http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/7169666.html
The life and deaths of Gordon Lightfoot
By ANDREW DANSBY Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle
Aug. 24, 2010, 4:53PM
GORDON LIGHTFOOT
• When: 8 tonight
• Where: Verizon Wireless Theater, 520 Texas
• Tickets: $35-$45; 713-230-1600 or
www.livenation.com.
Eight years ago Gordon Lightfoot suffered a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, which as ailments go is as undesirable as it sounds. It nearly killed the legendary songwriter, who was comatose for several days. He gradually made a slow but successful recovery. Fast forward to 2010 when Lightfoot was unaware of a second brush with death. He was at the dentist's office when a local radio station broadcast an obit for him, talking about his storied career with his regret-filled hit If You Could Read My Mind playing in the background.
"It gave me a bit of a shock," he says. "I had to make some quick telephone calls."
Lightfoot is still ticking and still touring, and he'll play the Verizon Wireless Theater tonight. He remains in strong voice, due in part, he says, to stepping away from being a recording artist and instead putting his energy into his concerts, which are filled with perfectly crafted songs that somehow thrived in an era between ' 60s psychedelic rock and ' 70s arena rock. A time when a dude with sandals and a 12-string guitar didn't need to make a racket to get noticed.
Q: Was it a surreal experience being at a dentist's office, of all places, when you find out that you're dead?
A: (Laughs.) It was certainly strange, just some kind of hoax I guess. The funniest part was hearing If You Could Read My Mind in the background. (Laughs.) It didn't do any harm. I just sort of went back to the Mark Twain statement about my death being greatly exaggerated. Apparently he said that in 1897. But it was nice that people were interested in me again. I almost died in 2002, so you know …
Q: You got pretty close. Any visions or anything from the other side?
A: No, not really. I had a few hallucinations during the last few days while I was waking up. I woke up around Halloween. I thought I was hallucinating, because I saw witches going by. They were real, as it turns out. Nurses dressed in witch costumes.
Q: Every time I've driven north out of Phoenix I pass a sign for Carefree Highway. Did that Carefree Highway inspire the song?
A: Yes, it's between Flagstaff and Phoenix.
I saw that road sign one night while driving down to check into a hotel. I had to leave the next morning, but I made a point to write it down. I thought it would make a great song title.
A couple of weeks later I was on a bit of a roll working on songs and that came out of it.
Q: So it required time to gestate? It wasn't just a gift from the sign?
A: Well, I stuck it in the glove compartment and forgot about it. But I found it at the right time.
Q: I thought it worth informing you that Seven Island Suite and The Watchman's Gone from Sundown were my very first exposure to profanity. Did you get any guff from the label about using those words?
A: (Laughs.) Really? Well, I got away with two or three of those, but I never tried to get away with too much in terms of profanity.
Today they do it all the time, especially in the hip-hop music.
Q: You had success as a writer in the mid-' 60s, but your breakthrough as a singer came after a big rock era. Were you ever tempted to get loud?
A: No, I was always satisfied with what I had in my repertoire. I was part of the folk genre, and I was a survivor. There are quite a few of us, Paul Simon, Dylan, there are a few more. Leonard Cohen, Jerry Jeff Walker. We've mostly stuck around by being true to our own styles. So 1970 or so I started to have some success, and then, of course, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1976, that was a big one for me.
Q: Was that really written off of a Newsweek story?
A: Yes, it was. I had a melody that had been kicking around in the back of my mind. Some chord changes. Something was brewing. I'd heard about it on the news, but then not another word until the Newsweek article came out about 10 days later. I had to get some old newspapers and get the chronology correct. That song has stuck around. They used it for this Dive Detectives show.
Q: Any chance there'll be new songs and a new album?
A: It's not likely. I suppose I could, but I've got a lot of kids and grandchildren coming along. I've got a great show, and now I'm just working on it and getting prepared for it. To ask my family and my band for the isolation to write another album, my God, it could take another three or four years. … You have to shut yourself off from family members to do that. So I don't take it very seriously, the idea of making another one.
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