STEVENSON: Lightfoot a humble music star often seen in and around Toronto

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You could take the man out of Orillia, but you couldn’t take Orillia out of the man.

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And in the case of Canadian singing-songwriting legend Gordon Lightfoot — who passed away at the age of 84 on Monday at Sunnybrook Hospital of natural causes — that was a very good thing, indeed.

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One of my most frequent interview subjects over the last 27 years at The Toronto Sun, Lightfoot, an Orillia-born son of a dry cleaner owner-turned-Bridle Path mansion dweller, was about as humble and accessible as they come.

When I wasn’t traipsing up to interview him at his abode — I’ll never forget the first time I saw him having a smoke in one of those nylon-backed camping chairs he’d bought from Canadian tire on his otherwise grand front entrance way — I also spotted him in my hood where his Early Mornin’ Productions offices were located about a block away.

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Often, I’d see a man carrying a guitar case from behind and realize, ‘Hey, it’s Gordon!”

Then there was the time he was driving down my street and I did a double take because of who was behind the wheel. I think Lightfoot thought the more you saw him, the less in awe you’d be.

Maybe he did live across from Drake in the Bridle Path, but there were no airs about him — not one.

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“It’ll be very casual,” he said to me in 2016 of having Drizzy as a neighbour.

“It’s a neighbourly thing to do. We’ll introduce our dogs. And that’s a very polite thing to do, and whatever will be. I’m sure he’ll like the neighbourhood.”

The only inkling you’d get of Lightfoot’s famous status — beside the enormous house you were in — was the wall of Edmund Fitzgerald paintings in his living room dedicated to his most famous song.

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Oh, yes, and then there was his practice room near the front of the house, where I heard him playing his guitar once after I arrived for a chat.

It was the most informal place I had heard Lightfoot play, having been an avid reviewer of his Massey Hall residencies every November.

“I knew back in 1967 that it was going to be my home, the first time I did it,” Lightfoot, who actually sang at Massey Hall as a 12-year-old choir boy, told me.

There was also that one time Lightfoot and his lovely wife Kim showed up at the 2018 Christmas party of my pal Victoria Lord (also his tour publicist) and when her daughter asked if he played keyboards, he opted for guitar, instead, and we all sang Jingle Bells in the living room.

There was wide-eyed expressions all around but Lightfoot just played and sang like it was no big deal.

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Earlier, I had taken my first-year University of British Columbia friend, now Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen, to Massey Hall in 2016 and he got to see Lightfoot and hear The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald live for the very first time.

Mike was so tickled, it made me realize that I should never take the experience for granted, no matter how many times I’d gone.

Despite some serious health scares in 2002 (stomach aneurysm) and 2006 (a minor stroke), he never did stop smoking and when I asked him why, he countered with: “Did anyone? For heaven’s sake, I started very, very young. I was 15.”

If nothing else, that meant good use of that camping chair.

“Sure – of course,” said Lightfoot to me. “Why not?”