More than three years after Gordon Lightfoot's death, his songs filled St. Mark's Anglican Church in Niagara-on-the-Lake on Saturday, as a sold-out crowd turned out for a tribute band with family and musical ties to the Canadian songwriting legend.

Classic Lightfoot Live, a seven-piece ensemble that has toured Ontario since 2014, played the historic church to capacity. The set spanned hits such as "If You Could Read My Mind" and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," along with deeper cuts that never reached radio, according to Niagara Now.

A band with family ties

The group's members carry direct connections to Lightfoot, who died in May 2023 at age 84. Bassist Steve Eyers is the son of Beverly Lightfoot Eyers of Orillia, Lightfoot's sister, who managed her brother for a time in the 1970s.

Lead guitarist Eric Kidd, a Barrie music teacher, studied under Red Shea, Lightfoot's original lead guitarist. Lead vocalist John Stinson lived next door to Shea and to Terry Clements, Lightfoot's other longtime guitarist, while raising his family in Aurora, and has staged a full Lightfoot theatre show since 2011.

Musical director Bob Doidge produced Lightfoot records, including "A Painter Passing Through" and "Harmony," at Grant Avenue Studio in Hamilton.

Niagara Now reported that Stinson told the audience "Rainy Day People" was the last song Lightfoot performed in front of a crowd, in October 2022. Stinson also introduced a song he said Lightfoot wrote in the late 1960s for the film "Cool Hand Luke," which went unused and sat unreleased until appearing on a 1999 collection of older material.

Lightfoot himself saw the band perform in 2016, watching Stinson sing at Lake Country Grill in Orillia during Lightfoot Days. After the set, Lightfoot shook Stinson's hand.

'He's your next-door neighbour'

For many in the pews, the evening was about more than nostalgia. Kathy Chamberlin, 71, of Niagara-on-the-Lake, has listened to Lightfoot's work for decades.

"Gordon Lightfoot is Canada to me," she told Niagara Now. "The way he wrote about the country, the lakes, the trains, he really understood it in a way it feels like he's your next-door neighbour."

Bill Weidemann, 76, of St. Catharines, said he grew up listening mostly to American radio stations, but Lightfoot always felt closer to home.

"We had plenty of American music coming from the stations over the border — then there was Lightfoot singing about places we knew," he told Niagara Now.

Weidemann said that shared history is why he believes the late songwriter's records still deserve an audience.

"We don't just back down," he said. "There's value in the music, and we're gonna keep listening and playing it even after he's gone."

Fans who missed the Niagara-on-the-Lake show have one more Ontario date on the band's schedule this summer. Classic Lightfoot Live plays the Gibson Centre in Alliston on Aug. 27.