https://rockandrollglobe.com/remembrance/gordon-lightfoot-rode-it-through/
Gordon Lightfoot Rode It Through
Remembering the Canadian folk icon who had more than one brush with death
It was November of 2016 and I was on the phone with Gordon Lightfoot. The first thing I asked was this: "How are you?"
It wasn't meant as the common, tossed-off salutation we all use, and Lightfoot didn't take it as such.
"I think I'm OK," he said. "Thank you for asking. The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
Sadly, not anymore. News came last night May 1 that the Canadian-born singer-songwriter-guitarist died at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto from, as they say, "natural causes." Less than a month ago, Lightfoot had announced the cancellation of his North American tour for 2023.
There had been more than a few close calls over the years, such as a mini-stroke in 2009. "It really messed up my playing for six months," the folk-rocker told me. "I just wasn't able to play. I had a band that was very capable of handling all the background. I played the chord changes but I couldn't use the right hand for about six months to any advantage at all."
The following year, Lightfoot was victim of a Twitter-fed death hoax. (His comment about reports of his death being greatly exaggerated – employing the old Mark Twain quip – wasn't just a line.)
But it was what happened in 2002 that really did nearly kill him.
"Far worse," he said. "I had an aortic aneurysm that only five percent of the people survive." Lightfoot was in a coma for six weeks.
"The whole thing took about two and-a-half years to transpire," he said, of the aneurysm and the recovery. "I had, all through that time, numerous operations. Repeated healing and then having to go back in for more operations. It was far worse than the arm. For the first six months of that time it was not a case of would I say 'Oh the hell with it, I'm not going to do this anymore.' I wondered if I would ever be able to do it again. Will I ever be able to perform again? Will I ever be able to sing again?"
Concerning his voice, Lightfoot admitted, he'd lost a bit. "Some of the [songs] with the higher notes, I have to stay away from them. But I have a volume of material where the mid-range is quite good and there's a lot of variety."
Lightfoot, who released 18 major label albums on United Artists and Warner/Reprise, said he'd written 220 songs that have been recorded, adding, "It's really not that impressive. I know people who've written hundreds of songs. [But] I've got a lot of good solid ballads."
Lightfoot was a storyteller and his best-known story-song was the classic shipping disaster ballad, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012. Some of the people who covered Lightfoot's tunes: Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Barbra Streisand, Jane's Addiction and Toby Keith.
Lightfoot was meticulous about how he meted out these songs in concert. When he toured, he had three shows that he rotated. He had certain core songs, another 20+ numbers that would vary and he re-jiggered song orders.
"It's all about the organization of every show," Lightfoot said. "I spend time doing this. That way we don't get bored. I do have a really strong backup unit, four guys, and it's a whole show."
What were the songs that Lightfoot can't leave the room without playing? That is, what was that core?
"I call those 'the standards,' a dozen that have to be in every show," he said, ticking them off: "'The Watch Was Gone,' 'Beautiful,' 'Carefree Highway,' 'Did She Mention My Name,' 'Ribbon of Darkness,' 'Sundown,' 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,' 'If You Could Read My Mind,' 'Minstrel of the Dawn,' 'Shadows,' 'Rainy Day People,' 'Baby Step Back' and 'Early Morning Rain.' They have to be in every show, but some of them we can lop a verse out. There's several of them, you can actually lose verses and not lose the effect of the song.
And, he added, "We do Bob Dylan's 'Ring Them Bells' better than anybody. We love doing that."
There was a mutual admiration society between the two. Here was Dylan, writing in the liner notes of his 1985 anthology Biograph: "Every time I hear of song of [Lightfoot's], it's like I wish it would last forever."
Lightfoot was unequivocal when asked what he considered his best albums: 1983's Salute and 1986's East of Midnight. His last studio album as of this interview was 2004's indie effort, Harmony. Lightfoot had recorded 15 demo versions of those songs, which he was about to bring to his band, when the aneurysm struck. Ten of them made it onto the disc.
"I knew that I had some rehearsal tapes I'd made a year before [the aneurysm] for the guys to practice with and for us to learn by and I said 'Look we're gonna go in there and see if there's anything that's usable.' I'd written all the charts – I wrote all my own charts throughout my career. They got the parts and the tape and there were enough completed tunes that didn't need any correction. No mistakes on my part. I knew all the lyrics. The guitar parts and vocals were good. We overdubbed some parts and it came out pretty damn good."
Lightfoot, a big Toronto Maple Leafs fan, was selected to be the celebrity captain of the team during the NHL's 75th anniversary season, 1991-1992. He applies a hockey term when discussing songwriting: "The hat trick is the song, the arrangement and the vocal – three things. the three musts."
AUDIO: Gordon Lightfoot "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"
When we talked, he was still writing.
"Sort of," he proclaimed. "I'm always working on something that sort of got left unsung. You're always thinking maybe I should try to write eight or nine more and make another album or should I put it out on the Internet on iTunes as a single.
"Then I started thinking about all the family obligations that I've accumulated through all these years – and family eats up a lot of my time. I've got six children and six grandchildren and four of those families live here in Toronto near me and we hang out together."
Songwriting was Lightfoot's bread-and-butter, but he said, "It's such an isolating thing too. You've got to shut yourself off. There are songs I've written in, like, two hours and some songs I've worked on for months to finally get to the point where I felt I got them right."
But even if the songwriting was in a nebulous zone, Lightfoot still wanted to be playing concerts. "Absolutely," he said. "Of course." He had a band and crew of 14 "and everybody's making a living."
"Since that time [the aneurysm], I've never said anything negative about continuing," he added. "No matter what, even a health issue like a mini-stroke, I was like 'Well, we're just gonna ride it through.'"
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