The Steel Guitar Forum

Im a big Ian Tyson fan. I got the chance to hear him in Chapel Hill a few years ago. His music paints a picture! Are there any Canadian folks ou there who like him as much as I do?

Well, I'm "almost Canadian", living close enough to the border to be able to watch Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday night. And over the years, I've see quite a bit of Ian Tyson on Canadian TV. In the early 80's I always watched his TV show "Sun Country" and really became a fan. He's written some great songs and performs in an honest country style. He deserves to be more popular.

Well I'm almost Canadian too, living about 20 or thirty miles from the border here in beautiful Southeast Alaska. Yeah, I love Ian Tyson's work and have listened to him for a long time (even back to the Ian and Sylvia days.) I've also seen a lot of good music there in Chapel Hill when I lived there back in the seventies. Great town and great basketball. How 'bout them Heels.

Alan

Dave, I had the pleasure of backing Ian on the Sun Country TV show in the season of '82-'83. We also went to dinner together and talked old times in Toronto. Ian is a wealth of Canadian and American folk and country music, especially western. He lives down the road from me about 20 miles and this year he sang at our annual Diamond Valley Christmas show. The legend lives on!

Two words: "Someday Soon" With poetic and melodic creations like this, who isn't an Ian Tyson fan..!!

Plus, he and Sylvia (Great Speckled Bird) used a pretty fair steel player, a kid named Cage, back 100 years ago or so.

LTB

As you say, who doesn't admire Ian Tyson? Great voice, great songs. Although the cowboy material he has devoted himself to for the last 15 years are of the same high standard, I miss the old stuff he did. John Lacey, if you're talking to him, see if you can talk him into doing an album that's a bit more country (hard country) and a little less western.

A further recollection about Ian Tyson. I recall a concert he and Sylvia and their band (The Great Speckled Bird, or at least what would become the GSB) gave at Alumni Hall at the University of Western Ontario about 1968. I had heard some of their new electrified stuff on record, but casual fans had not. There was a lot of grumbling at intermission from the folks who thought they were going to hear Four Strong Winds and Red Velvet. I knew this was new ground for Ian and Sylvia but I have read since that it was new ground for everyone in country-folk, and he has been given credit for making the world safe for the "outlaw movement" that came along later. Didn't Bill Keith play steel with him in those days?<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Ralph Willsey on 25 January 2001 at 08:52 AM.]</p></FONT><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Ralph Willsey on 25 January 2001 at 08:52 AM.]</p></FONT>

Certain artist have the ability to paint a picture with their lyrics and music and take the listener to far away places. Tyson’s canvass depict scenes of the Great Plains, vast regions of snow capped Canadian Rockies, the northern prairies of North America and they people who live there, all exotic to this Carolina Dude. With lyrics like “And I’ll work on those tow boats in my slippery city shoes” and “Think I’ll go out to Alberta, the weather is good their in the fall” From Summer Wages and Four Strong Winds, one can smell the camp fire in the crisp Canadian air! I understand he is a real cowboy, it sure shows in his work.....

Ian raises some of the finest cutting horses there are.
John

If you have the chance to pick up a book entitled "After the Gold Rush", it's a great depiction of Canada's music scene as it developed in the 1960's. Lots of interesting info about Ian and Sylvia, Ronnie Hawkins, Neil Young, The Band, etc., particularly as it relates to the Yorkville section of Toronto in those days... coffeehouse paradise.
-John

Ian Tyson, Gordon Lightfoot and Len Chandler were the best songwriters of the 60's IMHO. I haven't heard of Chandler in years, but I sure wish I could write like those 3. Among Ian's later albums I like the "Cowboyography" album the best. I use it as an example of real western music for friends who think the G.A.C. TV channel is C&W.

Ralph, yep it was bill Keith on steel.
He was the original GSB steel player, replaced by Buddy Cage on 1969, not long after they recorded the debut album. Which is now on Cd through Stony Plain.

An innovative and eclectic group, they deserve to be mentioned with all the other country rock groups of the late 1960s.

I've followed Ian through virtually all of his incarnations, starting in high school when I had folk singer pretensions - Ian and Sylvia and Gordon Lightfoot were primary inspirations. Saw Ian and Sylvia and the GSB at Festival Express in Calgary in '70, with Buddy Cage on steel - must have been Amos Garret on lead. A couple of years later I saw them in Saskatoon, the very first night Billy Mundi played drums for them (he joined them mid-tour, replacing N.D. Smart) -I think it was Ben Keith (Bill Keith was pre-Cage and Ben post-Cage, if I am not mistaken)on steel at that point, and probably David Wilcox on lead. Another incarnation of GSB I saw a little later in Lethbridge had Pee Wee Charles on Steel and Red Shea on lead. And after Tyson moved to Alberta (post Slyvia and GSB days)I saw him with various bands in various parts of the country. Most memorable were a couple of shows at the Diamond in Toronto in the late '80's or real early '90's, one in aprticular with Tom Russell opening for him. Since I moved back to Alberta in 94 I've seen him a couple of times in a three peice "unplugged" format, most recently at the Edmonton Folk Fest this summer. Even in his sixties he still has the voice. SOme great songs: Four Strong Winds, Summer Wages, Someday Soon, Navajo Rug (co-written with Tom Russell another real fine songwriter), and plenty of great but lesser-known tunes. I still perform some of his songs when I get the chance - geez I've been doing "Summer Wages" for thirty years!