Gordon Lightfoot Forums - The Way I Feel

The Way I Feel.

What a song title, eh?

When those kind of lyrics roll out and their real sentiment begins to penetrate, it brings me to the point where I have to say that right now: "I like the mood I'm in."

In a few hours we're "Orillia Bound" (a song there maybe) for a weekend of Gordon Lightfoot festivities.

More about that later, but for now I would like to write about a truly exceptional experience that happened last Sunday night at The Relish Pub and Grill here in Toronto.

My good friend and finely tuned Red Shea trained lead guitar player, Paul Bartlett called to invite me to join him and his singing partner, Lily Mason to listen to their renditions of a few Gordon Lightfoot songs.

Of course, and as usual when I receive these kind of phone calls, whatever I'm into at the time simply comes to a halt and the mindset quickly follows the the arrow in the Lightfoot direction. I'm so happy I caught this brilliant performance.

The unique interpretation of Lightfoot songs by these two very talented artists was something to behold. You'd really need to be there to fully absorb the sentiment.

The pub has a huge mirror on one of the walls in the cornered stage area and from the vantage point where I was seated the view was spectacular.

When I heard Lily's voice take on a theatric role to sound out the familiar keyboard notes Mike Heffernan uses in "Shadows," inner strength was required to hold back tears.
With that spectacular silhouette type mirror image combined with those powerful "shadowy" lyrics I could not possible risk letting any blur interfere. It truly was yet another most memorable and joyful experience that seems to arrive unexpectedly with the package of being hooked on the music of Gordon Lightfoot.

Their version of "The Way I Feel" was a tasteful combination of sounds. With his Red Shea training combined with the Bruce Langhorne, David Rea style, Paul wove his own magic into a complete lead guitar package that fully complimented Lily's golden, vocal sort of Bonnie Dobson style version of this masterpiece of writing. Bonnie Dobson, a huge Lightfoot fan was a popular artist in Toronto during the sixties.

So, tonight and tomorrow night in Orillia Town we'll be hearing those wonderful sounds again from this gifted duo and I'm going to tag along with them. Hard to pin down the words to describe the true feeling right now other than to say it's "The Way I Feel."