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P.E.I. Catherine MacLellan sings Lightfoot song for music legend

SALLY COLE
The Guardian

Catherine MacLellan meets Canadian folk music legend Gordon Lightfoot, left, and Tragically Hip front man Gord Downie at Canada’s Music Hall of Fame in Toronto. She performed two songs of her own as well as I’ll Be Alright, a Lightfoot composition for Lightfoot at the event, which was called If You Could Read My Mind. Submitted photo

If you could read Catherine MacLellan’s mind, what a tale her thoughts could tell.
That’s because she’s thinking about her performance in Toronto this past Thursday with folk music icon Gordon Lightfoot.
“It was incredible. We hit it off immediately and had fun time chatting back stage,” says the award-winning P.E.I. singer-songwriter and daughter of the late songwriter Gene MacLellan (Snowbird), during a telephone interview from Ottawa where she was en route to Wakefield, Quebec, for a performance Friday night.
Although MacLellan had grown up listening to Lightfoot’s music on CDs, she had never seen him play before and only dreamed of playing for him.
“So to be able to perform for someone who is so legendary as he is in Canadian music was truly amazing. I did two of my songs — Water In The Ground and Sparrows — and then I lunged into one of his, I’ll Be Alright, which they asked me to do.”
While it was easy to play her own compositions, it was daunting to play his.
“It was so scary. The song they gave me was one that ... I had heard before. So there I was in front of him — Gordon Lightfoot himself — playing a song I hardly knew and one that I didn’t want to mess up.
“In order to do it I had to pretend he wasn’t there,” says MacLellan with a laugh.
Then, when it was finally over, he gave a positive response.
“He was really sweet about it, gave me a big hug and told me that he enjoyed the rendition. Gordon Lightfoot is a sweet man,” says MacLellan, who also met Tragically Hip front man Gord Downie, who also performed during the concert.
MacLellan had been invited by Lightfoot to appear with him on stage during If You Could Read My Mind, which took place at Canada’s Music Hall of Fame in Toronto.
In his lifetime, Lightfoot has achieved international success in folk, country and popular music. As a singer-songwriter, he came to prominence in the 1960s, and entered the international music charts in the 1970s with songs such as If You Could Read My Mind (1970), Sundown (1974), Carefree Highway (1974), Rainy Day People (1975), and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (1976).
It’s the latest accomplishment for MacLellan, who is nominated for three 2010 East Coast Music Awards in Cape Breton, just won the Canadian Folk Music Award for solo performer of the year and released her new CD Water in The Ground.
And that pleases the executive director of Music P.E.I.
“It is wonderful to see Catherine receiving this type of recognition from one of Canada’s musical legends,” says Rob Oakie. “Through her commitment, dedication to her craft and hard work she is destined to become one of our country’s great singer-songwriters.”
If You Could Read My Mind, the concert series, is organized by the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.

With file from The Canadian Press