A lighter Gordon Lightfoot ready to talk

Gordon Lightfoots recent dances with death have meant a change of outlook for the legendary Canadian singer-songwriter.

Once wary of the media, he is now granting interviews at his Toronto home, where he spoke to CBC news reporter Deana Sumanac.

This week Lightfoot released a new disc, All Live, which consists of 19 recordings he selected from his Massey Hall performances between 1998 and 2001. The disc is a last chance to hear the guitar work of his long-time collaborator Terry Clements, who died last year.

At 73, Lightfoot is about to embark on another tour, but hes also working out and avoiding booze, saying he wants to continue to work as long as he can.

Lightfoot suffered an abdominal aneurysm in 2002 and took more than two years to recover from it, then he had a minor stroke in 2006 that affected his ability to play guitar. Then in 2010, many media outlets reported him dead, news that he heard while driving home from the dentist.

Clements death and those incidents have him thinking about mortality. But that hasnt stopped him from wanting to perform in front of a crowd.

Hell be touring Canada this spring and summer, starting with an appearance at Casino Rama in Orillia, Ont. on April 20. In June, hes in Ottawa, Montreal and some other Ontario cities, before coming back to Massey Hall in Toronto in November.