Terra Lightfoot,
Terra Lightfoot credits her maternal grandmother for introducing her to music.
“I used to play with her when I was a kid and she taught me things,” says Lightfoot by cellphone as she takes a morning stroll along the P.E.I. coast. “She led choir practice, and in the ’60s and she played on the VIA train between Toronto and Montreal. She is an entertainer, so when I was little kid I would sit beside her on the piano bench listen to the songs and mash away on the keys.
“Then I got older and my mom picked me up an Anjo guitar at a garage sale. The brand is not that familiar and I think it was missing a string. But I could not wait to get practising on it. And a really lit a fire under me.”
Lightfoot hails from Waterdown where she played in school and concert bands, and a few others including country-folk group The Dinner Belles.
She has a deep, luxuriant voice comparable to pop icons Dusty Springfield and Helen Shapiro, melded with femme fatales like Sue Foley, Bonnie Raitt or Joan Jett.
Lightfoot’s catalogue includes 2011 selftitled debut, plus 2015’s “Every Time My Mind Runs Wild,” both on Hamilton indie label Sonic Unyon.
Her latest album “New Mistakes” flows with melodic nuances from late ’50s/early ’60s Brit-pop ballads, to ’70s acts like Dave Edmunds, Free and The Allman Brothers, all set to Lightfoot’s robust aural narrative.
It’s an open map of the road and “maze of hotel rooms” — New York, the Northern Lights, Mojave Desert, White River, from Toronto to Nashville — a map of the heart featuring a masterful balance of hard riffs, heart-wrenching ballads, and soaring choruses.
“Paradise,” the latest single, is a catchy relationship reality check with a punching backbeat.
“Stars Over Dakota” has a hint of Dave Edmunds hit “I Hear You Knocking” while companion piece “Slicked Back Kid” is like Free or Argent as a melodic ’70s vibe filters through Lightfoot’s musical travelogue.
“Norma Gale” is a powerful story based on a real life character — a single woman working as a singer/musician who is trying to raise a child, while dealing with a rollercoaster life on the road.
“I had about a month off the road,” notes Lightfoot. “At least of couple of weeks where I had this complete luxury of shutting myself in and I made it a very kind of a solitary experience for myself. It was literally a lock-in where I knew I had to write the songs, edit what I had, or figure out this album because I had 40 songs and I had to cull them down. Or maybe at that time I had 30 and I needed 10 more,” she notes with a laugh. “A lot of them were companion pieces for sure.”
“All of my songs have always been that way,” Lightfoot says. “I write in stints. Over a period of days or weeks I’ll write a couple of new things. Inspiration for me comes in washes,” she says. “As much I try to find ways to make it happen, it just happens on its own,” she adds. “So when it does, I find myself writing about a same subject in a period or a setting. And you end up with two songs that have the same person in mind or the same place in mind,” she says.
The atmospheric ballad “Three In The Morning” is a stirring song about complex relationships and “love in vain.”
“Some of them are about friends — or things that have happened to my friends. “Three in the Morning” was pretty close to me,” she says.
“The whole studio process was like being the ’70s because we went in for two weeks, we were there every day and that is the record,” states Lightfoot. “I used the Jukasa Studio which is on the Six Nations reserve. And that was really heavy as well for us to be located there. I think it was a really good experience for everybody.”
Lightfoot had toured across North America and the U.K., performing at festivals including the Maverick Festival (with Amelia Curran and Dennis Ellsworth) in Suffolk, England, where she closed the night on Canada Day.
“It was incredible. We played in this giant barn with so many people. And I think at some point we said ‘Happy Canada Day’ and then people clapped. Then after the next song I said ‘We are Canadian.’ And people went woooowww!” adds Lightfoot with a husky laugh.
She’s also toured with famous namesake Gordon Lightfoot (no relation), Blue Rodeo, Whitehorse, and Bruce Cockburn.
She’s very excited about her Centre in the Square show, where she will showcase her new custom-designed guitar. It was crafted from environmentally-friendly bubinga and spruce, courtesy of Burlington-based luthier/teacher/musician Ashley Leanne.
“It was put together in two months and it sounds … it is unreal. I played it and I thought what is going on here? It has a lot of bottom end for clarity,” exclaims Lightfoot adding Leanne also fashioned one of the instrument’s inlays after her tattoo.
“Through this whole tour, Bruce Cockburn has been insanely nice. Just incredible,” she adds. “He’s in the stars.”