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What about the Lightfoot style? He

has been called a crooner, and I leave it

to you to judge. What I hear is a superb

baritone voice, only moderately powerful

but always impressive, and sometimes

troubling. When he sings, he seems to

sing for you alone.

The artist honored

Gordon Lightfoot came onto the

record scene well before there were

regulations forcing radio stations to

play Canadian music (see Canadian

Music’s Long Trek above). It took them

years to ﬁnally get around to promoting

Canadian music, including Lightfoot’s. I

think I can venture to say that he helped

them out too.

The smattering of songs I have

quoted in this article give only a hint of

his inexhaustible fountain of inspiration

and his talent for turning inspiration

into song. That talent explains his rise

to the summits of artistic fame.

From 1965 through 1978, Lightfoot

receives 17 Juno Awards: best folk singer,

best singer, best composer, folk record-

ing of the year. He enters the Juno Hall

of Fame in 1986. He is nominated ﬁve

times for Grammy Awards: for Did She

Mention My Name?, If You Could Read

My Mind and The Wreck of the Edmund

Fitzgerald. He is made a member of the

Order of Canada in 1988, and a Com-

panion of the Order of Canada 15 years

later.

On October 2, 1997, at the opera

house in his home town, and before his

reconstituted family and his mother,

the principal auditorium of the opera

house is renamed the Gordon Lightfoot

Auditorium.

Lightfoot loves to tour. In 2001 he

sings at the House of Blues in Las Vegas,

as well as the MGM Grand, the Desert

Inn, and the Orleans.

All seems well when in September

2002, at a concert in Orillia, he is struck

down by an abdominal hemorrhage

and he is rushed to hospital. Follow-

ing surgery he is in a coma that lasts

several weeks. His loved ones, and

indeed all Canadians, follow his medical

bulletins.

Fortunately he survives and recov-

ers, and he spends little time thinking

about this brush with death. As soon as

he leaves hospital in October 2003, he

takes guitar in hand and begins vocal

exercises. With a new album, Harmony,

and an appearance on Canadian Idol, he

goes back on the road.

With his usual wry humor, he titles

it The Better Late Than Never Tour.

An unexpected gift

Before closing this glorious chapter

in Canadian artistic life, let me empha-

size that the Gordon Lightfoot of which

I have spoken is in no way diminished

or weakened by illness. He is a model

for us all. Realizing how lucky he has

been, he trains seriously and regularly.

He is, thus, a mature man, full of

health, perfectly recovered against all

expectations, who has lost none of his

charisma. Indeed — and I’ve saved this

for the last — after a US tour that took

him across the country he will, next Fall,

begin a cross-Canada tour.

He will start in Vancouver in Octo-

ber. From there he will go to Montreal’s

Place des Arts, Toronto’s Massey Hall

(his favorite!), Edmonton, Calgary,

Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Thunder

Bay and Ottawa.

He will, I predict, have a great time,

for he has never concealed the fact he

prefers to share his music in person with

his fans rather than being locked away in

a recording studio. “The pure pleasure

of playing live never wears off, even after

40 years in the business,” he says.

Canadian Music’s

Long Trek

If we sometimes deplore that the Canadian sound is too rarely heard on our own

airwaves, we might console ourselves by recalling that back in the 60’s there was

no real Canadian recording industry at all. English-Canadian songs were virtually

absent from the AM stations that were then dominant, and recording companies

did little to promote them. Artists who had recording ambitions had to go to the

US.

The Toronto Telegram actually ran an article with the title Canada Has a Booming

Record Industry (but only because it’s 95% American). Said the article under the pro-

vocative headline, “We have so many good records available to us from the States

that there’s really not much point in doing a great deal of recording up here.”

The knights of the Canadian labels ﬁnally reacted. Canadian musicians must

have a place on the artistic scene without exiling themselves. Courageous and deter-

mined, laughing off the insults, the hurdles, the disappointments, the setbacks, these

brave pioneers create the Canadian Talent Library. It was a non proﬁt organization,

which would create recordings by Canadian composers and musicians. However

the CTL has no impact on the radio landscape. Station owners and programmers

heap ridicule on the enterprise.

However there is a worrisome rumor on the horizon. A new regulatory body,

the CRTC, might be thinking about imposing a quota of Canadian content on

the reluctant broadcasters. Frightened by this unthinkable possibility, the more

powerful station owners league together to inﬂate “cancon” and head off the menace.

They ﬁll their airtime with Joni Mitchell, Anne Murray, and of course Gordon

Lightfoot.

The new chairman of the CRTC, Pierre Juneau, saw through the scheme. He

told the owners that, since there is so much cancon on the airwaves already, they

can’t possibly object to a quota…of 30%.

Subsequently, many Canadians thought they recalled that Mitchell, Murray and

Lightfoot had become popular because of the regulations. Not so. All three were

famous not only in Canada but in the US and elsewhere before “cancon” rules were

ever dreamed of.

The regulations did have their effect, however, and the choice of recordings

played on Canadian radio stations changed dramatically…and forever.

68 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

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