I just happen to live in Gordon's home town. Orillia, Ontario. It's a little frustrating though when he plays here once a year and I still have to go to Toronto to see him. He pops in once in a while at the Mariposa Folk Fest.


   


Sat, November 18, 2006

Gordon lights up the nightTreats fans to all his classics including Rainy Day People and Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
By JANE STEVENSON

   


Gord mined some serious gold on Thursday night at Massey Hall.

That would be legendary Canadian folk singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. He kicked off the first of four nights at the treasured venue (a tradition of his since 1967) with a sold-out show that he packed with hits and crowd favourites.

It was astonishing, really, to hear them all in one sitting: Rainy Day People, Beautiful, Carefree Highway, Sundown, The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald, If You Could Read My Mind, Early Morning Rain, along with Cotten Jenny, Alberta Bound, In My Fashion, Baby Step Back, and Canadian Railroad Trilogy.

And even if Lightfoot's voice and body weren't what they once were -- he turned 68 yesterday and got a night-before birthday serenade from the crowd -- the spirit was definitely still there.

Thin and frail-looking with a clipped, nasal, vocal delivery, Lightfoot has an easy smile. He had more than a few good stories to tell -- the one about Elvis Presley changing a word in his cover of Lightfoot's Early Morning Rain was repeated Thursday night -- and often delivered an infectious thumbs-up after a s