birthdates
G.L.: Nov. 17, 1938 (Orillia, Ont.).
L.C.: Sept. 21, 1934 (Montreal).
Middle name
G.L.: Meredith.
L.C.: Norman.
Religious affiliation
G.L.: United Church.
L.C.: Jewish and Buddhist.
Signature song (arguably)
G.L: Canadian Railroad Trilogy.
L.C. Suzanne.
Major themes
G.L.: Trains, boats, go-go girls, pussy willows, cattails and the Canadian Shield.
L.C: Sex, death, depression and the ineffable mysteries of life.
Wives and/or lovers (a selection)
G.L. Brita Olaisson, Cathy Smith, Cathy Coonley, Elizabeth Moon.
L.C.: Suzanne Elrod, Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, Rebecca DeMornay, Anjani Thomas, Sharon Robinson.
Children
G.L.: Six (Fred, 45; Ingrid, 43; Galen, 33; Eric, 26; Miles, 19; Meredith, 14).
L.C.: Two (Adam, 37; Lorca, 35).
Most prestigious cover act, arguably
G.L.: Barbra Streisand (If You Could Read My Mind, 1970).
L.C.: Joe Cocker (Bird on a Wire, 1969).
Vice of choice
G.L.: Alcohol, resulting in drunk driving charges in 1978.
L.C.: Red wine, up to three bottles a day during 1993 tour.
Most recent watershed
G.L.: Surviving six-week coma in 2002, following ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.
L.C.: Retreating to California's Mount Baldy Zen Centre in 1993 to serve as personal assistant to monk Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi.
Awards and honours (a selection)
G.L.: Companion of the Order of Canada, 16 Junos, five Grammys, Canada's Walk of Fame, celebrity captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs (1991).
L.C.: Companion of the Order of Canada, Governor General's Award for Poetry, two Junos, one Grammy, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec.
Appearances at the Winnipeg Folk Festival
G.L.: 0
L.C.: 0
COMMENTS at newspaper site:
2 CommentsPosted by:MYhonestOPINION
April 25, 2009 at 10:48 AM
How can you compare Lightfoot with Cohen? Granted they are both incredibly gifted song-writers, but its like comparing Nickelback with Shania Twain. The only similarity is they are both Canadian.
Report abusive comment Posted by:sam sung
April 25, 2009 at 8:12 AM
I was going to comment about this very subject after your review of the Gordon Lightfoot concert, when you wrote the phrase "It will be interesting to see how his concert compares to the forthcoming gig by that other aging energizer bunny of Canadian folk, Leonard Cohen." It stood out as quite odd.
Your drive to compare the two artists baffles me. This is not American Idol, and the need to stack artists up side-by-side is petty in such a subjective discipline. Both are strong on their own merits, and any attempt to compare would prove futile. Apples are quite different from oranges, but are both delicious fruit. Please leave them that way. Your predilection for Cohen is well known, so I expect a Cohen-leaning gloss. Besides, time has ravaged both voices to the point where both concerts are merely reminiscence, rather than performance.
Battle of The Bards-Winnipeg Free press
