Visalia, CA article
 

http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/art...ENT04/11050319

Lightfoot returns to Fox older, but full of energy

Staff and wire reports • November 5, 2010

Contrary to a Twitter rumor earlier this year, award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot is not dead. Imagine his surprise when a radio station broadcast that rumor as fact.
"I was driving from my dentist to my office and I was about halfway there," recalled Lightfoot, 71, in a phone interview from Toronto. "I heard my own obituary being read on the radio ... the first thing I did was get on the phone to the radio station, and the next thing I did was call my kids."

Not only is Lightfoot very much alive, but he's on the tail end of an 81-show tour that will bring him Wednesday to the Visalia Fox Theatre, where the Canadian singer last performed in 2000.



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"Man, has the world changed in the last decade," Lightfoot said. "It's been a wild ride."

In 2002, he underwent emergency surgery for an acute abdominal aneurysm and slipped into a coma for six weeks. In 2006, more health problems arose. Lightfoot suffered a minor stroke and had trouble using his right hand.
"I remember I was getting better and recovering from the first episode in 2002. When I was coming back from that I was doing a lot of practicing. When I had that stroke, I did a lot more practicing. As a result I think my playing has improved," Lightfoot said.

Audiences can expect to hear many of his classics, Lightfoot said, who has released more than 20 albums and written and recorded such songs as "Sundown," "Early Morning Rain," "If You Could Read My Mind" and "Carefree Highway."

"We're a serious band. We know what people come out to hear and we like to please the people," Lightfoot said.

That means, of course, audiences will get a chance to hear Lightfoot's signature song "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," his epic six-minute song about the 1975 maritime accident that killed 29 men on Lake Superior.

The singer is still fascinated by the wreck, he said.

"If I see a program about the Edmund on TV, I have to stop and watch at least part of it," he said. "I did an incredible amount of research when I wrote that song. I wanted to get every detail right."

Lightfoot started singing at weddings and in the church choir when he was 10 years old. When he was 20, he worked for the Royal Band of Canada and got a chance to sing in a choral group on a country music television show. In the 1960s, he started performing songs at coffee houses and drinking establishments.

When the folk revival hit in the late 1960s, he found himself at the Newport Folk Festival performing with Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Peter, Paul and Mary, Donovan, Pete Seeger and Joan Baez.

Lightfoot has five Grammy nominations and 17 Juno Awards in his native Canada. In 1997, he was presented the Governor General's Award for his international efforts in spreading Canadian culture. He also was inducted into The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.

So does the singer have any plans to hang up his guitar anytime soon? Nope, he said.

"The reason why I do this is because I love the work," Lightfoot said. "I'll continue doing it as long as people want to come out and hear me perform."




Originally published November 5, 2010