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Published September 25, 2008
Folk icon Gordon Lightfoot still on the 'Carefree Highway' at 69
Mike Hughes | Lansing State Journal
As the folk revival surged, Gordon Lightfoot found himself at its core.
He was a young Canadian, visiting New York City and his new manager. That was Albert Grossman, who also had Bob Dylan, Odetta, Ian and Sylvia, and Peter, Paul and Mary.
"We all got to know each other," Lightfoot, who will be at the Wharton Center on Friday, recalled by phone. "I was way out of my league."
Or not. The folk revival came from New York and San Francisco, but its stars often came from quieter northern lands.
Like Lightfoot, Ian and Sylvia were small-town Canadians. Dylan grew up nearby, in Hibbing, Minn. And before linking with Peter and Mary, Paul Stookey was a Michigan State University student.
All came from places where the mind and the body could wander. "I grew up in a rural area, where there wasn't a lot to do," Lightfoot said.
Succession of songs
He was born in Orilla, now a city of 28,000, a long drive from Toronto and a short one from Lake Simcoe and the Georgian Bay. Those settings seem to ripple through his music.
There are some songs that audiences insist on.
"I try to make sure I do 'If You Could Read My Mind' and 'Sundown' and 'Early Morning Rain,' " Lightfoot said. "And certainly 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.' "
Especially in Michigan, where the song stirs emotions. "The Great Lakes have always fascinated me," Lightfoot said.
On Nov. 10, 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a Lake Superior gale. All 29 men died.
Two months later, Lightfoot was finishing his new album and included "Wreck." It reached No. 2 on the Billboard chart.
Meetings in Michigan
"It's been a learning experience for me," Lightfoot said. "I've met so many wonderful people through the years."
That included:
• His concert at the Great Lakes Maritime Academy, in Traverse City. The audience reaction was so strong that Lightfoot donated his money from the show. He's set up a scholarship fund, returning for frequent fundraising shows.
• Memorial services at Mariners Church in Detroit.
• Another concert, where he met Dennis Hale. Hale was the lone survivor when the Daniel J. Morrell sank in Lake Huron in 1966. "We've become good friends," Lightfoot said.
The song has so dominated Lightfoot's image that people might forget his previous fame. Yes, "Wreck" reached No. 2; two years earlier, however, "Sundown" was No. 1.
"Lightfoot's own style was understated," William Ruhlmann wrote in Allmusic.com, "his tasteful folk arrangements topped by a gentle burr of a voice."
That's what we might expect from a quiet Canadian kid.
Not retired yet
As a boy, Lightfoot worked summers in his dad's laundry, played the piano and sang. "I worked as a wedding singer, as a soprano," he said. "That was around age 11, 12, 13."
He won contests and performed in Toronto's prestigious Massey Hall. Later, he studied music in Hollywood, then retreated to Toronto.
That's where he met Ian and Sylvia, who recorded his songs ("Early Morning Rain," "For Lovin' Me") and introduced him to Grossman. Lightfoot met the other folk stars.
"Dylan was very bright," he said. "We did a show at the Hollywood Bowl, with 15,000 people there."
A long career has followed. On Nov. 17, Lightfoot turns 70.
That may be retirement age in some fields, but not in folk. Dylan is 67, Stookey is 70, Seeger is 89; careers continue.
Besides, Canadians pace themselves. Today, Lightfoot lives in Toronto, near the water, near five of his children and near work-out places.
"I treat the gym as a day job," he said. It keeps him in shape for road trips, offering the sounds of a folk revival.
East Lansing MI. article
