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A Stony Plain artist’s bio
Ian Tyson
A Canadian icon reflects on the things that matter to him: The prairies, the legends of the West, and the changing life of a veteran artist
Stony Plain releases “Songs from the Gravel Road”, Ian Tyson ’s first CD of new songs since 1999’s “Lost Herd”
The gravel road runs from Ian Tyson’s ranch house in the foothills of the Rockies south of Calgary. It’s about a mile away from the stone cottage that he uses as a writing retreat, and the daily walk — in good weather and bad — is a time for thinking, for watching the sky and the birds and the deer, and for writing songs.
The trees along the gravel road were planted years ago, and local legend says the cottage was built by hand in either 1916, or maybe 1940 — nobody seems very sure — by the folk who settled that stretch of country. The walls are two feet thick, and there’s a new steel roof. There’s a living room, two tiny bedrooms, and a big bathroom with a furnace in the middle of it.
And, like Tyson’s songs, it’s here to stay.
There’s no pen and paper on the walk along the gravel road; no miniature tape recorder. That has to wait until Tyson’s arrived, shrugged off his coat, adjusted the heating, and warmed up his winter-chilled fingers.
Tyson has long been one of Canada’s most respected singer-songwriters. A pioneer who began his career in the early days of the first folk boom in the ’60s, he was one of the first Canadians to break into the American popular music market. In the years that followed he hosted his own TV show, recorded some of the best “folk” albums ever made, quit the music business and became — after years of backbreaking work — a rodeo rider and a successful rancher.
But with his songs covered by Neil Young, Judy Collins, Suzy Bogguss, Gordon Lightfoot, Bobby Bare and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, among many others, he returned to music with a vengeance in the mid-’80s. He found himself able to combine his two separate lives in new songs that explained the reality of “western culture” and the mindset of a cowboy in a sometimes-alien world.
Tyson’s list of honours — from the Order of Canada to platinum records, Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Awards — is too lengthy to repeat. He tours constantly across Canada and throughout the United States.
Ian Tyson is not a prolific songwriter. There are times when he despairs that he won’t write another song — but then they come to him, often as he walks along the gravel road. “I guess 80 per cent of my songs come on that walk,” he says.
“Sometimes they come fast; other take a lot longer. There’s one song here, ‘The Ambler Saddle’, that seemed to take for ever; Ambler was a legendary man, and there are so many stories about him — many from people who knew him — and I wanted the song about him to be true to him.” And there’s another song, “This is My Sky”, that came in 20 minutes.
Tyson cuts demo versions of his songs in the stone cottage (“although the furnace makes such a racket you have to turn it off when you’re recording”), after he’s written down and joined the phrases and snatches of melody he’s discovered on his walks down the gravel road. His regular on-the-road accompanists, Gord Matthews (guitar, vocals) and Gord Maxwell (bass, vocals) play a key role in the way the songs develop, and in making the demos.
The recording process that follows takes Tyson a long way from the gravel road — just about as far, physically and mentally, as he’s prepared to go.
“Songs from the Gravel Road” was recorded in Toronto with celebrated producer Danny Greenspoon — and a backup band of some of the best players in Toronto. And if the likes of guitarist Kevin Breit, horn players Phil Dwyer, Steve McDade and Guido Basso, and drummer Mark Kelso are better known in the jazz community than the world of “country” music, that’s cool with Tyson.
“I took a gamble,” he says. “They’re young guys, they’re great jazz and pop musicians, and they have no connection with my kind of life. I wanted them to bring a different sensibility to the songs. And they are songs that I couldn’t hear with the standard ‘country’ instrumentation, which is often so mind-numbingly predictable.”
The sessions went incredibly fast — the group cut five songs in a single afternoon, in part because the demos Tyson had made in the stone cottage were such good guideposts. Now the record is done, and Tyson is settling into another heavy round of touring in Canada and the United States.
He’ll miss the Alberta skies, the deer along the gravel road, and he stone cottage. But he wants to share the true stories of a part of Canada too few people know, and the details of lives well lived.
Ian Tyson is one of a kind ... authentic and durable. In the tough world of show business where an artist can consider himself lucky to have one hit and a few good years, Ian Tyson has had two distinctly brilliant careers. Spanning three decades, Tyson has forged a trail of musical innovation. Starting with the legendary folk duo of Ian and Sylvia in the 60's, the trail has culminated with the seminal Cowboyography collection reaching platinum status in the mid 90's.
At the age of 24, Tyson left behind the itinerant logging and rodeo life of British Columbia and hitchhiked to Toronto. Caught up in the folk music revival, he formed, along with a very young Sylvia Fricker, the legendary singing duo of Ian and Sylvia.
The influential folk duo, Ian and Sylvia, married in 1964, recorded over a do zen timeless albums, including their best known and often covered hits - Ian's Four Strong Winds and Someday Soon, and Sylvia's You Were On My Mind.
During the British Invasion, Ian and Sylvia evolved into pioneers of country-rock. Their band, Great Speckled Bird, rivaled the Byrds and other groups which helped create modern country a decade before the Urban Cowboy phase or contemporary "new traditionalists".
After hosting a national Canadian television music show from 1970 to 1975, Tyson realized his dream of returning to the Canadian West. The music and marriage of Ian and Sylvia had ended and it was now or never. Disillusioned with the Canadian country music scene, Tyson decided the time had come for him to return to his first love, training horses in the big ranch country of southern Alberta.
After three idyllic years cowboying in the Rockies at Pincher Creek, Tyson, at the urging of his new wife Twylla, recorded the album Old Corrals and Sagebrush consisting of cowboy songs, both traditional and new. "Kind of a musical Christmas card for my friends" he recalls, "we weren't looking for a 'hit radio' play or anything like that." Unbeknownst to Tyson and his friends, the cowboy renaissance was about to find expression at the inaugural Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering in 1983. A small coterie of saddle makers, rawhide braiders, cowboy poets and pickers discovered one another in this small cowtown in northern Nevada. Tyson was invited to perform his "new western music" and the overwhelming response at Stockman's Casino brought Tyson the realization that he had found his true audience.
Tyson considers himself a very fortunate man. His second music career takes him to concerts all over North America, where he is able to ride the deserts and sage hills with his friends from Alberta to Mexico.
"I like to surround myself with the most talented musicians," Tyson says, "so that people not directly from the ranch culture can enjoy an evening with us through the music alone. Everyone, it seems, can relate to a song like Someday Soon and that's the kind of communication I strive for."
The striving continues and the songs keep coming from the word painter of the west. His last album, Lost Herd, won the 1999 Prairie Music Award for "Outstanding Country Recording". Ian's current CD, Live At Longview, was recorded in October 2001 and released to the North American public in February 2002. A collection of 17 of Ian's favorite songs, some classics and some brand new, Live At Longview is creating quite a buzz amongst both fans and peers, alike. Mike Regenstreif of the Montreal Gazette writes, "At 68, and with 40 years of recordings to his credit, Ian Tyson remains the best singer and songwriter in Canadian Country Music. On this great-sounding live set, Tyson mixes 6 new songs with 10 of his classics and a western swing version of Blue Moon. Tyson is as engaging as he's ever been. The new material is terrific . . . older songs, like Navajo Rug and Someday Soon, sound as fresh and as vital as the new tunes. This is an essential addition to Tyson's rich catalogue." ****½
Moving through the first decade of the new millennium, Ian continues to actively tour, write music, record, and garner new honors and awards. In 2006, CBC Radio declared Four Strong Winds the number one Canadian song of the 20th Century. In 2007, Stony Plain Records released a new CD - The Gift, A Tribute to Ian Tyson - recorded by 15 of Ian’s most respected, international peers. And in 2008, with continuing coast to coast touring in both Canada and the United States, Ian celebrates 5 decades of performance and his 75th birthday.
Ian Tyson, a recipient of the Order of Canada, lives and continues to work on his ranch in Alberta's Rocky Mountains and is exclusively represented by fellow Canadian, Paul Mascioli of Mascioli Entertainment Corporation, Orlando, FL
