LIGHTFOOT RETURNS TO MASSEY, SCHULZ RETURNS TO OPERA HOUSE
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GRAVENHURST — One’s a man of steel — the other’s a super man.
Gordon Lightfoot and Fred Schulz share many things in common.
Both are guitar players with deep roots in Orillia and neighbouring Kilworthy.
And both were at Massey Hall last Thursday for the reopening of the legendary Toronto music hall where the same could be said of Lightfoot and Schulz.
Both are living legends on the local music scenes in their hometowns.
And while the long-haired Canadian folk legend singer/songwriter was back on stage last week joking about steel in his right hand, follicly-challenged Schulz is back again on new boards at the Gravenhurst Opera House.
“I think it’s the fourth or fifth time I’ve been back,” joked south Muskoka’s musical iron man the other day. “I’ll have to check and see.”
The genial host of Music on the Barge for more than four decades, Schulz says he’s back “part-time” three days a week and will be “helping” Kelly Hammond book some shows when the Opera House reopens in March.
Krista Storey, the former manager, moved on during the pandemic.
Schulz was the last manager to have much real financial success running the greatest little theatre in Muskoka and north of Toronto.
He’s been busy since returning to the Op recently trying to help bring the grand old lady of local music back to life, after the town gave her a new internal facelift with renovations and upgrades during the pandemic. They include plush new back and seat cushioning, floor and stage resurfacing and lighting in the second floor auditorium. And including a safer circular ladder up to the tech deck, back right facing the stage, at a cost of just a few seats.
And new doors to the Trillium Court — along with badly-needed washroom makeovers downstairs.
Because of COVID the popular Barge series of concerts Schulz presents each summer have had to be cancelled since 2019.
“We’ve just lost two years,” he laments.
So he’s just “happy to be back” to help stage new and exciting shows with Hammond and front of house supervisor and box office manager Norbert Kondracki.
Schulz, 67, shares another musical legend in common with Lightfoot, who turned 83 Nov. 17.
Agent Bernie Fiedler, a former Gravenhurst island cottager who has managed Lightfoot’s show career since before the Edmund Fitzgerald went down and who brought him fame at the legendary Riverboat coffee house in Yorkville.
Fiedler is the famed impresario to Toronto that Schulz is to Gravenhurst.
Fast friends, Fiedler called Schulz back in July with his usual offer of three tickets when the Massey Hall resurrection was announced after two years dark featuring — of course — Lightfoot as the natural opening act.
Schulz never misses his old neighbour’s annual concert stay each season.
With the added allure of a Massey reno reopening, Schulz called up his designated city chauffer, Thelma Marrin, of Bracebridge.
They were at Lightfoot’s last concert there in 2019 and many more before.
Thelma and her husband Jim — huge fans of Lightfoot who he’s called his “biggest fans” in many backstage meetings as they tower over his diminutive folk frame — have been ushering Schulz to these Toronto pilgrimages for coming up 25 years.
The Marrins first saw “Gordie” St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1996, recalls Jim with his uncanny total recall of dates.
That’s when they won tickets in a contest put on by MuskokaTODAY with Fielder’s help.
Since then Thelma has been behind the wheel steering her husband and Schulz — both city-averse drivers — to the concerts.
To say they’ve been driven to see Lightfoot is an understatement.
Because it wasn’t easy getting in with the “damndemic” protocols, joked Thelma.
The massive Massey line-up for the 8 p.m. show took them almost an hour as it wrapped around the hall down Victoria to Queen, over to Yonge and back to the Shuter Street entrance under its iconic Neon sign. That delayed the show in order to squeeze the sold-out crowd of 2,716 into the concert hall’s new red seats.
Not that Thelma said anyone wanted to missing opening act Tom Rush.
Though they were awed by the new digs and particularly the uncovered stained glass windows at back of the second-floor balcony.
The three amigos were in the fourth row Nov. 25 — centred behind the three front rows reserved for the family — when Lightfoot received the “key to the city” from Toronto Mayor John Tory.
“It was amazing,” said Thelma, “thanks to Fred” and tickets Fielder arranged for their appreciative purchase.
Fiedler, who they met briefly before the show, said it was the 171st time Lightfoot had played Massey.
“You have to admire how (Lightfoot) stands up there. He’s so skinny and he looks so frail. It’s almost scary. Fred’s pictures do him justice.
“You just hope he doesn’t stand in the wind — he’d blow over, he’s so thin.
“But he has so much stamina” and dry humour, said Thelma.
“He doesn’t say a lot, but he did joke about having steel in his hand” after a fall this summer that threatened his return before months of physio in order to play select songs including one of his signature hits Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
“I’m here, but I got metal,” Lightfoot joked while holding up his right strumming hand.
But Thelma wondered how much he was actually playing of the 15 songs he and his band performed. She said she couldn’t hear a lot from him. Luckily he had a “well oiled” backup band, she said, and his new lead guitar player was “really great.”
Schulz agreed, saying he played “pretty well” considering his age and injury
“And he said ‘As long as I’ve got hair I’ll keep singing,’” said Thelma, adding Lightfoot’s long locks, she believes, are now as much part of his image as his playing and singing.
Jim Marrin agreed it was another “wonderful” show, even if he was “down to nothing.”
The Marrins already have tickets for Lightfoot’s return to Casino Rama Jan. 16.
Jim just “hopes he keeps going.”
Meanwhile, Schulz says he’ll be sure to be there.
And maybe see, with Fiedler’s help, if they can book their old friend for a concert or two up in Gravenhurst some day sooner, hopefully, than later.
Maybe a big ticketed fundraiser for the opening of the Opera House this spring. Or possibly a return to Muskoka where Lightfoot cut his musical teeth in summers as a teen for his larger fan base outdoors on the Barge.
If not you can be sure to catch Lightfoot in his hometown when the Mariposa folk festival returns again maybe this summer to his — and their old roots — at Orillia’s Tudhope Park.
Schulz for sure will plan to be at that one, too.
Two musical legends who live on from the Chippewas of Rama on down ….
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November 30, 2021 @ 9:02 pm
lovely story
great to hear fred is back at goh
and thelma and jim are integral
lolove to all and mark obviously and Lois
November 30, 2021 @ 10:53 pm
It is nice to read the tribute to Fred Schulz who is so accomplished in many ways and has been unselfish in sharing his talents with the town. Bravo Fred.