http://blog.timesunion.com/localarts...e-51912/23262/
Gordon Lightfoot at the Palace Theatre, 5/19/12
May 20, 2012 at 12:39 am by Greg Haymes
By GREG HAYMES
ALBANY – Standing in the spotlight at the Palace Theatre on Saturday night, Canadian troubadour Gordon Lightfoot spun his magnificent musical tales of shipwrecks and trains and love won and lost. But his most poignant performance of the evening came midway through the first of his two 50-minute sets when he sang “A Painter Passing Through,” a heartwrenching, nostalgic tale of fame that is all in the past.
“Once upon a time, once a upon a day,” he sang. “When I was in my prime, once along the way. If you want to know an answer, I can’t turn your life around, for I am just a painter passing through the underground.”
It was a moment of wonderfully wistful reflection of past and rapidly fading glories.
Even Lightfoot’s most devoted fans – and it certainly seemed as though quite a number of them were in attendance on Saturday – have to admit that his voice is the proverbial shadow of its former self. It has been for quite a while now, but the fans still keep coming out. And Lightfoot graciously obliges them, doing the best that he can. He booming baritone has been reduced to little more than a hoarse whisper. At the Palace, he strained to hit the high notes. Sometimes – most notably on “Shadows” and “Cotton Jenny” – he didn’t quite make it. But more often than not, he somehow managed to weave his magic.
The jazzy blues of “Make Way for the Lady” sounded more than a bit out of place amid Lightfoot’s vintage folk faves. And new guitarist Carter Lancaster - replacing Terry Clements, who died last year after four decades as Lightfoot’s six-string right-hand man – faithfully recreated the recorded guitar leads, but only rarely seemed to step out and make them his own.
The truth of the matter is that it isn’t the guitar solos or even Lightfoot’s voice that carried the show. Rather it was Lightfoot’s simply magnificent songwriting. It’s easy to forget just how many fabulous songs he’s written over the course of his long career. Opening with the one-two punch of “Did She Mention My Name” and “Carefree Highway,” Lightfoot and his unobtrusive four-piece backing band worked their way through the first set, and although there
were a few rough patches vocally, Lightfoot nailed nuggets like “Let It Ride,” the lush “Beautiful,” the snaking blues-tinged sing-along “Sundown” and the epic set-closer ”Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
And Lightfoot came back for the second set with a renewed strength, and he took command of such gems as “Early Morning Rain,” “The Minstrel of the Dawn,” ”If You Could Read My Mind” and the show-closing classic “Canadian Railroad Trilogy.”
Next month, Gordon Lightfoot will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and after listening to him at the Palace, you can only wonder why it took so long.
Gordon Lightfoot
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: The Palace Theatre, 19 Clinton Ave., Albany
Musical highlights: “A Painter Passing Through,” “Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” “Restless”
Length: Two 50 minute sets; no opening act
Albany NY review
cheers, Jenney
