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Auburn Annie · 11-07-2006, 08:18 AM

Q&A with Gordon Lightfoot

Montreal Gazette

Published: Monday, November 06, 2006

Canada’s legendary singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, who performs Thursday night at 8 at Salle Wilfrid Pelletier of Place des Arts, recently spoke by telephone with Gazette Entertainment writer Bernard Perusse about his career and his health. Here is an unedited transcript of the interview.

Gazette: A lot of people are going to want to know, right off the bat: how’s your health these days?

Lightfoot: It’s good. It’s good (whispers) Yeah. Yeah.

Gazette: How did that health crisis impact on the way you approach life and work?

Lightfoot: Well ... (long pause) ... I was out for 28 months. That just says it all: I was out for 28 months altogether, from the time that I had to stop to the time I was ready to pick up again. During that time, we managed to produce one more album, but those were tracks that I’d already completed guitar and vocal parts before the illness set in. So what we did is, we used those practice tapes as the basic tracks for an album, and it gave me a very nice preoccupation there, for about 14 months. Getting that all done sort of took my mind off the condition, and I felt very fortunate that way.

Gazette: Did it change the way you look at life, though, in any bigger sense?

Lightfoot: Not really. I was just more interested in getting back to work.

Gazette: The album you’re talking about, Harmony, was wonderful. A lot of people were probably relieved, not only because they had been waiting a long time for new material, but because you were sounding so good. Do you have another one in the works?

Lughtfoot: Not really, no. I’ve been away, quite busy. We’re doing a lot of shows and I do spend a lot of time with my family responsibilities here.

I finished my contract with Warner Brothers `round about 1998. I made 14 albums for them – 14 albums. All the albums that were required under the contract, and I just decided to take it easy at that time. And the Harmony album was just sort of an extra little thing that I wanted to do. There were some songs around, there were some people here in Toronto that wanted to get an album out on me and they were enthusiastic and they were young, and I said `OK, let’s do it.’

Just as we were getting ready to do it, it was the onset of the illness, so we had to put the whole thing back on the shelf and cancel all our shows and leave everything there for months. And finally, when things started coming around again after a few months, a few operations later, I started digging into some of the material that I had on hand to work with and I decided to do one more album.

But basically, my contract with Warner Brothers was finished in ‘98 and I really wasn’t thinking of getting into a heavy recording schedule. So what we’re doing now is, we’re doing a lot of shows and we love doing shows, and I’ve always - I’ve always – enjoyed performing. Right back to the very beginning of my career. And so right now, I’m right in my element. We’re playing about 50 shows a year. We have wonderful crowds. We’re playing all over North America. And all the members of the orchestra, we’re all together, my staff, we’re all together. We’re just heading out to do 12 shows out west right now (SEPT. 29). We’re leaving on Saturday.

Gazette: What’s the make-up of your touring group?

Lightfoot: It’s a four-piece backup. We have keyboards, bass, drums, lead guitar, and I play guitar as well. I’m the front man. I do the vocals.

Gazette: Are you playing strictly acoustic, or some electric?

Lightfoot: I have three acoustic instruments that I use throughout the show. We do basically a lot of the things that they will want to hear, expect to hear in Montreal. And I’ll try to fit in some of the newer things, you know.

Gazette: So many of your songs come with so much weight and so many expectations – If You Could Read My Mind and Edmund Fitzgerald, for example. To what extent is it a challenge to keep the same level of commitment every time you play them?

Lightfoot: Well, there’s practice involved and taking things seriously and always being prepared and ready to go out there. And knowing that the interest of my fellow musicians is high – they’re very enthusiastic and we work hard on the arrangements. We keep things up. We keep things in a state of up. Upness. Because I must do an excellent show. I demand that of myself and I always try to do that.

Gazette: It’s been said that you first connected with folk music by listening to Bob Gibson and the Weavers ...

Lightfoot: (softly) Oh, yeah ...

Gazette: What was the element that touched you in that music and how did it resonate in your own work later on?

Lightfoot: I was still working at a day job then. I was about 20 years old at that time, and I was getting records, and I had a partner. We were getting interested in the Weavers and Bob Gibson, the two people that you mentioned, and some other people, too, who were just coming into the scene, like Woody Guthrie and people like that.

When Bob Dylan came on the scene `round about 1962, ‘64, the folk thing was already past because the Beatles had come along and the folk revival was gone. For all intents and purposes, it only lasted for about three years.

But a lot of us continued on with that approach to the music and I’d written a number of songs, such as the Canadian Railroad Trilogy and songs like that and I just sort of carried on along that tangent throughout the rest of my career, adding a lot of material and getting more into the up side of the material, you know? The more positive aspect to it. Getting into family life, having children coming along and working at the music. There was never, actually, any deviation from that particular objective.

I was very, very happy. I began singing at weddings when I was 10 years old – and it just went on from there.

Gazette: You were one of the first Canadian artists to have great success internationally. To what extent were you able to able to appreciate that? Were you in the middle of the hurricane or could you take a step back and figure out what was happening to you?

Lightfoot: I was lucky to get a song recorded, which went up high into the charts down in the States – and it got me an American representative. It was For Lovin’ Me by Peter, Paul and Mary. I had another one, too, right at the same time – Ribbon of Darkness, which went up to Number 1 on the country charts.

Gazette: Marty Robbins ...

Lightfoot: Because of that, I obtained a manager in New York City, who was very high up in the pecking order. He managed Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary and Ian and Sylvia, and later on the Band and Janis Joplin.

Gazette: Albert Grossman ...

Lightfoot: Albert Grossman. A wonderful person. Great manager, and I was very, very fortunate to be invited to come and join that little enclave. So I was very fortunate there, too. It was all by way of my songs getting recorded by other artists at the beginning that caused these things to happen.

Gazette: You became a high-profile artist, moving – in terms of the public consciousness – from songwriter to central performer during a period that’s remembered as a little crazy. You were right in the middle of it. Were you able to step back and enjoy it?

Lightfoot: All through the 70s. That was a pretty frantic time. I would try and shy away from being on television. I really did not feel comfortable playing on TV for some obtuse reason. I don’t know why. But really, my managers, too, tried to keep me away from TV, going by the maxim that TV would overexpose the concert artist. So he kept Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary and Ian and Sylvia and all those people away from TV, but I did it anyway – always in a reluctant kind of way, because it really wasn’t a good medium for me.

Gazette: Are there any of your songs that you have a bit more difficulty relating to now? And I ask this because, for example, Black Day in July was left off the Rhino four-disc box set.

Lightfoot: I really don’t think about that too much. That particular song was a song I wrote for an album, and it was there, and it looked like the record company wanted to release it as a single. And it was released as a single. I really didn’t have anything to do with that. There were also two or three other really good songs that were written right at that time, too, about the Detroit riot in 1967, and a couple of those made it up high in the charts. They did. They were good rock tunes, and they were very well handled. Mine was a little bit too direct. I was really happy that it got banned. I was very, very happy that it got banned.

Gazette: Really!?

Lightfoot: Yes, I was. I didn’t want it to be on the radio anyway. It was like an album song. Strange as it may seem ... (chuckles) ... I like some of the fine recordings we’ve had. I loved the recording that I got from Elvis Presley on Early Morning Rain and things like that.

Gazette: Did it come down to you thinking there were worthier songs or songs you connected with better when it came time to select the material that would go on a comprehensive retrospective like that?

Lightfoot: You’re talking about the anthology that we did?

Gazette: Yeah, the four-disc Rhino set.

Lightfoot: That was a working of the mind between myself and Thane Tierney, the man who sort of runs that company. I participated in that quite closely and we were able also to find 18 unpublished songs, which came out very well.

Gazette: It’s funny. I was interviewing Ramblin’ Jack Elliott yesterday ...

Lightfoot: Oh, my goodness!

Gazette: ... and we got to talking about the folk tradition. His take was that the current singer-songwriters who – for want of a better word – get labelled folk are not part of the folk tradition. What’s your take on that?

Lightfoot: Ahhh, boy ... (long pause) ... We’ve got a lot of people who work in the folk idiom. It really can go nowhere else but back to the folk revival. I hear a lot of the kids who play out at the Hughes Room here (Toronto) where they feature a lot of different people. They’re drawing from the same basis, you know, they play capo’ed music, they write songs. They’ve lost some of the old tunes, though, that used to be around. A guy like Ramblin’ Jack would still have a lot of those tunes in his repertoire. But these kids are writing their own stuff - but they’re still playing capo’ed music and playing acoustic guitars.

Gazette: Several of them got together to do that tribute album Beautiful. Are there any singer-songwriters in particular that make you confident that the genre is in good hands?

Lightfoot: I could say many. I gave the Beautiful album 10 stars. There were 15 songs on that album and I was to listen to it and decide what, really, I found outstanding. And I listened to it with a little bit of trepidation at the start, but I gave it 10 stars. It had 10 wonderful performances on it and five that were very close. You’d give them about an A-minus. I was really honoured and they did a wonderful job.

Gazette: Do you see people like Ron Sexsmith as keepers of the flame?

Lightfoot: Well, Ron’s a good guy. I went down and saw his show. I enjoyed it very much. Three or four months ago, they did a night at Massey and I went down. I don’t know him all that well, but I’ve met him several times and I know that he has handled my material very well.

Gazette: This has been great. We talked a lot longer than I expected you’d have time for.

Lightfoot: I know! I have to go to the rally. The troop support rally. They’re having one down at Dundas Square here, starting at noon, and I have to go down.

Gazette: You will be here Nov. 9, the night after Bob Dylan appears here .

Lightfoot: We’ll be going to see him, too, when he’s here (Toronto) on Nov. 7.

Gazette: It’s going to be quite a week for a lot of Montreal music lovers.

Lightfoot: Well, that’s good. We’ll get some in, you know. I’m looking forward to getting back to Place des Arts.

Gazette: Mr. Lightfoot, thanks a lot for taking the time to talk to us.

Lightfoot: It’s Bernie, right?

Gazette: Yep.

Lightfoot: OK. Well, thanks very much.

11-07-2006, 08:18 AM	#1
Auburn Annie Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Upstate New York Posts: 3,101	Q&A with Gordon Lightfoot Montreal Gazette Published: Monday, November 06, 2006 Canada’s legendary singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, who performs Thursday night at 8 at Salle Wilfrid Pelletier of Place des Arts, recently spoke by telephone with Gazette Entertainment writer Bernard Perusse about his career and his health. Here is an unedited transcript of the interview. Gazette: A lot of people are going to want to know, right off the bat: how’s your health these days? Lightfoot: It’s good. It’s good (whispers) Yeah. Yeah. Gazette: How did that health crisis impact on the way you approach life and work? Lightfoot: Well ... (long pause) ... I was out for 28 months. That just says it all: I was out for 28 months altogether, from the time that I had to stop to the time I was ready to pick up again. During that time, we managed to produce one more album, but those were tracks that I’d already completed guitar and vocal parts before the illness set in. So what we did is, we used those practice tapes as the basic tracks for an album, and it gave me a very nice preoccupation there, for about 14 months. Getting that all done sort of took my mind off the condition, and I felt very fortunate that way. Gazette: Did it change the way you look at life, though, in any bigger sense? Lightfoot: Not really. I was just more interested in getting back to work. Gazette: The album you’re talking about, Harmony, was wonderful. A lot of people were probably relieved, not only because they had been waiting a long time for new material, but because you were sounding so good. Do you have another one in the works? Lughtfoot: Not really, no. I’ve been away, quite busy. We’re doing a lot of shows and I do spend a lot of time with my family responsibilities here. I finished my contract with Warner Brothers `round about 1998. I made 14 albums for them – 14 albums. All the albums that were required under the contract, and I just decided to take it easy at that time. And the Harmony album was just sort of an extra little thing that I wanted to do. There were some songs around, there were some people here in Toronto that wanted to get an album out on me and they were enthusiastic and they were young, and I said `OK, let’s do it.’ Just as we were getting ready to do it, it was the onset of the illness, so we had to put the whole thing back on the shelf and cancel all our shows and leave everything there for months. And finally, when things started coming around again after a few months, a few operations later, I started digging into some of the material that I had on hand to work with and I decided to do one more album. But basically, my contract with Warner Brothers was finished in ‘98 and I really wasn’t thinking of getting into a heavy recording schedule. So what we’re doing now is, we’re doing a lot of shows and we love doing shows, and I’ve always - I’ve always – enjoyed performing. Right back to the very beginning of my career. And so right now, I’m right in my element. We’re playing about 50 shows a year. We have wonderful crowds. We’re playing all over North America. And all the members of the orchestra, we’re all together, my staff, we’re all together. We’re just heading out to do 12 shows out west right now (SEPT. 29). We’re leaving on Saturday. Gazette: What’s the make-up of your touring group? Lightfoot: It’s a four-piece backup. We have keyboards, bass, drums, lead guitar, and I play guitar as well. I’m the front man. I do the vocals. Gazette: Are you playing strictly acoustic, or some electric? Lightfoot: I have three acoustic instruments that I use throughout the show. We do basically a lot of the things that they will want to hear, expect to hear in Montreal. And I’ll try to fit in some of the newer things, you know. Gazette: So many of your songs come with so much weight and so many expectations – If You Could Read My Mind and Edmund Fitzgerald, for example. To what extent is it a challenge to keep the same level of commitment every time you play them? Lightfoot: Well, there’s practice involved and taking things seriously and always being prepared and ready to go out there. And knowing that the interest of my fellow musicians is high – they’re very enthusiastic and we work hard on the arrangements. We keep things up. We keep things in a state of up. Upness. Because I must do an excellent show. I demand that of myself and I always try to do that. Gazette: It’s been said that you first connected with folk music by listening to Bob Gibson and the Weavers ... Lightfoot: (softly) Oh, yeah ... Gazette: What was the element that touched you in that music and how did it resonate in your own work later on? Lightfoot: I was still working at a day job then. I was about 20 years old at that time, and I was getting records, and I had a partner. We were getting interested in the Weavers and Bob Gibson, the two people that you mentioned, and some other people, too, who were just coming into the scene, like Woody Guthrie and people like that. When Bob Dylan came on the scene `round about 1962, ‘64, the folk thing was already past because the Beatles had come along and the folk revival was gone. For all intents and purposes, it only lasted for about three years. But a lot of us continued on with that approach to the music and I’d written a number of songs, such as the Canadian Railroad Trilogy and songs like that and I just sort of carried on along that tangent throughout the rest of my career, adding a lot of material and getting more into the up side of the material, you know? The more positive aspect to it. Getting into family life, having children coming along and working at the music. There was never, actually, any deviation from that particular objective. I was very, very happy. I began singing at weddings when I was 10 years old – and it just went on from there. Gazette: You were one of the first Canadian artists to have great success internationally. To what extent were you able to able to appreciate that? Were you in the middle of the hurricane or could you take a step back and figure out what was happening to you? Lightfoot: I was lucky to get a song recorded, which went up high into the charts down in the States – and it got me an American representative. It was For Lovin’ Me by Peter, Paul and Mary. I had another one, too, right at the same time – Ribbon of Darkness, which went up to Number 1 on the country charts. Gazette: Marty Robbins ... Lightfoot: Because of that, I obtained a manager in New York City, who was very high up in the pecking order. He managed Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary and Ian and Sylvia, and later on the Band and Janis Joplin. Gazette: Albert Grossman ... Lightfoot: Albert Grossman. A wonderful person. Great manager, and I was very, very fortunate to be invited to come and join that little enclave. So I was very fortunate there, too. It was all by way of my songs getting recorded by other artists at the beginning that caused these things to happen. Gazette: You became a high-profile artist, moving – in terms of the public consciousness – from songwriter to central performer during a period that’s remembered as a little crazy. You were right in the middle of it. Were you able to step back and enjoy it? Lightfoot: All through the 70s. That was a pretty frantic time. I would try and shy away from being on television. I really did not feel comfortable playing on TV for some obtuse reason. I don’t know why. But really, my managers, too, tried to keep me away from TV, going by the maxim that TV would overexpose the concert artist. So he kept Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary and Ian and Sylvia and all those people away from TV, but I did it anyway – always in a reluctant kind of way, because it really wasn’t a good medium for me. Gazette: Are there any of your songs that you have a bit more difficulty relating to now? And I ask this because, for example, Black Day in July was left off the Rhino four-disc box set. Lightfoot: I really don’t think about that too much. That particular song was a song I wrote for an album, and it was there, and it looked like the record company wanted to release it as a single. And it was released as a single. I really didn’t have anything to do with that. There were also two or three other really good songs that were written right at that time, too, about the Detroit riot in 1967, and a couple of those made it up high in the charts. They did. They were good rock tunes, and they were very well handled. Mine was a little bit too direct. I was really happy that it got banned. I was very, very happy that it got banned. Gazette: Really!? Lightfoot: Yes, I was. I didn’t want it to be on the radio anyway. It was like an album song. Strange as it may seem ... (chuckles) ... I like some of the fine recordings we’ve had. I loved the recording that I got from Elvis Presley on Early Morning Rain and things like that. Gazette: Did it come down to you thinking there were worthier songs or songs you connected with better when it came time to select the material that would go on a comprehensive retrospective like that? Lightfoot: You’re talking about the anthology that we did? Gazette: Yeah, the four-disc Rhino set. Lightfoot: That was a working of the mind between myself and Thane Tierney, the man who sort of runs that company. I participated in that quite closely and we were able also to find 18 unpublished songs, which came out very well. Gazette: It’s funny. I was interviewing Ramblin’ Jack Elliott yesterday ... Lightfoot: Oh, my goodness! Gazette: ... and we got to talking about the folk tradition. His take was that the current singer-songwriters who – for want of a better word – get labelled folk are not part of the folk tradition. What’s your take on that? Lightfoot: Ahhh, boy ... (long pause) ... We’ve got a lot of people who work in the folk idiom. It really can go nowhere else but back to the folk revival. I hear a lot of the kids who play out at the Hughes Room here (Toronto) where they feature a lot of different people. They’re drawing from the same basis, you know, they play capo’ed music, they write songs. They’ve lost some of the old tunes, though, that used to be around. A guy like Ramblin’ Jack would still have a lot of those tunes in his repertoire. But these kids are writing their own stuff - but they’re still playing capo’ed music and playing acoustic guitars. Gazette: Several of them got together to do that tribute album Beautiful. Are there any singer-songwriters in particular that make you confident that the genre is in good hands? Lightfoot: I could say many. I gave the Beautiful album 10 stars. There were 15 songs on that album and I was to listen to it and decide what, really, I found outstanding. And I listened to it with a little bit of trepidation at the start, but I gave it 10 stars. It had 10 wonderful performances on it and five that were very close. You’d give them about an A-minus. I was really honoured and they did a wonderful job. Gazette: Do you see people like Ron Sexsmith as keepers of the flame? Lightfoot: Well, Ron’s a good guy. I went down and saw his show. I enjoyed it very much. Three or four months ago, they did a night at Massey and I went down. I don’t know him all that well, but I’ve met him several times and I know that he has handled my material very well. Gazette: This has been great. We talked a lot longer than I expected you’d have time for. Lightfoot: I know! I have to go to the rally. The troop support rally. They’re having one down at Dundas Square here, starting at noon, and I have to go down. Gazette: You will be here Nov. 9, the night after Bob Dylan appears here . Lightfoot: We’ll be going to see him, too, when he’s here (Toronto) on Nov. 7. Gazette: It’s going to be quite a week for a lot of Montreal music lovers. Lightfoot: Well, that’s good. We’ll get some in, you know. I’m looking forward to getting back to Place des Arts. Gazette: Mr. Lightfoot, thanks a lot for taking the time to talk to us. Lightfoot: It’s Bernie, right? Gazette: Yep. Lightfoot: OK. Well, thanks very much.