Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ent...105281873.html Ian Tyson says he wrote revealing new memoir because he needed the money By: Nick Patch, The Canadian Press Posted: 19/10/2010 2:04 PM TORONTO - When asked why he decided to write his first memoir, Ian Tyson doesn't rhyme off any romantic notions about fulfilling a long-time dream of publishing his first book or finally letting fans hear his life story. Nope, Tyson says, he simply did it for the money. "They made me an offer, an offer of an advance, and that's why I agreed to do it," Tyson, 77, said during an interview in Toronto this week. "I agreed to do it for the money, 'cause I needed the money at the time. "And that's the straight goods." There's considerably more where that came from. Yes, "The Long Trail" is a raw, stark and at times even unflattering, but consistently honest portrayal of the Victoria native. Tyson writes about his infidelity, his sometimes-questionable parenting and the two bitter divorces he's endured. Also fair game: his drug arrest, his occasional bar brawls and his erstwhile distaste for other Canadian music icons. "I can't see any point in writing bullshit," Tyson said matter-of-factly, though he conceded that he had modest expectations for the memoir. "I can't imagine what anybody finds interesting in the book. ... (I've said), 'I don't know who the hell's going to want to read this thing.'" Tyson is still perhaps best-known for being one-half of the well-loved 1960s folk duo Ian & Sylvia with ex-wife Sylvia Stricker (now Sylvia Tyson). Their melancholic hit "Four Strong Winds" remains a mainstay on lists of the best Canadian songs ever recorded. But Tyson has divided most of his life between two passions largely unrelated to his folkie past: living the cowboy life on his Alberta ranch, and the country career that's followed his 1980s rebirth as a Western music traditionalist with sharp storytelling skills. Yet while Tyson wasn't interested in sugar-coating the truth, he did concede that writing about his marital struggles was, at times, difficult. He divorced from Sylvia Tyson in 1975 after pursuing a relationship with another woman, sometimes cavorting with his mistress openly in front of his son, Clay, who was a child at the time. "I wasn't being very sensitive about the whole thing, that's for sure," Tyson writes. He found a more enduring relationship in 1978 when he met a waitress named Twylla Dvorkin, who was only 17 at the time. Tyson, then in his mid-40s, knew that their relationship was inciting gossip among the locals, but he didn't care. They soon married and had a daughter, Adelita, who now lives in Texas. But the couple eventually drifted apart, divorcing in 2008. His wounds still fresh, Tyson had a hard time probing the end of their relationship. "Iwanted to be honest about it and fair, but it was a tough divorce and pretty acrimonious," he said. "Twylla hasn't got the book yet. We talked a little while back and she's quite anxious about it. She's probably concerned about what will be in it. "But I'm hoping that she'll find it fair. I think we're past all that bitterness." Similarly, Tyson says his once-icy relationships with Canadian music contemporaries have thawed over the years. In the book, he writes that he was once bitter about Stompin' Tom Connors' popularity, that he felt the mainstream acceptance of Connors' work was "condescending and patronizing." And he says he was also jealous of Gordon Lightfoot, whom Tyson felt didn't do enough to help those who gave him a boost along the way. "We've all mellowed," Tyson says now. "We've all gotten old. Those things pass over time. They're competitive people, and I'm competitive, and I think, it was a little pie in those days. You couldn't all share in that same pie. "And I was very much an outsider during that period here, and that was of my own making, 'cause if there was any fault in it, it would have been my fault." Of course, the adventures of a music star-cowboy aren't all so dark. The book reiterates the long-held story that Tyson introduced Bob Dylan to marijuana. "Idon't remember doing it, but (Dylan girlfriend) Suze Rotolo (says so)," he recalled with a smile. "(Rotolo) and Bob Dylan, they were together through that Greenwich Village period, so I guess she would know. "Tom Russell, the songwriter, said: 'You turned on Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan turned on the Beatles. So that makes you the king.'" Tyson has a reputation in the industry for being notoriously prickly, which he actually references several times in the book (though he prefers the adjective "irascible.") He betrayed no signs of such irritability on this day, however, chatting warmly about the sometimes-uncomfortable details of his life. Tyson is pleased with where he stands in his career. He was forced to change his singing style in recent years due to scarring on his vocal cords, but he says he's been told his newly gritty rasp lends his songs more hard-won relevance. His last record was 2008's "Yellowhead to Yellowstone and Other Love Stories," but Tyson says he has more songs ready and plans to record soon. "We're going to record 'em ourselves at the ranch and put 'em online," he said. "I think we'll go with iTunes — whatever that is, I don't know. But I have people who do know what it is." Though he long struggled to accept his folk legacy, he's at peace with it now. Over the summer, he decided he wanted to play the big folk festivals, even instructing his agent to take a reduced fee if necessary. "I wasn't sure my music would be relevant to those people," he said. "Those young people, they don't know who I am, and the older people think I'm dead. So I knew I wouldn't be preaching to the choir. "I was blown away at the reception we got. 'Cause I didn't do the old stuff. I had to do 'Four Strong Winds' because they'll throw me in jail at the end of the show if I didn't do that. But that's the only old song I did. I did all what I write now. "And I was sure they wouldn't be familiar with those songs. So I was very, very pleased." The end of Tyson's memoir finds the singer in a dark place, dealing with the dissolution of his second marriage and various minor medical ailments. Asked for an update on how he's doing, Tyson is positive. "Well, things are more even. They've evened out," he said. "Through the difficult times ... I handled it inside the music. The music really pulled me through, and my horses, but the horse thing, that's a more abstract kind of thing. The music really helped a lot. The music got stronger, you know. "Hank Williams said a broken heart doesn't hurt your songwriting, and he was sure right about that." |
Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
It will be fascinating to hear him speak of his life and career and hear him sing on Thursday night.
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Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
WOW. I'm not sure I could be that candid (Not that anyone would really care).
You've got to give Ian credit for being honest. Char, the sesstion on Thursday should be really interesting. Enjoy. Brian |
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Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
Ron, I wouldn't dare to express my personal opinion on either of those issues, but if he 'splains himself on Thursday I'll let you know.
Tyson will also be at Hugh's Room on Friday and Saturday night..it's possible Lightfoot may show up but please understand I'm not speaking for him. I'm just going by past times when he did go to Ian's shows there so it's a possibility. Brian - I'm going to pick up a copy of the book because it sounds like an honest, heartfelt write. Ian was on CTV yesterday morning and he certainly said some very, very honest things in his interview about the book. In my opinion I don't think it's in him to be anything but truthful. I'll let you know how the event goes.. I'm also quite excited about hearing Jim Cuddy... |
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also, this 'comes clean' article was in the Globe: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...e676674/page1/ i wish GL would do a TV doc like Ian did (ie. visits to some of the folks who were significant and/or helpful along his musical journey) Ian, if you talked about your songwriting in the new book, i will find it interesting...you are going to have a grand time and you deserve it, char! ( +Sylvia likely to give intro to the evening again:)) |
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I think I'll buy this book. I really do enjoy the seven Ian and Sylvia albums I have. Is that a previous autobiography of his you mention jj? |
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btw, yes: 112 pages . illustrated with 48 color and B&W photographs, including young Ian, Ian & Sylvia, Ian with his horse, and more . with never-before-published lead sheets for 11 favorite Ian Tyson songs . + a complete discography of recordings by Ian & Sylvia and Ian Tyson . This is one big tall handsome book, 8-1/2 x 11 " size; palomino-colored boards with Gold gilt title impressed on spine, in glossy color photographic jacket, with a great closeup of Ian on the front in a jean jacket and white cowboy hat . This book was published in 1994 by Gibbs Smith in Utah, simultaneously with Douglas & McIntyre in Canada . This is the American First Edition, the real deal, stated First, with the full number line . Many music lovers know Ian Tyson as a cowboy singer . others remember him as half of the 60s folk act " Ian and Sylvia " . Fans will be fascinated with this no-holds-barred autobiography of t he legendary Tyson . Anecdotes of life on the road in the free and easy 60s . intimate recollections of his musical career . his life as a cowboy . and his two marriages . provide a new understanding of the man and his timeless music . . With lyrics for many Ian Tyson songs, Leaving Cheyenne, Navajo Rug & more , + sheet music for some of Ian's favorites of his own songs . including Four Strong Winds, Magpie, Jaquima to Freno, M.C. Horses, and more . " I Never Sold My Saddle " . by Ian Tyson , with Colin Escott . published by Greystone Publishing, Vancouver 1994 |
Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
Jerry Jeff Walker (an old buddy of GL) and Ian: (1991)
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http://www.corfid.com/vbb/showthread...ighlight=tyson http://www.corfid.com/vbb/showthread...rry+jeff+tyson and here is when ian hooks up with sylvia...bit of a video synching problem http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=...18/Ch7LoY5qGgU hey, char...think ian and sylvia will do FSW tomorrow night? hope he does the recent and haunting Love Without End i am guessing JC will do Bulletproof, Try and hopefully a solo one, Everybody Cries or maybe a more uptempo one that doesn't rely on instrumental soloing...any predictions? also, wonder what tune the young guest artist will do the $30 discount special is enticing...i did find a nice single, centre seat, front row...balcony, lol...that would be great actually (to take in the full scene from that perspective...i love massey also in the balcony:)) but not realistic to think i can slide out the back door for 4 hours...have one for me! |
Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
agh, about 20 tunes from the pair of them just came into my mind, too many choices to predict really...i forgot about Too Many Hands or how about Rita (for his actress wife:) )
i hope JC wears a cowboy yolk shirt in keeping with tradition, like the beauty he has on here for this canadian county classic...love the video treatment (and Mel!) YouTube - Songbird |
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James - JC can just stand there. We three in the 2nd row will be more than happy.
I note that Ian has a few hawaiian flower shirts... Cuddy wears the cowboy shirts a lot...it will be funny if the real cowboy wears flowers and Cuddy is in the cowboy shirt. I'm not sure if Sylvia is still pres. of Songwriters Assoc. Could be someone else this year. But it would be wonderful, in my opinion, to have them sing it together like they did at Mariposa. Be still my heart. So many song choices...maybe a duet might happen. !! Don't have a clue who Wayne Petti of Cuff The Duke is..I've heard of the group tho. c'mon - get a ticket and head to the big city! |
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who is the third? shrek? kenyon? wow, you really like the stickman frame, lol (Cuddy, gordo, dwighto) i wish Heff could tinkle some real piano on stage (Massey has a beauty already there, always in tune!) for so many GL cuts...instead of the boingy e-piano colourings...then GL could also walk over and give us a few old classics himself, including some Liberace, lol well, i'll have to get the audio only version...too much stuff to do here for winter-prep (and rain coming in a few hours, what a stretch of dry we just had:)) back to the Subject...as Gord says to Ian in the clip, 'like H3LL you're jealous!!':cool: |
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the three amigos will be me, lisa and patti.
it's not ALL Lighfoot all the time for her either. lolol oh my that's a lovely video...we'll be about that close on Thursday.. security be ready! We pass that beach in SONGBIRD video on the GO train ride to/from TO. New reclamation projects over the last few years. |
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some of what Ian said on TV yesterday:(not my opinions or thoughts)
re: 4 strong winds.-albert grossman was mngr., in his office in greenwich village.. dylan was client too. i didn't understand his songs. Figured ‘I could do that’. Took an hour to write to write 4 strong winds.. Best song is always last one I wrote. 4 st.winds doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to fabric and culture of Canada. It hasn’t anything to do with me anymore. I get cheques tho. Have to work to afford a ranch.. Difficult divorce in last 5 years. That's behind me now. Music was refuge and escape. Gives himself over to music and forgets problems. Wouldn’t change much, wishes he’d worked harder on writing skills, had more focus. Fell in love with English language in my 40’s. "Wish I’d started it earlier." |
Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
some of what Ian said on TV yesterday:(not my opinions or thoughts)
re: 4 strong winds.-albert grossman was mngr., in his office in greenwich village.. dylan was client too. i didn't understand his songs. Figured ‘I could do that’. Took an hour to write to write 4 strong winds.. Best song is always last one I wrote. 4 st.winds doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to fabric and culture of Canada. It hasn’t anything to do with me anymore. I get cheques tho. Have to work to afford a ranch.. Difficult divorce in last 5 years. That's behind me now. Music was refuge and escape. Gives himself over to music and forgets problems. Wouldn’t change much, wishes he’d worked harder on writing skills, had more focus. Fell in love with English language in my 40’s. "Wish I’d started it earlier." |
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It should be quite interesting tomorrow night. I just hope that Laurie Brown asks some intelligent questions. |
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http://www.nationalpost.com/Write+co...892/story.html
.Ben Kaplan · Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010 Doctors have made Ian Tyson stop drinking hard alcohol and so the Canadian legend orders Chardonnay. “I’d rather be drinking Grey Goose, but that gets out of control,” says the 77-year-old musician, taking his seat at a downtown Toronto bar. Tyson, a recipient of the Order of Canada and a member of the Juno Hall of Fame, is visiting Toronto from his home in Alberta to promote his new memoir, The Long Trail: My Life in the West. “It wasn’t going to be War and Peace, that’s for sure,” says Tyson, who writes candidly in his book about his tragedies and triumphs in the five decades he’s spent writing songs. “I didn’t know if I could write the damned thing and then I didn’t know who the hell would want to read about all that cowboy stuff, but the last couple of days have been a pleasant surprise.” Written with the same plain-spoken elegance as Tyson’s most famous records, the book not only talks about the breakout of Ian & Sylvia in the early 1960s and the reception of 1987’s Cowboyography, but also Tyson’s squandered marriages, and his ensuing financial woes. “Some of the early stuff is real vivid, I can see it, but then I don’t remember last week,” says Tyson, looking every inch of the Western icon in his work boots, faded denim and immaculate white hat. “I’ve gotten the s--t kicked out of me, and writing the book was very emotional, but if you can make it through life’s trials and tribulations, it’s cool.” Cool is something that comes effortlessly to Tyson, who still works everyday on his ranch. “I’m getting to the point where I dread some of those mornings where it’s 20-below and the wind’s howling and the live stocks got to be fed. You think, ‘What am I doing here?’ ” he says. “It’s so tough and beautiful, but you’ve got to respect it. In my life, you’re defined by the land.” Influenced by novelists such as Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy, Tyson writes without sentimentality about losing his voice, the origin of cowboy poetry and what it takes to become a true man of the West. “Nobody knows what the word ‘cowboy’ means anymore, but among the real inside guys, guys we call ‘lifers,’ that word’s the highest compliment you can give,” Tyson explains. “You’re saying he can do all the stuff that a cowboy’s supposed to do — stuff you can’t fake — but mostly it just means that his word is good.” Today, Tyson’s writing songs again, music that’s stripped down in the manner of the last releases from Johnny Cash. He says there’s going to be a new DVD recorded in Alberta, but when he gets home after his book tour, he’s going to return to his love of art. “I want to paint skulls, ram skulls. Kind of like in the Georgia O’Keeffe tradition,” Tyson says, draining his wine. “If it’s emotionally draining I may just say, ‘Screw it,’ but I don’t think it will be. I think it will be fun.” The Long Trail: My Life in the West by Ian Tyson is published by Random House Canada ($29.95). The book will be in stores Oct. 23. . Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/Write+co...#ixzz131XDRTYI |
Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
To do believe I heard Neil Young say that he included 4 Strong Winds on "Comes A Time" to help Tyson.
Neil also performed it at The Band's Last Waltz, but it was left off the original soundtrack and the film. It is included in the 2002 CD reissue. |
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That quote about his life is something, to paraphrase "70% of the time I'm happy and 30% is just the pits." I think he sums up life pretty well :-)
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it's usually a long round.... |
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I was just reminded by Ed (Pee Wee) that he backed Ian on the Ian Tyson Show (1971-1975) with the band The Great Speckled Bird and Sylvia..
http://www.thecoolgroove.com/ian_tyson_show.html - every show had a message from Ian about the environment—a reminder to the viewers to take care of their world in some specific way. http://archives.cbc.ca/society/celeb...s/clips/12016/ |
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""We're going to record 'em ourselves at the ranch and put 'em online," he said. "I think we'll go with iTunes — whatever that is, I don't know. But I have people who do know what it is."
Wish Gord would do that. |
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By Greg Quill
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment...s-rocky-trails Entertainment Reporter Tequila and More Show Toronto, December 3, 2010 Life hangs on Ian Tyson like a coat that's a little too big. The once piercing eyes are grey now, and bloodshot. On this cool and bright fall morning, the Canadian folk and country music legend winces as he lowers himself slowly into an office armchair in the Toronto headquarters of Random House Canada, publisher of his just-released memoir, The Long Trail: My Life in the West. His bones give him trouble. He has been thrown a few times too many, he says. Arthritis, the legacy of too many winters on his Longview, Alberta horse ranch, makes it hard for him to write, to firmly grip things, but, strangely, not to shape chords on his guitar. At 77 he'd like to take winters off, go down to New Mexico or Arizona, but there's no one to take over his chores back home. “Help is hard to find,” he says in a hoarse, high whisper. His vocal cords, scarred a few years after a winter throat infection, have robbed Tyson of his distinctive, assertive tenor. The new voice, less strained and more melodic than it was on his last album, 2008's Yellowhead to Yellowstone and other Love Stories still takes some getting used to, he acknowledges. “Lots of my people like it now . . . they say it's ‘interesting.' ” To another singer, the loss of such a remarkable instrument, an irreplaceable signature, would be a catastrophe. To Tyson, it was just another bad fall. “I just couldn't stop working,” he says. “I was in the middle of a very expensive divorce. I was broke. Everything was falling apart. I was in Sierra Vista, Arizona when it happened, and you could actually hear the shock, a great gasp in the crowd. “But I kept on singing until everyone was relaxed, and the band was rocking . . . and I thought, ‘Maybe I can do this.'” That brand of perseverance and bareback bravado is a constant underlying theme in Tyson's slim autobiography, more a collection of road stories, horse yarns, love stories, musical sidebars and heartfelt ruminations on the disappearance of the True West over the past 30 years, than an assiduously documented account of his life. “I did it for the money,” he admits up front, as if to get the question out of the way. “They offered me a very generous advance, and I really needed it.” Random House even provided professional assistance, Calgary writer Jeremy Klaszus, who pieced together the hours of Tyson's recordings. “I don't type,” Tyson chuckles. “And my hands hurt too much to write longhand. It takes me half an hour to write out a couple of song verses.” His abundant achievements notwithstanding, Tyson comes across in the book as an impulsive and often self-involved romantic whose obsessions — music, broken love affairs, horses and the free-range cowboy life — were evident in the very first songs he wrote (“Four Strong Winds,” “Someday Soon”) as a member of Toronto's burgeoning folk music scene in the 1960s. That he somehow foresaw and fully realized his destiny is remarkable in itself. If, as Freud said, true happiness is becoming the person we imagined we'd be as children, then Tyson, who seems in the book impressed by the way his father “approached life in a visceral, non-intellectual way,” and knew at age 6 that he would live a good part of his life in a saddle, can't complain. But he does. There's a lot of grumbling in his memoir — about oil and gas development in his pastoral backyard, about getting taken to the cleaners in the divorce from the love of his life, Twylla, and having to part with half his land and most precious possessions to settle his debts, about the music business, about the hard Alberta winter, about too many nights on the road and ungrateful audiences, about protest singers, and about the gentrification of the West, for which he takes a modicum of blame for having idealized his lifestyle so evocatively in his groundbreaking, platinum 1987 album, Cowboyography. A relationship with a woman in Colorado, tentatively hopeful at the end of the book, has subsequently “gone south,” he says. “I do need a good woman,” he adds ruefully, as if he hasn't had his share. “I'd kinda like to give up on love.” Tyson has always been short-tempered. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. I once saw him rip apart a young interviewer for asking questions he didn't like, about Ian & Sylvia. “That only lasted about two years before the wheels fell off,” he says. “Once the Beatles took over, the folk music thing disappeared, though it seems healthy enough now, a couple of generations later. I get so many questions about those early days . . . ” Apart from Calgary songwriter Corb Lund — also a former rodeo rider — there's not much he likes about contemporary music. “I don't get it, this new alternative pop roots stuff. I got bebop, I got disco, but a lot of what I hear on radio now is just inarticulate. The women all scream and the men sound like sissies.” Tyson doesn't like wasting time. He still walks a good mile most mornings, after tending to his animals and a bacon breakfast, to the stone house on his property where he composes. “I don't hold grudges for very long,” he says. Fences with Twylla have apparently been mended. His children — Clay, who, like his mother, singer-songwriter Sylvia Tyson, prefers city life, and Adelita, his daughter with Twylla, “has become a bona fide Texan, more's the pity” — are talking to him again after years of estrangement. “I'm still buddies with all my ladies,” he adds. “You don't get many years to have a good time, and it's debilitating to wallow in bad feelings.” What's worrying him these days is the ranch. “I'm trying to downsize, streamline the operation. I sold off a lot of land, and I could sell some more. I don't need a big spread to be happy . . . been there, done that. “It's the endless goddamn winter that gets me down. That's a young man's deal.” Music is something else. He performs 40 or 50 shows a year and he's still writing songs, he says. “They don't come as quickly as they used to, but they're good songs. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'll have four or five new songs by Christmas.” Despite the pain in his hands, he's playing better than ever, he says. “My vision is clearer for some reason . . . I'm playing at a higher level. “Working with music is like working with horses — there's always the next level.” |
Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
STEPHEN BRUNT
Ian Tyson ever the rodeo rider, with no bull From Friday's Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...rticle1767794/ Published Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010 6:08PM EDT Last updated Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010 7:54PM EDT There have been cowboys who sang and singers who claimed to be cowboys, but the fact is and was that there’s a whole lot of pretend in between. Ian Tyson, though, is close to the genuine article. Two central narrative lines wind through his biography, as spun out in his just published memoir The Long Trail: My Life in the West. They are equal and inextricable and at key moments they intersect. One is musical, a career that took him to Greenwich Village before Bob Dylan was Bob Dylan, that included the years as half of Ian & Sylvia, the composition of tunes for the ages such as Four Strong Winds, Someday Soon and Summer Wages, the brief country rock flowering of Great Speckled Bird, television hosting and a later-life incarnation as a cowboy troubadour. The other is rodeo, the only sport that exists in contemporary, professional form that also has direct links to work, and to a distinctive way of life. Doctors and pipefitters and sportswriters don’t spend their off hours indulging in a recreational, competitive version of what it is they do for a living. Rodeo cowboys, in their purest incarnation, do. Tyson, who was born on Vancouver Island, began rodeo riding as a young man, before music became his central focus, and has continued to ride and compete almost until this day. In fact, he was lying in a Calgary hospital, his ankle held together with pins after a saddle bronc stepped on him, when what would become his other calling really took hold. “After the surgery, I was put in a broken-leg ward for two weeks, along with a telephone lineman and a couple of other cowboys,” he writes. “The kid in the bed next to me had a guitar, and I started to learn this song I kept hearing on the radio. The singer was an Arkansas-born guy, about my age, whose name was Johnny Cash. The song that kept playing on the radio started like this: I keep a close watch on this heart of mine…” The book – and this probably comes as no surprise to those who know Tyson best – is short and straightforward and to the point. It contains what must be the most unique reference to Émile Zola’s Nana in all of literature (won’t wreck the surprise here), and it details Tyson’s life and loves and his early infatuation with the world of cowboys, first through the books of Will James, who became the subject of one of Tyson’s songs and whose own life on the range turned out to be largely fictional. “Will James was mostly bull,” Tyson, 77, says over lunch. Yes, he is a man of strong, unadulterated opinions, definite politics (Steve Earle cursed Tyson’s right-wing leanings in concert the other night before playing a beautiful version of Summer Wages), a rugged individualist of the old school, living on a ranch in southern Alberta. He still makes music, though his voice these days is a raspy ghost of the magnificent instrument of old, and he still keeps horses, still rides. Tyson has little time for the modern, glitzy, cash-driven incarnation of rodeo. Professional bull riders, he says, are more akin to bikers than to cowboys. “The new generation of those guys, those athletes, they want NBA money, which is ridiculous, I think,” he says. “So the big rodeos like Calgary, which is a big oil-and-gas deal, it’s not cowboy. … Calgary’s just a [expletive] circus. “The last few years I haven’t followed it, because I don’t want to follow it.” But pure, organic rodeo is still out there, he says, in the small-town competitions that survive, in the working cowboys who still ply their trade on some of the big ranches, in team-roping and cutting-horse competitions (Tyson was part of the latter until a couple of years ago, and made it all the way to a final in 1989), in the mystic relationship that can exist between man and horse. “The horse is really at the root of the cowboy thing,” he says. “It’s not at the root of the modern rodeo thing.” Still out there, in the imagination, in lore and literature and in song, and for those who know where to look, still out there for real, though try to catch it while you can. “It’s all part,” Tyson says, “of the disappearing West.” |
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http://www.facebook.com/notes/richar...50108147596164
FYI #7 — Ian Tyson rides again! .by Richard Flohil on Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 12:24pm. Songwriter, performer, rancher, and irascible and charming in turn, Ian Tyson writes a tell-most autobiography and aims for the best-seller lists. Richard Flohil has known Ian Tyson for longer than most, has yet to ride a horse, and admires the grumpy old man for simply being himself. WRITE A BOOK, TELL YOUR TRUTH AND THEN HIT THE PUBLICITY ROUNDS It’s been Ian Tyson’s big week in the Big Smoke. Honoured at the Canadian Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. Big piece in the Toronto Star by Greg Quill. An even bigger piece in the Globe and Mail — on the sports pages, yet — by Stephen Brunt. Big coverage in the National Post. A Nick Patch story on the Canadian Press wire. A Sunday morning interview on CBC by Michael Enright. A shot on Canada AM. It all marked the release of The Long Trail: My Life in the West, the iconic songwriter’s autobiography, and you gotta hand it to the Random House publicist, Scott Sellers. This sort of thing doesn’t happen very often, and since everyone else has written about Tyson this week, I’m adding a few words, if only because I go back a lot further than most. And although I’ve done press for Tyson on and off for the best part of 20 years — because he records for my client Stony Plain Records — it won’t be a puff piece. Back in 1965, when I was considered — most inaccurately — as some sort of blues expert, I was invited to something called the Mariposa Folk Festival, held north of Toronto at a place called Innis Lake. I co-hosted a “blues workshop” featuring Son House, John Hammond, Sippie Wallace and the duo of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, along with Mr. House’s manager Dick Waterman (starting a friendship that continues to this day). And, in a life-changing experience over three days, I heard and met Gord Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Phil Ochs, Buffy Ste. Marie, a newcomer called Joni Anderson, the Staple Singers and the Rev. Gary Davis. And the incomparable duo of Ian and Sylvia. Canada’s first international pop artists When you discount Guy Lombardo and Percy Faith — Canadians who had gone off to the United States and rarely returned — you can make a case that Ian Tyson and his wife Sylvia Fricker were Canada’s first international pop stars. By the time they played Mariposa in 1965, they had already played the Newport Folk Festival twice, not to mention Carnegie Hall. They had an apartment in New York and were managed by mogul Albert Grossman, who also steered the careers of Dylan, Peter Paul & Mary, Odetta, and later went on to handle Janis Joplin and The Band (It’s not widely known that Tyson was responsible for getting Grossman to sign a young kid from Toronto called Gordon Lightfoot). Ian & Sylvia were young and handsome and remarkably self-assured. Tyson wore shiny black cowboy boots, which I thought were incomparably cool (and I’ve worn cowboy boots ever since), and Sylvia’s regal grace — and long brunette hair — made her a memorable fantasy figure. As we all know, true love — and success in the music business — doesn’t last for ever. Half a dozen albums on various labels (Vanguard, Ampex, MGM, Columbia) followed, with diminishing returns. After a couple of years with a music show on CTV, Ian (now divorced from Sylvia) went out west, worked as a ranch hand, played with a pick up band on weekends in a Calgary bar, and worked towards building a ranch to raise quarter horses. With the income from Neil Young’s version of “Four Strong Winds” — the first song Tyson had ever written — he bought his first spread. The call of music was too strong, and ever since Tyson has had two careers — the ranch (which he’s now downsizing) and music. There are now a dozen CDs on Stony Plain (including reissues of earlier records on Bearsville, Boot, and A&M_ and a touring schedule that sees him playing between 40 and 60 concerts a year. Along the way — and he’s certainly frank in his book — he’s had some pretty heavy affairs, a costly divorce that’s seriously damaged him financially, and some uncertain relationships with his two kids.. The passage of time, a crappy sound system at a country festival, and a virus all turned his once-smooth voice into a hoarse, grainy, croak. (Oddly enough, the broken voice helped the story-telling nature of most of his songs — and, in the last couple of years, has improved considerably.) Why Ian Tyson doesn’t give a shit Tyson is often his own worst enemy. He’s pissed off dozens of people who have supported him — music industry people, radio folk, journalists and fans alike. He’s moody, irascible, doesn’t suffer fools for a second, and has been known to throw a few punches in bar fights. His politics — save for a deep commitment to ecological issues — have often been to the right of Atilla the Hun, although he does seem to be mellowing these days. Most times, Ian Tyson just doesn’t give a shit. When asked why he wrote the book, he just says that he needed the sizable advance Random House offered him. When asked how he wrote it, he responded, using a word you’ve not heard for 20 years, by saying “I hired a stenographer.” He rarely misses an opportunity to grumble at the CBC, complains commercial radio won’t touch his records with a barge-pole, and hangs up on interviewers if they haven’t done their research or want to know about the Ian & Sylvia days (“that was 50 years back” he grumbles). But despite all that, the songs really tell Tyson’s story, and often better than this slim, sometimes self-serving, book does. He practices two hours each day to keep the arthritis in his hands at bay, he’s still writing (though he says he’s uncertain whether he’ll make another record), and he includes a couple of fine new songs in his live show. Tyson walks proudly, although he’s had a couple of new knees and a hip replacement, and he’s broken way too many bones being thrown off horses. He’s a westerner, heart and soul, and he puts up with Toronto, dreads the Alberta winter, likes to travel (a recent trip to Morocco has yielded a wonderful new song), and he knows his Prairies history better than almost anyone alive. At 77, he’s still in it for the long haul, because he is aware of the alternative. Flawed, flinty, funny, outspoken, charming when he wants to be, Ian Tyson is who he is, take it or leave it. And “legendary”, for once, is the perfect word to describe him. _____________________________________________ Interesting factoid of the week: Like all good writer, Ian Tyson reads. And he’s had a subscription to The New Yorker for years (“Don’t like their pop writer, though”). And he masturbated for the first time while reading Emile Zola. True – it’s in his book. Quote of the week: “The fact that I can still move people with my stories — I live for that. I get a couple of hours of real bliss on stage, until the pain in my hands gets bad. Old age is not for wimps.” — Ian Tyson. Videos of the week: There’s a dearth of Ian Tyson video — but this compilation of images that accompanies one of his very best Western songs, “MC Horses” is well worth watching. Nobody writes a story like Tyson can. More than 20 years after he wrote “Four Strong Winds” Ian and Sylvia reprised the song on a 1986 “reunion” CBC TV show. Check the finale with (from left to right!) Murray McLauchlan, Judy Collins, Gordon Lightfoot and Emmylou Harris. Richard Flohil is a Toronto writer, publicist, editor, promoter and a music addict with 10,000 records and CDs in his living room. This is a personal column about the music worlds he lives in — the stories he hears, the music he listens to, the artists and backstage people he meets. Declaration of interest: He’s handled publicity, on and off, for Ian Tyson for some 20-odd years. http://www.richardflohil.com/ |
Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
It's interesting to read all these perspectives. When I interviewed him in Ft. Worth back in 1992 he was very gracious (and had surprised the crap out of me by calling my house himself to set up the meeting!)
Of course I was interviewing him about guitars and that westerny music culture...no questions about the Sylia days, and only glancingly about Lightfoot because he told me about working with and learning from Red Shea. Like Lightfoot, he seems to have often been his own worst enemy, but ya gotta love the rugged individualistic authenticity of a guy like this. |
Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
some pics from the event - I'll suss out some performance pics.. (I can't save the pics at this site for some reason) Here's the link:
http://www.snapnorthyork.com/index.p...206729&lang=en |
Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
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Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
show is up at CBC radio 2
http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/cod/concerts/20101021iycrm |
Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
Thats interesting. How can someone be so frank about his feelings like that? Especially in the public.
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Re: Ian Tyson book - jealous of Lightfoot
this will be enjoyable time spent, thanks a ton, char! ...the wait it over:)
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