Lightfoot charms fans in low-keyed performance
by Jim Kunstler, The Knickerbocker News, June 26, 1974
It’s really amazing how different the audiences are. Gordon Lightfoot’s was a clean, hygienic audience, drawn from that mid-American wad of the upwardly mobile, where steady jobs buy hygienic all-electric kitchens and supplies of deodorant soap. Yes, well scrubbed. No glitter bunnies here. None of your creature types.
Lightfoot, a Canadian, remains a folksinger. The species does still exist, and Lightfoot is proof. He and his back-up hands, Terry Clements on guitar and Richard Haynes on bass, have been together now eight years, and judging by their performance last night, they have the routine down pat.
A monsoon rain blew out of the west at showtime sharp, and a horde of groundlings scowled under the SPAC pavilion’s long arcing ramps. With all this scurrying around, there was a sense of Lightfoot & Co. entering almost unnoticed, and with no ado whatsoever, the popular minstrel commenced his first set. It’s amazing how many AM radio hits he has had, and yet the song titles do not spring to mind. His first song had a title which sounded either like “Attorney Man,” “Italian Man,” or “A Burning Man.” They are, all three, probably incorrect. Fill in the blank and win 64 lucky bucks.
“I’ve got a little friend up here,” Lightfoot announced somewhat cryptically. “He’s right here on the mike. He’s spinning a web. He’s a spider. I’m gonna leave him be. I just hope he doesn’t get sucked in.”
Dressed in carefully patched Levi’s and a plain buttoned shirt, Lightfoot ran through the string of Top-40 numbers and album zingers which have garnered him his perch on the pop heap. They were, I believe, “Sundown,” “The Christian Island?,” “Susan’s Floor?,” “Alberta Bound?,” and “If You Could Read My Mind.” Again, forgive the title confusion—and the lucky bucks offer still stands.
He is an amiable performer, Mr. Lightfoot is. He is generous and engaging, and shows a certain sense of responsibility for his fans’ well-being —”I wish you’d all come in here from oot (Canadian for out) of the downpour….”
He is an amiable chap all right. And he has his troops of loyal, hard-core fans. But he is a little bit too amiable to qualify as a pop hero on this side of the border — the apocalyptic side; the side where things are hitting the fan; where we like to hear our heroes’ clocks tick out in public. He lacked the sense of surge, of drama, the sense of walking ragged edges.
This perhaps explains why he is an AM radio star. His melodies all share a kind of uniformity which exceeds mere personal style. The best of them — i.e., “If You Could Read My Mind” — are capable of creating some psychical stir. But the others tend to melt together into a sort of harmonic margarine. They slide easily from the throat into the ear, but without much flavor.
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