Lightfoot and Me

Photo by James Dean

I've written lots over the years about the annual Gordon Lightfoot tribute concerts, "The Way We Feel," which I've had the privilege of hosting for 8 years now.

• The Voice of Gord (2009)
• Please Play Again (2006)
• Now What? (2006)
• There is a Gord (2005)
• The Tributaries (2004)

I am still glowing from a weekend in that wonderful zone that is The Way We Feel. I could write the usual paean easily.

But you know what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words. And the one above? It says it all.

The Voice of Gord

For seven winters now, I've had the honour and the privilege of hosting The Way We Feel, a continuing tribute to the life, the work, the art and the voice of Gordon Lightfoot.

I've written about it a number of times in this space, trying to capture what it's meant to join voices with musicians and performers from across the country, in an effort to echo the voice of Gord.

We've never seen ourselves as parrots or puppets, but as practitioners of a living tradition. And in practicing, we've come to hear the voice of Gord more closely, and in different ways. It's not the voice of a radio hit anymore, or the voice that wafts from the familiar grooves of an old vinyl record. It's the voice of a landscape, a geographic and emotional space that only seems to get wider and more mysterious the more we explore it.

We started singing because it was about time. In 2002, when Aengus Finnan and Jory Nash booked the first show, no one had made the effort to do a Lightfoot tribute show yet. I suppose people had thought since the voice of Gord had been there for all our lives, surely he'd be singing forever. But when Mr. Lightfoot got sick and his own voice was literally silenced by an abdominal hemorrhage, the silence would not stand. People began to sing along. By the time he was back out of bed and on tour again where he belongs, many voices had joined his own in a Canadian chorus.

The chorus has been building into a grand crescendo. Last fall, I helped put together a project to celebrate Gordon Lightfoot's 70th birthday online at Canoe.ca/lightfoot. When we gave fans the opportunity to share their wishes, they came in by the hundreds, not just from fans, but from peers as well. Everyone from Anne Murray to Tom Cochrane to Dan Hill to Kris Kristofferson had been touched by hearing the voice of Gord.

Over the years Mr. Lightfoot has quietly, modestly, graciously acknowledged the accolades and the adulation. A few times, he's slipped in the back door of Hugh's Room to listen to The Way We Feel for a bit, to shake hands and thank the many musicians who have clamoured to sing his praises. Once - I think it was year 3 - he even hopped on stage to say a few words, to the delight of all.

But he's never taken the stage to sing before. Until last night, when, amid deafening applause, Gordon Lightfoot hopped up on stage in sneakers and blue jeans, a borrowed guitar in his hands. His face was golden in the light, his skin nearly translucent.

Hugh's Room hushed as he approached the mic. With a CBC Radio truck parked right outside on the street, the whole country was on the line. Everyone was listening, intent, as his fingers graced the strings with a brave and tender version of the aptly-chosen "Song For A Winter's Night.'

From a thin and restless wanderer, unweary from his travels and unbent from his travails came an unmistakable, irreplaceable sound...

It was the voice of Gord!

Now what?

As I write this, I'm just about to leave for Ottawa for the 8th and final show on this year's "The Way We Feel" tour, a tribute to Gordon Ligthfoot now in its fourth season.

And what is the way we feel? I can't speak for anyone else, but for me this tour has been transformative. I guess when you drive all over Central Ontario on a breakneck pace for a couple of weeks, singing the songs of a Canadian hero to really appreciative audiences, it's bound to be some kind of good for you.

For me it's been the tough kind of good. I've certainly enjoyed the shows, and the backstage camaraderie is wonderful. As always, the music is inspiring and it feels righteous to be presenting the show. And as the host and a four-year veteran of this adventure, I've got a role to play and a significant contribution to make.

But now it's nearly done, and as the tour ends, so does another little chunk of my life, another iteration of my self. David Newland, version 36.11. Spring is fully upon us. I've finished up a couple of big projects and another couple are soon to be put to bed. I'll spend the month of May swinging a hammer around my home, getting grounded in the garden and working out the logistics for my summer. Oh, and doing my taxes...

And the days will unfold as they tend to do, opportunities will arise I'm sure, and the forecast is calling for lots of introspection. Perhaps out of all that, some sense of clarity will descend, and I'll have something to answer that nagging and occasionally overwhelming question: now what?

Please play again

For four years now, a bunch of talented Canadian performers have gotten together every winter to tell the world "The Way We Feel" about the songs of Gordon Lightfoot. I've had the great honour of hosting the show, which means getting the best seat in the house to hear a stellar cast do what they do best. Lightfoot's tunes defy genre in their capable hands - blues, country, folk, rock, pop, protest, poetry, even elements of jazz, punk, spoken word, and comedy have all been teased out by a list of artists now too long to name.

As always when we take the Carefree Highway, it's an emotional adventure. The first year, we stood on stage at Hugh's Room with lumps in our throats, knowing Mr. Lightfoot lay in a hospital bed nearby and might never sing again. The second year, we honoured his recovery with overwhelming gratitude. The third year, he hopped up on stage with us and the show became a joyous celebration. This year, with shades of whimsy and wonder, it became a true tradition, and I hope it never stops.

The kind of energy that Lightfoot gathered from far and wide across this land, wrested into works of beauty and depth, and shared with a people desperate to hear their own stories sung, is magnified in the fervent admiration of today's artists, who have the great fortune of having grown up in a Canadian musical tradition. It's tough sometimes to live in the shadows of giants... but boy, is the soil ever fertile in their cool shadows.

That said, as wonderful as it is for me, the amazing high of The Way We Feel is usually followed by a quick dive into depression. Frankly when it's all over and I've come down from wherever it is we go, I usually find myself crying, for reasons I can't even explain fully. I know it has something to do with music's ability to touch people; something to do with nostalgia; something to do with being surrounded by immense talent, and something very much to do with Canada.

Sunday night, after all was said and done, I sat and watched the Olympic closing ceremonies alone, exhausted and exhilirated all at once. Okay, I'm a sap: I started to get choked up watching the whole audience dance to "YMCA," of all things... then (to my embarassment!) watching highlight reel of Frank and Gordon, the animated beavers from the Bell commercials... you can imagine what a mess I was by the time the Native leaders of lower mainland BC had extended their sacred invitation for 2010, and the quadrapalegic mayor of Vancouver had accepted the Olympic flag and done a couple of doughnuts in his wheelchair?

And our Olympians, the ones who'd worked their whole lives for this and weren't going to miss a moment- did you see them dance over there in Torino, cheerfully waving to the world? It's because they've got Lightfeet, I think. Lightfeet and light hearts. Me too.

Monday morning, in the bright late winter sun, I rolled up the rim for the first time this year. It said "Please Play Again." Funny, in Vancouver, they're using the slogan "Come play with us." Coincidence? All I know is The Way We Felt in 2003, when we gathered on stage the first time to sing "Please Play Again, Gord" - and he did.

And we do...

There is a Gord

My... feet... they're so... Light! I'm floating!

Okay, maybe not floating. It feels a bit more like bobbing, soaring, and diving. Blimp-like. Zeppelinesque? Whatever. It's the annual Lightfoot tribute hangover, after two years, I guess I've gotten used to it.

Actually, this time around there's more than just a hollow feeling about returning to work with the rest of the normal people. There's also a sense of satisfaction in a job well done, now that the trilogy has been enacted.

I feel like this year, we wrapped it up somehow, artistically speaking. We took that loving feeling that has been the beauty of the past two versions, and extended it over 9 days and 4 cities. We somehow brought the thing up and out of the realm of how much we missed Gord, through how much we were glad to have him back, to just how great the songs are. How great the land is. How deep the love is, in songs and in words.

What's next, I don't know. But I think that somehow, what began as a tribute to a man and his music has become a celebration of a land and its stories. I hope for next year that we can begin to explore that deeper, vaster space.

May our feet be Light on that trail...