The Lightfoot Band

In 2023, the world lost a music legend: singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, known as “Canada’s bard.” The 16-time Juno Award-winning and five-time Grammy-nominated troubadour sailed to the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts in the 1970s with hits like “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” continuing to record and tour until the early 2020s.

After taking time to grieve, Lightfoot’s bandmates, most of whom had played and toured with him for decades, decided to continue performing in the hopes of keeping his legacy and beloved songs alive. The group, renamed the Lightfoot Band, will play Grewal Hall Friday evening as part of a week-and-a-half-long Midwest tour.

Following some debate about how to replace Lightfoot, the band found a longtime fan, Andy Mauck, to take over on vocals in 2024.

“We talked about different possibilities, about maybe getting a singer, maybe working with different singers, maybe touring and working with local singers wherever we were. And (bassist) Rick Haynes remembered a great guy from Florida, a fan of Gordon’s for maybe 50 years, named Andy Mauck,” drummer Barry Keane said. “Rick thought we should give Andy a shot because he’s a bar singer, he performs a lot of Gordon songs, and Rick had heard him and said he was pretty good. So, we decided that we were going to go on and had Andy come up to Toronto a couple of times for basically an audition.”

The musicians found that Mauck “checked all the required boxes.”

“He’s a great rhythm guitar player and a great singer,” Keane enthused. “He’s learning how to perform within a band. He had been a solo performer for years, and he knows more Gordon Lightfoot songs than I do, honestly. He was such a fan of Gordon’s, and he does a fabulous job with us.”

At Grewal, the band will perform a selection of hits and deeper cuts, ensuring fans hear all their favorites.

“Some bands will come out and say, ‘We’re not going to play our old stuff right now. We want you to hear a bunch of new stuff.’ I don’t think that’s really fair to audiences,” Haynes said. “We also talk to the audience and tell some stories about life on the road with Gordon over the years. We try not to talk too much, but we’ve found that people who come to the shows really like to hear about the stories of the earlier days with Gordon, and that’s what we’re all about. We played on the records, we toured with him, we went all over the world with him.”

The group also makes a point of venturing into the lobby after shows to meet and share stories with attendees.

“We don’t do any of the VIP guest lists that some people do. We like to go out into the audience after the show and meet anybody who wants to stick around and chat,” Haynes said. “So, in a sense, if you buy a ticket to a Lightfoot Band show, you automatically have a backstage pass.”

Of course, since this year marks the 50^th anniversary of the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald — a freighter that sank in Lake Superior during a bad storm, resulting in the deaths of all 29 crew members — the band will highlight Lightfoot’s eponymous ballad on this tour. The track was recorded in one take, with none of the members, besides Lightfoot, having heard the song in full.

“Very few people get a song on the first take. It usually takes a lot of work and a lot of grinding. It speaks volumes to the talent of all the musicians, and the talent of Gordon himself,” Haynes said.