or the last four decades or so, Ian Tyson while Fricker leaned toward English ballads. of his best-known and most-loved songs, Ian has lived on the eastern slope of the Though their musical tastes were somewhat sometimes has found that a burden over the Canadian Rockies in Alberta. It’s ranch different, they found common ground in the years. “I’ve written a lot of other songs since country, mountain and prairie, and blend of their voices and in songs that ranged then,” he said recently. although it is changing, still a place from ballads to blues, and soon included songs With a mix of their own songs, covers Fwhere those who live there both wrest their by other rising stars of the folk community, of other contemporary songwriters, and livings out of the land and know they have to among them Joni Mitchell, Gordon Light- traditional music with imaginative arrange- work with land and weather to survive. “It’s foot, and Phil Ochs. “We soon became sort ments, the couple, who married in 1964, just a mosaic of Western values and emblems,” of the Kansas City Stars of Toronto,” Sylvia kept on forging their own path through the Tyson said. recalled in an earlier conversation, describing folk-music scene. Keeping the energy they’d He should know. Some years ago, he had their popularity back then, “so we thought it shown on folk songs such as “Nova Scotia a hand in re-inventing the image of the West was time to hit the big time.” They auditioned Farewell” and “Jesus Met the Woman at the and rewriting the history of cowboy music. for and were signed by Albert Grossman, a Well,” they added country-flavored music, He was invited to come to the Cowboy Poetry New York-based music manager who at the including “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa” Gathering in Elko, Nevada, in the early 1980s. time had just signed Peter, Paul and Mary and enigmatic pieces such as Dylan’s “The “That’s a huge cultural event. Back then it was and would also manage Bob Dylan, Gordon Mighty Quinn” to their set lists, along with a really the beginning of a whole renaissance Lightfoot, and Janis Joplin, among others. rockabilly take on the traditional song “When of the cowboy movement, everything from Grossman told them he wasn’t sure how much I Was a Cowboy” and a bluesy version of silversmithing to saddlemaking, to poetry, and time he’d have, “but he took us on anyway. I “Every Night When the Sun Goes In.” They then subsequently, to music,” he said. think he decided we were fairly low mainte- continued to write their own material, as well. “When I went down there, those people nance,” Sylvia said. “Canadians, you know,” On record, they experimented with adding just said hey, there’s this Canadian guy from she added, laughing. horns and strings to the instrumentation. up in Alberta, he sings pretty good, he’s got a Looking back, it’s clear that Ian and Sylvia good band, he’s a cowboy, he’s good and we’re helped create the transition from folk to folk- gonna go hear him. They didn’t know anything rock, and pave the way for what is now known about ‘Four Strong Winds,’ they didn’t know as Americana music. A folk-rock infused anything about Ian and Sylvia, they just knew band project called The Great Speckled Bird this guy’s a cowboy and he sings good. Which “I didn’t consider left their folk fans puzzled and rock fans not was fantastic. And we blew them away, just quite ready to cross the folk divide, though, blew them away. And I slowly came to the myself an authentic and an unfortunate record company situation realization that I could change this music.” left many copies of that disc in the warehouse. Tyson was not at all new to music. He backwoods folksinger, Two more duo albums followed, again with grew up in western Canada, always around high-quality songwriting and singing, but horses, and while he was laid up from a rodeo never thought of that personally and professionally, the couple had accident he picked up a guitar and started to come to a parting of the ways. “Ian and I had teach himself to play. “It was 1957, I think. ‘I very different musical tastes, always had, and Walk the Line’ was the big song. That’s what at all. I just went that brought good tension and energy to the I learned, or tried to. Had lots of modulations music,” Sylvia said. “But when we split up, in it, Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three, along with the flow.” aside from any personal stuff, the musical split and he had me whilin’ away the hours tryin’ was becoming more obvious.” to figure out what was going on. That was the “We went into different worlds,” Ian said. beginning, pretty much.” He was drawn to “Sylvia and I are very good friends, and we pick up the guitar because of rockabilly music. have a son, of course. She still does music, “Rockabilly hit western Canada then — it Low maintenance the pair may have been, too. When I was trying to re-invent my career, was a big deal, a really big deal,” he recalled. but the high quality of their music soon saw though — the Ian and Sylvia thing, people “I just loved that stuff. I was in art college in them playing top clubs, headlining at Newport just wouldn’t let it alone. And I’m sure that Vancouver, and I had an opportunity to join a and other major festivals, and selling out happened for her, too. It was hard. People just funky little band, and it was just a lot of fun. Carnegie Hall. Their first record, called Ian wouldn’t let it alone.” “Then a couple of years later the folk & Sylvia, came out in 1962 and comprised After the couple divorced, Ian spent some thing happened. The big folk scare arrived, English and Canadian folksongs, along with a time in the Nashville music scene. “I got and ‘Tom Dooley’ was the huge song. I liked dash of blues and gospel. It became a calling a couple of good demos out of it, really that, too. I didn’t consider myself an authentic card to introduce their distinctive sound to good demos, but they never went anywhere,” backwoods folksinger, never thought of that wider audiences. “Most of the recordings he recalled. So he decided to head back to at all. I just went along with the flow.” He were taken right off the floor, no overdubs, western Canada. moved to Toronto, with periodic stays back or anything like that. We just opened up the “I went up to Alberta, started working on in the west, and was building a reputation as a mics,” Ian recalled for the CBC in 1992. a ranch for a friend of mine, and then bought a singer in the city’s clubs and looking for a duo Each of them had also begun to write little ranch, and kept learning about that. It was partner. “Then I met Sylvia, and we were good songs. “It just so happened that the first song a steep learning curve, but I kept at it,” he said. at it; we had a gift. We certainly had a gift for a I wrote was ‘You Were on My Mind,’ and “Music and horses, they’ve been my two loves strange blending of our voices,” Tyson said. the first song Ian wrote was ‘Four Strong all my life.” So he also got together a band and Sylvia was Sylvia Fricker, a young musi- Winds,’ ” Sylvia said. Both of those would played around the West. Then came the invita- cian from Chatham in southwest Ontario who become classics, crossing several genres and tion to the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko. was planning to make the move up to Toronto being recorded by many other artists. “That changed my life,” he said. “That for her music career. Tyson’s interest at the Their next record was called Four Strong really changed my life. It was fresh, it was new, Lee Gunderson Lee time ran toward the bluesier side of folk, Winds. While he respects the fact that it’s one it was exciting, and here I was in my 40s. And 44 March/April ’10 #146 Dirty Linen 45 “They were selling. My wife, Twylla, and Maybe a novel of some kind, or a biography, I, we were ridin’ high there for a while, really or short stories.” riding high, makin’ a lot of money, had a He was looking out the window of his ranch lot of good horses and a big ranch.” Tyson house at a young horse, playing in the rain. “It made several more albums, which were well hasn’t rained here in a long time,” he said, “and received, but not the big sellers that Cowboyog- she’s just running up to the fence and back, raphy had been, He continued to tour, as he enjoying it. She’s just beautiful.” Later in the still does, and to work with horses, as he still day, he planned to go down to the small stone does. His marriage failed, though, and so did building on the ranch where he often works on a subsequent love affair, and for a time he was his music. “I’ll play for a few hours,” he said, estranged from his daughter with Tywlla.