‘It’s a spiritual thing:’ Long history between Gordon Lightfoot and Massey Hall

TORONTO – It was a relationship that lasted a lifetime: Gordon Lightfoot got his start at Massey Hall as a teenager, and never stopped returning to the Toronto venue, no matter how successful he became.

Hundreds of famous musicians have played the stage in its long history, but none so often as Lightfoot. The folk legend and the concert hall fed off each other’s fame, sharing a sort of symbiosis that spanned more than half a century.

“It’s a spiritual thing,” Lightfoot told The Canadian Press in 2018. “I have an affinity for Massey Hall that’s very strong.”

When the concert hall closed down for major renovations that same year, his was the last performance. And when it reopened three years later, he was the one to usher in its new era with three consecutive shows.

They would be his last at the venue before his death on Monday at age 84.

The first of Lightfoot’s 170-odd performances on the Massey stage happened when he was just 13 years old, after he won a Kiwanis competition, he told The Canadian Press.

“It was a beautiful thing to stand there unamplified, accompanied by a piano. I remember the thrill of being in front of the crowd. We had a lot of people in there. And it was a stepping stone for me. I was getting somewhere,” he said.

At 17, he’d be back to perform as part of a barbershop quartet.

But it wasn’t until Lightfoot was almost out of his 20s that Massey became “his venue,” he said.

He began playing at Massey Hall on at least an annual basis in 1967, right when his star started to rise, said Robin Elliott, director of the Institute for Canadian Music at the University of Toronto.

“Gord and Massey Hall became so bound together that some people called it Gord’s Hall,” Elliott said.

That sort of persistent relationship with a venue is somewhat unique, he said.

“When a musician gets to the level of Gordon Lightfoot, they’re touring all the time,” Elliott said. “Bob Dylan, for instance, has toured non-stop for decades in every possible venue around the world. So to keep coming back and making a conscious effort to appear regularly in one venue like this, I don’t think it’s very common at all.

“I think it’s one of the special things about Gordon Lightfoot and his relationship to Toronto, as well as Massey Hall.”

The venue was renowned long before Lightfoot was born, having opened in 1894. A 10-year-old Ernest MacMillan, who went on to become a renowned conductor, would take the stage at Massey Hall to play the organ in 1904, and the opera singer Enrico Caruso sang there in 1908 and again a year before his death in 1920.

“Massey Hall had its own life aside from Gordon Lightfoot,” Elliott said. “But at the same time, there were so many people that looked forward to those returning appearances of Gordon Lightfoot.”

Among them were singer-songwriters Ron Sexsmith and Andy Kim, who made a tradition out of going together.

“My favourite thing to do every year was to go see him at Massey Hall, and I never missed a single year,” Sexsmith said.

The performances were low-key but impactful, Sexsmith said.

“Sometimes I would go with friends who would be so bored, they would leave at intermission, and I would have to be there by myself…but I finally found a date in Andy Kim, who came with me every year for the last 10 years.”

Kim said he met Sexsmith through Lightfoot, and the two bonded over their love for the elder statesman. Despite their own musical successes, they were always star-struck by him.

And Kim said there was something special about seeing Lightfoot at Massey Hall.

For some artists, he said, there are places that add something extra to the music. Some musicians are loyal to particular recording studios, for instance.

“My take on it is that Massey Hall is really the perfect pitch for Gordon Lightfoot,” Kim said.

“The guy who takes the time to write the perfect song all the time found this place magical because it had captured — not so much by design, but I think by some magic — a perfect sound.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 3, 2023.

—with files from David Friend.

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