IAN & SYLVIA
The Lost Tapes
Stony Plain Records
As I wrote in 2017 when Tom Russell released Play One More: The Songs of Ian & Sylvia, “I got into record collecting as a kid in the 1960s and Ian & Sylvia’s LPs had a huge impact
on me. They were a big part of my introduction to traditional folk music and to
original, folk-based songwriting. By 1966, I owned all of their early LPs and
kept on buying the new ones as they came out later in the ‘60s and early-‘70s.
And I got to see them play live a couple of times. I still return to their
music often – particularly the first five albums.
“As
a music journalist, I’ve written about the CD reissues of the Ian & Sylvia
LPs and about both Ian Tyson’s and Sylvia Tyson’s solo albums. I’ve seen
both of them live on many occasions and, in the 1990s, I produced a couple of
shows in Montreal with Sylvia (a stage setting of Timothy Findlay’s “The
Pianoman’s Daughter” and a concert with Quartette,
her group with three other great women singers). And I’ve done long (and separate) radio interviews with both Ian
and Sylvia that have included extensive looks back at their Ian & Sylvia
years.”
Ian
had a weekly TV show on CTV in Canada from 1970 until 1975 – it was called “Nashville
North” the first season before being renamed “The Ian Tyson Show” – that I always
watched whenever I was home on the nights it aired (this was before the days of
VCRs) and Sylvia was on the show often. Recently, Sylvia rediscovered a trove
of live tapes from that era and worked with producer Danny Greenspoon
(an old friend who started out on the Montreal folk scene around the same time
as me) on assembling The Lost Tapes, a wonderful two-CD collection. Although
there are no recording sources listed in the liner notes, I’m guessing most –
if not all – of these tracks are from The Ian Tyson Show.
The
first CD is labeled “Classics” and indeed all of these songs are both familiar –
Ian & Sylvia recorded 10 of them on LPs back in the day – and fresh in
these arrangements some of which have a fuller band sound than the original
recordings.
Among
my favorites on the first disc are versions of the traditional “When First Unto
This Country” and “Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies,” on which their harmonies
and Sylvia’s autoharp playing shine; “Darcy Farrow,” written by Steve
Gillette and Tom Campbell in the style of a traditional folksong; and
Ian’s classics “Four Rode By,” “Four Strong Winds” and “Summer Wages.”
I
also enjoyed their versions of “The French Song,” a hit for Lucille Starr,
and traditional songs “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “I’ll Fly Away,” all of which are
not on earlier Ian & Sylvia albums.
The
13 songs – many of them country classics – on the second CD labeled “Previously
Unreleased” are also not on earlier Ian & Sylvia albums.
Some
of my favorites the this disc include a countrified version of Tom Paxton’s
“The Last Thing On My Mind”; Lefty Frizzell’s “That’s the Way Love Goes,”
a then-current hit for Johnny Rodriguez; an uncharacteristic version of “Come
On in My Kitchen,” a Robert Johnson blues; and Jimmie Rodgers’
“Jimmie’s Texas Blues.”
There
are also duets of Sylvia singing with Lucille Starr on “Crying Time” and “Silver
Threads and Golden Needles.”
The
album ends with Ian singing lead on “The Goodnight Loving Trail,” Utah
Phillips’ great song about a used-up cowboy relegated to chuckwagon duty on
cattle drives in the 1860s. This performance of “The Goodnight Loving Trail”
was a precursor to the decades Ian would spend – beginning in the 1980s and
continuing to this day – as perhaps the greatest writer and interpreter of
authentic cowboy music.
This album is a nice reminder of the historic importance of Ian &
Sylvia to folk music and to the emergence of country rock.
Ian & Sylvia’s The Lost Tapes will be released on September
6.
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–Mike Regenstreif
