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Even on tour, Lightfoot's never far from home

By Tom Weber

Gordon Lightfoot has never left Canada, and his fans will tell you Canada has never left his songs.

Now 68, and apparently completely recovered from an aneurysm that nearly killed him in 2002, Lightfoot lives in Toronto, about (or "abowt" as he says with his gentle Canadian accent) 70 miles from his hometown of Orillia, Ontario. Five of his six children also live in Toronto.

Early on, Lightfoot was unfairly labeled "the Canadian Dylan." There will never be another Dylan, of course, but for 40 years Lightfoot has staked out his own ground as a songwriter, singer and, yes, Canadian.

Tunes like "Song for a Winter's Night,""Alberta Bound,""Early Morning Rain,""The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and, of course, "Canadian Railroad Trilogy," are shaded with references to the landscape of his home country.

In advance of his sold-out concert Friday at Mayo Civic Center, Lightfoot talked by phone from his Toronto home.

You were able to break through in America without moving to L.A. How?

Well, I did in fact rent a house in L.A. In the late '70s, I lived there for a number of months. I went there to write songs. But my relationship with my girlfriend broke up and it upset me so much that I came home.

When my career began, my first opportunity came in New York. I found it was simple for me to hop on a plane and go there. We learned how to get a green card and work permits and it really wasn't necessary for me to make that move. I like Toronto a lot.

How do you prepare a set list of songs for a concert?

We do about 25 or 26 songs. The ones I choose are the ones that work best on stage, that have the best feel, and that I enjoy playing.

Is your audience receptive to new songs?

There are songs I've tried to introduce over a year or two and they don't seem to elicit that same kind of response. The ones we're doing right now sort of won that race.

Your most recent album, "Harmony," came out in 2004. Are you recording anything new?

I like the songs on "Harmony" quite a bit. But I would have to lock myself in a room to do it at this point. And we have the tours. The touring is a passion, really. We do about six a year. We go out for about 12 days and then come home again.

On this tour we're going to be in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and we'll connect with some of the families (of Edmund Fitzgerald victims) again. I established a scholarship at the maritime academy in Traverse City, Mich., in 1976 because I wasn't going to take and not give back.

Do you find that the songs take on different meaning for you over the years?

Well, a lot of them do bring back a lot of memories, that's for sure. When I'm doing the songs, I usually think about where I was when I wrote it. But really, I'm too busy thinking about the playing and the singing, you know?