While carving out a living as a musician has become increasingly difficult, Terra Lightfoot feels fortunate to be doing so in Canada.
Long gone are the days of record companies coming to artists with wheel barrels full of cash in the form of advances or footing the bill to record in lavish studios, but in Canada, musicians still get some help, Lightfoot said.
“My touring career started about 10 years ago, and so I have never had access to the giant pools of money that they had in the early 2000s or in the ‘90s. But we are so lucky to have a granting system in Canada.”
That help has been available since she first thought about making a living as a musician.
“The Ontario Arts Council gave me my very first grant to create music, and they are still doing that,” Lightfoot said. “It's an amazing program. It basically teaches you that you can be paid to make your own music.”
She is grateful that musicians here can get funding from sources such as the Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR) or the Ontario Music Fund to help pay the bills, but it’s a different story in other countries, Lightfoot said.
“I know my friends in other territories, like, for example, the United States, they don't have access to that. For musicians in the States, it's very different. It’s difficult to try and survive.”
Lightfoot has released a string of albums that have seen her music and song writing mature over the years. Her fifth studio LP – Healing Power – was released last year and has earned positive reviews. She also has the 2017 live album Live In Concert under her belt.
However, Lightfoot will be leaving her band at home and will be performing solo this Sunday to kick off the Pelham Concert Series at Old Pelham Town Hall. Tickets are $39.99 plus fees and taxes and can be purchased here.
And Lightfoot – she is not related to Canadian icon Gordon Lightfoot but did work with him on one tour years ago – is looking forward to it.
“There’s another festival. It's called The Festival of Small Halls, and it takes place in Ottawa,” she said. “They pick different churches, old town halls, municipal buildings, and they open them up, and they put shows in there. It's so much fun.”
It makes for an intimate setting for artist and performer alike, she said.
“There's room for people to heckle if they want to,” Lightfoot said with a laugh. “You know, it's just kind of, it's more like a family vibe.”
Lightfoot has earned several accolades over the years – a pair of Juno Award nominations, the inclusion of her song, “Paradise,” in CBC coverage of the Winter Olympics, and consideration for a Polaris Music Prize— twice, first in 2018 for her album New Mistakes, and again this year for Healing Power.
“At this stage in my career, I'm happy to be recognized with awards and stuff like that,” she said. “It's a signal to me to keep going, because the path, as you know, of a musician these days can be varied. All the little things that small successes make it all worth it.”
The Pelham show represents something close to a homecoming for the Waterdown-born musician. She would visit Niagara quite often as she was growing up.
“My uncle lived in Wellandport for many years,” she said. “Those are some of my favorite memories of visiting him at his Wellandport farm.”
Those times are a far cry from her life now as a working musician performing across the country and around the world. That makes the Pelham show even more special, she said.
“When you tour the world and go for months or years at a time, it feels like sometimes it's really nice to be able to do a sort of hometown show for your family.”
The Pelham show is part of a Canadian tour for Lightfoot, who kicked off her cross-Canada jaunt earlier this month in Prince Edward Island at the Sommo Festival in Cavendish. On the day before she is in town, she will be at Massey Hall to perform at the induction of Blue Rodeo into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pelham show is Lightfoot’s only official tour stop in Ontario before she heads out west in October for nine shows.
