TORONTO — If they could read his mind, they would have known he was leaving the building.

Gordon Lightfoot, who's among the first five inductees into the new Canadian Songwriters' Hall of Fame, slipped quietly away before he could be formally acknowledged at a ceremony held Wednesday at a downtown Hard Rock Cafe.

The other inductees were posthumous: Alfred Bryan, considered a forefather of Canadian songwriting, Nova Scotia country singer Hank Snow and early Quebec celebrities Felix Leclerc and Madame Bolduc.

As the ceremonies began, Lightfoot, wearing a black leather jacket and scruffy beard, stood at the back of the room sipping on a bottled water. But before his induction could be announced from the stage, he was gone, apparently still feeling the effects of his health scare last year when he spent three months in hospital with an abdominal hemorrhage that nearly killed him.

"Gordon just got tired," the host for the event, fellow singer-songwriter Murray McLauchlan, explained afterwards. "He's had a lot of surgeries. . .so he had to leave a little bit early."

McLauchlan said he thought Lightfoot looked pretty good considering what he had been through and when asked what explanation he gave for his premature departure, replied: "He said 'I'm on the point of evaporation' "

Hall of fame president Sylvia Tyson and Canadian Idol's Ryan Malcolm were on hand, though, and there were tribute performances to the inductees by Blackie & the Rodeo Kings, Sarah Slean, Hawksley Workman and Jean-Francois Breau.

Tyson said Lightfoot was a "little frail" but that everyone was delighted that he was able to come at all.

"We certainly want him to regain his health. So best thing in the world for him to leave when he left probably."

Tyson said the songwriters' award is long overdue and predicted there would be no shortage of potential inductees for the future.

"And an amazing number in the very early, pioneer era. We thought there would be less but are finding an amazing number of people writing songs in the early- to mid-1800s, to the turn of the century. It's quite astonishing."

"Canadian songwriters are internationally renowned for being the best in the business and yet, here at home, their extraordinary accomplishments often go unrecognized," said the chairman of the hall of fame board, music publisher Frank Davies.

"The CSHF exists to celebrate the talent, passion, diversity and the societal and cultural impact of Canadian songwriters."

In addition to the inductees, 12 made-in-Canada popular songs were also enshrined, including such classics as Red River Valley, Snowbird, I'll Never Smile Again, Aquarius and even the Christian hymn What a Friend We Have in Jesus.

It was pointed out that over the years, home-grown songwriters' works have been performed by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Elvis Presley and even Leonardo DiCaprio. (The actor actually sang part of Bryan's classic Come Josephine In My Flying Machine to co-star Kate Winslet in the 1997 movie Titanic).

"The words of Canadian songwriters have done more than tell Canada's stories, they've helped shape the political and social consciousness of a nation," said hall of fame executive director Jody Scotchmer.

"In creating an archive and infrastructure for this unique and fascinating heritage, the CSHF will map songwriting against the history of Canada and preserve this legacy for generations to come."

Eventually the hall of fame will exist as a physical museum but in the meantime plans call for a virtual museum to be mounted on the Internet by December 2004 that will house all the significant archival material.

The CSHF is a bilingual, non-profit organization, a joint partnership of the Canadian Music Publishers Association (CMPA) and the Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC), with the assistance of the Societe professionelle des auteurs et des compositeurs du Quebec (SPACQ).

The board of directors comprises seven music publishers and seven songwriters, with an advisory board consisting of 18 of the country's prominent music, arts and cultural leaders. The organization is still compiling an extensive database on Canadian songwriters and their songs over the past 150 years.

A formal gala will take place Dec. 3.
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The first five inductees into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame:

Hank Snow: Born in Nova Scotia in 1914, Canada's Country Boy bought a $5.95 guitar out of the Eaton's catalogue and set out to emulate his hero, Jimmie Rodgers. After a weekly radio show in Halifax, Snow wrote a series of country songs, ending up at No. 1 on the charts in 1950 and on the Grand Ole Opry. Between 1951 and '55, Snow had 24 Top Ten hits and remained on the list until '65. In 1974, at 60, he had a No. 1 hit with Hello Love. He recorded more than 100 LPs and was voted Canada's top country performer 10 times. He died in December 1999.
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Madame Bolduc: Born Mary Travers in a small fishing and lumbering town in Quebec at the end of the 19th century, she rose to become the definitive Quebec chanson, the queen of Canadian folksingers and the Voice of the Great Depression. She was hired as a fiddler in a 1927 musical show and quickly launched a recording career. Her first 78s sold thousands of copies in Quebec alone after which she began to be known as La Bolduc, Quebec's first chansonniere. She died of cancer in 1941 at 46.
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Alfred Bryan: He was known as the musical poet but was never a major performer. Born in Brantford, Ont. in 1871, Bryan became the most prolific lyricist of his time to come out of Canada. In 1910, after moving to New York City, he wrote one of his biggest hits, Come Josephine in My Flying Machine. He is said to have written more than 1,000 songs, including the classic Peg O' My Heart. He contributed to numerous Broadway and Hollywood scores. He died in New Jersey in 1958.
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Felix Leclerc: Known as the father of the Quebec chanson, Leclerc, writer, poet, playwright and songwriter, was born in 1914, the sixth of 11 children. At 18, he began studies at the University of Ottawa where he wrote his first song. Forced to leave school during the Depression, he worked as a farmhand which gave him inspiration for several of his songs. He also acted in radio shows on Radio Canada, then went on to Paris where he furthered his singing career. Leclerc's songs dealt mostly with nature, dreams, love and death and was considered a major influence on Jacques Brel and Gilles Vigneault. This is the 15th anniversary of his death.
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Gordon Lightfoot: Born in 1938 in Orillia, Ont., Lightfoot is a bona fide musical legend. He began his career singing with barbershop groups, and wrote his first song in 1957, The Hula Hoop Song. Inspired by Ian & Sylvia, he turned to folk music and became a mainstay on the Yorkville scene in Toronto in the 1960s. But it was in the '70s that he truly emerged as a songwriting force with the likes of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Steel Rail Blues. His songs were recorded by Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan, paving the way for other Canadians. He's recorded 22 albums and more than 200 songs and has 17 Juno Awards.