POP MUSIC REVIEW : Lightfoot, but No Spark : The 54-Year-Old Balladeer Can Still Craft a Moving Song, but His Voice Hasn’t Weathered the Storm

If you wanted to write a song about the folk concert Thursday night at the Celebrity Theatre, you might call it “The Wreck of the Gordon M. Lightfoot.”

Perhaps that’s overstating things a bit. This venerable Canadian vessel didn’t sink. But he looked badly weathered, sounded markedly diminished, and gave a too-sedate performance that left his music becalmed.

If Lightfoot were one of the ships he sometimes sings about, his hull, after 54 years of voyaging, would be gaunt, his prow ornament a face that’s craggy, drawn, and deeply furrowed. He has done some of his seafaring in the heavy weather of hard living, and it shows in his looks and can be heard in his voice.

That voice was firm and resonant when Lightfoot sailed to prominence in the folk-era ‘60s and the soft-rock ‘70s. It now is a wan echo.

His delivery was wizened and nasal, his diction no longer precise and, while he performed purposefully, he often sang as if he couldn’t get enough wind in his bellows to power a song along. He sometimes resorted to clipped, quick cadences that called to mind the phrasing of Phil Ochs, but without the zestful bite.

Even thus diminished, Lightfoot had enough left to carry his graceful melodies for a warmly receptive audience of about 1,500 fans. The nearly two-hour show, divided by an intermission, spanned 28 songs including most of his appealing new album, “Waiting for You.” Whatever erosion his voice has suffered, the album proves that Lightfoot hasn’t lost his ability to write attractive, evocative and thoughtful songs.

Virtually every song stood as an example of his fine craftsmanship over the years. “Early Morning Rain,” “If You Could Read My Mind,” “For Lovin’ Me,” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “Sundown” are his best-known (and all were accounted for) but there were plenty of cheers for less famous catalogue items and for good new songs such as the lustrous “Every Love Would Know.”

But Lightfoot didn’t establish that he has much spark left as a performer. Much of the time he sounded as if he were singing to himself in a small apartment, taking pains not to disturb the neighbors. “We’re gonna take it real easy,” he sang in the tag line to “If It Should Please You,” a self-referential song about the minstrel’s life that he used as an introductory piece early in the show. He didn’t have to take it so literally: Next to Lightfoot, James Taylor at his most mellow would seem like a spitfire.

It’s not that the material didn’t present Lightfoot with opportunities for thrusting and surging. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” his true account of a shipping disaster on Lake Superior in 1975; “Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” a suite of grand historic sweep; and his cover of Bob Dylan’s apocalyptic “Ring Them Bells” could have supported playing and singing commensurate with the energy and urgency of the subject matter. But Lightfoot didn’t have it in his voice to reach their bardic potential, and he kept his expert band of four veteran players reined in to the point of neutralization.

Even as his band played more softly than any band I’ve ever heard, Lightfoot sometimes had trouble making his voice rise clearly above it (at the show’s first pause, some in the audience cried “Louder!” for obvious reasons. “We’ll try,” Lightfoot replied, but the proceedings grew more lulling as the show went on).

“Sundown” gave lead guitarist Terry Clements (a Lightfoot accompanist since 1970) a chance to show some good, swampy licks, but much of his playing faded into the background where it was barely audible. Clements appeared so bored at one point that his eyes wandered to the rafters. Mike Heffernan, on digital keyboards, provided a downy bed of organ-like textures. In a telling moment, Lightfoot called out “Let it rip!” as he kicked off one of his new songs, “I’ll Prove My Love.” What followed was the dulcet tinkling of a piano.

Rick Haynes, the big, snowy-haired bassist who joined Lightfoot’s band 25 years ago, looked stone-faced to the point of detachment but played inventively with a firm, supple tone that provided what instrumental energy there was.

Lightfoot didn’t enliven things with his presence. He was pleasant but laconic, not one for entertaining between-songs repartee or storytelling. It didn’t help a bit that he had been booked into the wrong venue. With its rotating stage, the Celebrity Theatre is fine for exuberant, mobile stars who relish the opportunity to roam and work a crowd. Singer-songwriters need to establish an uninterrupted current between themselves and each listener, and it’s vital to have face-to-face contact to forge that bond and draw the audience in. At the Celebrity, where you’re looking at the singer’s back at least half the time, there isn’t even a hope.

It once more pointed up Orange County’s need for a 2,000-seat pop venue with a traditional, proscenium stage (also on the wish list is a nightclub with a capacity of 800 to 1,000--the sort of place that could engage performers on Lightfoot’s level for two nights or two shows in one night).

The 3,000-seat Orange County Performing Arts Center gingerly puts its toe in pop’s current for the first time tonight with a concert by Art Garfunkel. But it probably is not realistic to expect more than a handful of pop dates there, given the Center’s self-proclaimed “mission” of presenting symphony, musical theater, opera and dance.