GORDON LIGHTFOOT WAS ‘LIVING LEGEND, LET’S BE HONEST’
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GRAVENHURST — I sat on my front step today listening to Gordon Lightfoot songs and reading about his passing.
And recalling a 1984 visit to my home where Canada’s folk laureate sat on the same stoop for a family photo we’re tracking down today.
He had called my dad, Hugh Clairmont, and said he was dropping by for a visit one August day, recalled my sister, Chris Jones, who was there with her family.
It wasn’t unusual for famous musicians my dad knew or worked with to drop by the Clairmont home — many en route to Dunn’s Pavilion in Bala.
They chatted about their mutual music careers and reminiscing about playing together in Charlie Andrews’s band in Orillia — my dad on trumpet and Lightfoot singing and playing drum licks my dad taught him.
My mother had to race to bake butter tarts she said he loved, which to my sister meant he had been to our home before.
Over the years my dad and he and I occasionally got together like when he played his annual Massey Hall gigs.
I recall after one show us going back to his apartment next to Maple Leaf Gardens for a post party.
Another time I ran into him was again at Massey, thanks to his manager Bernie Fiedler, when Lightfoot told me “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” really put him on the map in the U.S.
In recent years at Mariposa Folk Festivals in Orillia we connected back stage as Lightfoot recalled playing the Barge in Gravenhurst — after first being refused after an audition.
Similar stories are being told today across Canada and in parts of the world after Lightfoot’s passing Monday, May 1, at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto at age 84.
His passing, ironically, came yesterday the same day as the Orillia Kiwanis Music Festival held a Festival Encore presentation of winners at the Orillia Opera House.
For it was the Kiwanis that early on helped set his path to stardom as a young singer in his hometown.
And so this Saturday the Orillia Opera House is certain to be sold out for “Early Morning Rain – Legend of Gordon Lightfoot.”
It’s billed as: “Spend the evening with the incredible music of a Canadian legend, and sing along to Sundown, For Loving Me, Early Morning Rain, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Did She Mention My Name, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Black Day in July, If You Could Read My Mind, Carefree Highway, Rainy Day People, Song For a Winter’s Night, Ribbon of Darkness, Alberta Bound, I’m Not Sayin’, Bitter Green, Cotton Jenny, Pussy Willows Cat-Tails and more!”
One person certain to be there is Lynne Westerby.
The former Bethune House employee, who just retired as manager of the Mariposa Pharmacy in Orillia, is a huge fan of Lightfoot.
“It’s a sad day. It hurts a lot,” she said this afternoon from the pharmacy where she still does deliveries.
She was listening to one of his songs on the radio as she left of her home for her run.
Last summer she met with Lightfoot at Mariposa and sat down for a lovely chat while they listened to Serena Ryder perform and he signed a sketch of himself, which by chance she bought at the souvenir booth.
“Even for the amount of time I got to spend with him he made me feel like an old friend. You know he was very warm and welcoming and kind. You know he took the time to sign a sketch for me. I just still to this day still feel very kind of surprised and honoured I got that opportunity with him. Yeah that was very special.
“I’ve got that wonderful sketch hanging in my home with a rose on it. It’s just beautiful. It’s all framed nicely and hanging in the most prominent space in my combination living room, dining room and kitchen. He’s got the best wall in the house now.”
Westerby is also saddened that Lightfoot won’t make his annual formal or informal appearance at Mariposa this July.
“I was just so hoping upon hope to see him there again. Even if he’s not scheduled, sometimes he just still goes. And I just felt like I was going to see him. You know I just did.
“As soon as I heard all those cancellations (last month), and the way he was talking to me last year about how he was loving it so much. And he’s got 13 people that love it and go everywhere with him, I just knew it was something big for him to cancel like he did.”
Westerby said that “way back months ago, I happened to buy tickets” for this weekend’s tribute performance “because there are performers doing Gordon Lightfoot music there.
“I was already going to that and to lose him in less than away week before that event …. It’s going to be beautiful to sit through that; but it’s going to be somewhat heartbreaking to sit through it as well. Some of both.”
Thelma Marin, of Bracebridge, was another devoted fan who “loved” and “admired him.”
She and husband Jim had seen him perform about a dozen times, including a contest win and when he closed and opened Massey Hall last year after recent renovations with friend and “chauffer” Fred Schulz.
After hearing of his passing on the late news Monday, “I read all the coverage, too.”
“I loved the front page (of the Toronto Star” ‘Sundown.’
“Yeah, you know, I guess the final moment is always the toughest. We should have been prepared, I guess, because they cancelled that tour.”
Lightfoot, she agreed, seemed almost invincible the way he kept bouncing back from illnesses.
“It’s too bad he put on all those hard miles back in the ’70s. That’s what really got him, I think. But you can’t reverse that damage. The damage is done.
“Oh dear, it’s very sad. But yeah, he’s 84. It’s pretty good. We’re only promised three score and 10 according to the Bible.”
“It’s surprising,” said Marin, “we’ve had several emails of condolence from people who know how much we loved him.”
She said in recent years Lightfoot’s “range, his physical range was down and his stamina was down a bit. He said as long as he could stand and sing he would do it.
“One of our daughters said ‘Why do you go and listen to that old man?’
“And I said, listen, as long as he stands up and sings for us, we will go and listen.
“Because I admired him, I really did. He didn’t look good, but he still sounded fine.
“We will miss him. End of an era. He really was a legend. Let’s be honest. No question.”
Here are a few other good MuskokaTODAY.com stories and videos about Lightfoot.
LIGHTFOOT HUMBLED TO RECEIVE BELATED MARIPOSA HALL OF FAME AWARD https://muskokatoday.com/2022/07/lightfoot-humbled-to-receive-belated-mariposa-hall-of-fame-award/
LIGHTFOOT, WHO LOVES ‘THE BARGE,’ PLAYED HERE ONCE — AND IS INVITED BACK BY GOOD BROTHERS FOR THEIR 30TH SHOW https://muskokatoday.com/2022/07/lightfoot-who-loves-the-barge-played-here-once-and-is-invited-back-by-good-brothers-for-their-30th-show/
MARIPOSA WAS ABOUT LEGENDS FROM LIGHTFOOT TO MURRAY TO MAVIS https://muskokatoday.com/2022/07/mariposa-was-about-legends-from-lightfoot-to-murray-to-mavis/
LIGHTFOOT: THE LEGEND LIVES ON IN SONG … WITH LASTING — IF DIMINISHED VOICE https://muskokatoday.com/2022/06/lightfoot-the-legend-lives-on-in-song-with-lasting-if-diminished-voice/
LIGHTFOOT RETURNS TO MASSEY, SCHULZ RETURNS TO OPERA HOUSE https://muskokatoday.com/2021/11/lightfoot-returns-to-massey-schulz-returns-to-opera-house/
Lightfoot honours Dobson with award at Mariposa https://muskokatoday.com/2018/07/lightfoot-honours-dobson-with-award-at-mariposa/
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