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Gordon Lightfoot and his songs stand the test of timeIntelligencer Journal
Lancaster New Era
Updated Mar 24, 2011 15:02
Hershey
By JON FERGUSON, Staff Writer
Media Center
Gordon Lightfoot

Gordon Lightfoot practices his music every Friday afternoon.

He's usually joined by at least one or two of the players in his four-piece band.

"We practice intonation and all that stuff," Lightfoot says during an interview from his Toronto-area home. "Not so much the vocal; the vocal looks after itself. We spend most of our time practicing technique."

The 72-year-old Lightfoot isn't rehearsing new songs; he says his recording career ended with the release of the album "Harmony" in 2004. Lightfoot spends his Friday afternoons playing songs that have been in his repertoire for decades.

"You have to keep your head into it," Lightfoot says, "and I never get bored with playing the songs. We play the very best songs we have in the repertoire. They're all good songs and they've all stood the test of time."

No doubt. Lightfoot, who will perform Friday at Hershey Theatre, can call upon songs like "Early Morning Rain," "If You Could Read My Mind," "Sundown," "Carefree Highway," "Rainy Day People" and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" to trigger an audience's memories and emotions.

During the course of a career that spans six decades, Lightfoot has written enough quality songs to stock his own albums with hits and establish a pipeline of tunes to other artists.

Lightfoot says he remembers the first time he put down his guitar after writing a song and walking away convinced it was worthy.

"I felt like 'Early Morning Rain' was a real good one," he says. "I knew in my heart it was a good song. It's probably the first time I wrote what was an outstanding song, I suppose."

No less a songwriter than Bob Dylan agreed. Dylan, who has covered few songs written by his contemporaries, included a version of "Early Morning Rain" on his 1970 album "Self Portrait."

Lightfoot said he didn't know Dylan had recorded the song until the day "Self Portrait" was released.

"I was very, very thrilled," Lightfoot says. "I was deeply honored and all that sort of thing. I loved his treatment of it and everything. He sang it onstage one night when I was at one of his shows."

Lightfoot says one of his most productive periods as a songwriter happened in an unlikely place.

"I was working in an empty house," Lightfoot says. "There was a table and a chair in an empty house. I was sitting in there writing songs. So inspired, I wrote 12 to 15 songs during the time I worked in that empty house, and one of them was 'If You Could Read My Mind.' "

Though Lightfoot often plumbed his own life for inspiration, he also looked outward when looking for potential material, which was the case with "Edmund Fitzgerald."

"The night the ship sank I heard about it on the news and it fit in with a particular melody and chord progression I was working with and I said, 'Hey, this might be my third or fourth shipwreck song, and this time I'm going to get it right.' "

The last songs Lightfoot wrote, at least those that the public has heard, can be found on "Harmony."

He was recording the album in 2002 when he was felled by an aneurysm in his abdomen, which forced him into a coma for six weeks.

Recovery was slow and the songs he had been working on were completed using recordings that Lightfoot considers unfinished.

"I like it," he says of the album. "I would have loved to have another shot at it. I would have sped a couple of the songs up and done some other things."

Lightfoot suffered a stroke onstage in 2006 that left him without use of the fingers on his right hand. He recovered use of the hand the following year and has been performing regularly ever since.

"I'm doing fine," he says. "So far, I've overcome everything that came my way. Knock on wood."

Gordon Lightfoot

Fri. at 8 p.m. $29-$59

Hershey Theatre

15 E. Caracas Ave., Hershey

534-3405. www.hersheytheatre.com


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