Evansville article
There's a blip, a line or something missing partway through, but that's the way it was online. Could be "It's easy for..."
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Lightfoot to perform at Victory
By JULIE ROSENBAUM-ENGELHARDT
Courier & Press correspondent
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Folk singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot bursts with pride at the realization that he is one of just four Canadian entertainers whose face adorns a postage stamp, along with Anne Murray, Paul Anka and Joni Mitchell.
"I love it. I can sit right here at home and still be all over the world," said Lightfoot, who will perform Tuesday at The Victory.
Lightfoot, a native of Orillia, Ontario, wrote his first song, the "Hula Hoop Song," at the age of 17. He had been inspired by a Life magazine cover that showed dozens of people hula hooping at a park in New York.
"I wrote it about a dad who couldn't do the hula hoop, as hard as he tried," Lightfoot said with a laugh.
The "Hula Hoop Song" was a far cry from his later classics such as "If You Could Read My Mind," "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," "Sundown," "Rainy Day People," "Early Morning Rain" and "Canadian Railroad Trilogy."
Lightfoot had a natural gift for songwriting and playing acoustic guitar.
"The words just come," he said.
me to write music."
"If You Could Read My Mind" was his breakthrough hit in the United States in 1970.
Lightfoot's current life is running smoothly. He said he might have to get old from his neck up, but five days a week he is working out and keeping his body as young and strong as possible.
"I no longer take my health for granted," he said.
In 2002 he suffered a ruptured aortic aneurysm and was in a coma for six weeks. He later had four surgeries and underwent two years of rehabilitation.
"It took two years and a few surgeries, and it was really scary when the doctor told me it could have killed me, but I'm perfectly fine now," said Lightfoot, who will celebrate his 70th birthday on Nov. 17. "I guess there was more music left to write."
Lightfoot is working on a "live" CD based on recent concerts in Toronto.
He was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003.
"This is one of the best honors that you could have bestowed upon you," he said.
Lightfoot described an encounter with New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner before he was to sing the American national anthem at a spring training game between the Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays in Florida. Lightfoot declined Steinbrenner's invitation to wear a Yankees jacket while he sang.
Laughing, he told Steinbrenner: "Hey, I have to live in Toronto."
Many people wanted to know if the character of Ann in "Carefree Highway" ("Her name was Ann and I'll be damned if I recall her face, she left me not knowin' what to do") was a real person. The answer is yes. Lightfoot met the young woman in a curling class in Canada.
Almost all the songs Lightfoot performs in concert are originals, but his rendition of Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee" is regarded as one of the best ever. He considers "Sit Down Young Stranger" a favorite among his own songs, but finds it difficult to pick just one.
Lightfoot labels Bob Dylan his favorite artist, and Dylan was just as magnanimous. In an oft-quoted tribute to his fellow songwriter, Dylan, who covered "Early Morning Rain," once observed that when he heard a Gordon Lightfoot song, he wished "it would last forever."
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