Gord’s still golden
By Jeanette Stewart,
The StarPhoenix
November 29, 2011
Every now and then Gordon Lightfoot turns on pop radio — airwaves spewing Lady Gaga or Lmfao — as he drives to his Toronto office.
“It’s way beyond me. It’s way, way beyond me now,” said the Canadian songwriting legend, who in 1971 and 1977 was nominated for best pop performance at the Grammy Awards.
And yet, Lightfoot’s own 22-year-old son is a rapper.
“One of my kids likes doing rap music, so what am I going to do? I sit and listen to him do it,” said Lightfoot. “He makes tracks and he does his raps. He sounds just like one of those guys from the States.”
It’s strange to hear an artist so patently Canadian confronted with the music of the modern world, his own son taking a tact much different than his father’s quintessentially Canadian folk. This is a man who at age 73 performed more than 60 shows, Gibson 12-string in hand. This is an artist who achieved success with songs covered by Peter, Paul and Mary, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, but who made an indelible mark in his own country with classics like the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the Canadian Railroad Trilogy, the latter sreleased as an illustrated children’s book this fall.
Like a wise grandfather — “what was that that Neil Young said in his acceptance speech at the Juno Awards?” — he dispenses advice and patiently hands out the details of his life in a kind voice.
“‘Look inside yourself.’ I kind of knew what he meant. Looking for inspiration, you look inside yourself,” said Lightfoot. “I keep talking about the work ethic. The only way to do it is to sit down and do it.”
As legend has it, Lightfoot wasn’t always so forthcoming, but as the years go on he’s mellowed and is polite to the scribes on the telephone. The writers are still calling and the tickets still sell, though Lightfoot hasn’t made a new record since 2004’s Harmony. His major label career ended in 1998 with A Painter Passing Through, his final record for Warner Brothers. At this point he’s content to perform his songs in concert, with hits like If You Could Read My Mind, Early Mornin’ Rain and Sundown featured alongside lesser known numbers.
“I feel it’s a privilege. I feel that I’ve been very, very fortunate, very, very lucky in so many ways to be able to continue this long,” he said. “Believe me, when I was first starting out in the business and being successful at it at age 30, I was wondering ‘what the hell am I going to be doing when I’m 70-years-old,’ but here I am and enjoying it too.”
Fifty years into his career, he’s received almost all the awards Canada has the ability to bestow, including some 17 Junos. Now as a septegenarian spending months on the road and a victim of two major health scares in the past decade, Lightfoot credits his health to regular exercise. He partied “all through the ‘70s” but he gave up alcohol in 1982 and began working out, a strict routine taking the place of alcohol.
“I’m no couch potato,” he said. Already his tour schedule extends through the end of 2012. “It’s pretty good to be optimistic,” he said.
Lightfoot performs tonight at TCU Place. Tickets are $59.50 and $69.50 plus service charges, available at
www.tcutickets.ca or by phone at 975-7770.
jstewart@thestarphoenix.com
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