picture at link
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial...02/1030944.asp
Impeccable Gordon
Lightfoot sings with heartbreaking care
By JEFF MIERS
News Pop Music Critic
3/2/2007
Bill Wippert/Buffalo News
Gordon Lightfoot performs one of his classic gems Thursday evening. Another photo on Picture Page, C8.
REVIEW
WHO:
Gordon Lightfoot
WHEN:
Thursday night. Additional performances at 9 p.m. today and Saturday
WHERE:
Avalon Ballroom, Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort
We're used to relating to popular music in a visual sense these days. Close your eyes at a concert and, likely as not, you'll create your own little music video for the music coming off the stage. Blame it on MTV if you need something to blame, or just admit that we live in an extremely visual-centric culture.
Some music seems to pre-date the visual relation, however.
On Thursday, as Gordon Lightfoot kicked off a three-night stand in the Avalon Ballroom, the music coming off the stage did affect the senses. But closing your eyes, you felt and smelled the music, more than seeing it. Lightfoot's songs, and the stilted croon of his vocal cadences, come at you like a salty breeze blowing across choppy green water. There's something ancient, exotic and beautiful about the man's music, and always something that seems to relate to the briny sea or the vast fresh-water lakes of his native Canada.
Taking the stage in front of his seasoned band - bassist Rick Haynes, drummer Barry Keane, keyboardist Michael Hefferman and guitarist Terry Clements - Lightfoot grabbed a beautiful vintage acoustic 12-string and dug into "Triangle," as the full house welcomed him warmly.
It was obvious immediately that the formidable baritone that so warmly intoned classics like "Sundown" and "Carefree Highway" had grown thinner with age and bouts with ill health. Lightfoot is nearing his 70th year, and the formerly thick, rich voice has grown a touch nasal and occasionally frail. Remarkably, this seemed to suit the songs just fine, as Lightfoot remains in command of his impeccable sense of dramatic phrasing, and his band's arrangements accommodate the less powerful singing.
Lightfoot wasted no time plowing through a songbook that would make a budding songwriter weep with envy. "Cotton Jenny," "14 Karat Gold," "A Painter Passing Through," "Rainy Day People" - these are gems, one and all, and deceptive in their ability to make a melding of Celtic and Canadian folk with country and pop seem a simple process.
Few do heartbreak as well as Lightfoot does and, not surprisingly, the saddest songs were the strongest on Thursday. Lightfoot's narrative voice presents itself as vulnerable, yet stoic, open and romantic, yet world-weary.
When he wraps himself around a tune like "Never Too Close" or "In My Fashion," the sense of real loss is palpable, precisely because Lightfoot never overstates his case. His subtlety, and his ability to ring emotive cadences from his finger-picked acoustic, combine to provide the songs with their power. Time has treated Lightfoot's music well.
Lightfoot returns to the Avalon Ballroom at 9 p.m. tonight and Saturday.
e-mail:
jmiers@buffnews.com