Tyson’s songwriting ‘Gift’
Tribute album celebrates music of country folk legend
By CASSANDRA SZKLARSKI The Canadian Press
AFTER MORE THAN five decades establishing himself as a legend in Canadian folk country music, songwriter Ian Tyson says he’s run out of ideas.
The 74-year-old cowboy says he struggles with a craft that once came so easily to him, chalking up the difficulties to a lengthy career that at times feels like it’s exhausted his inspiration.
"It gets harder," Tyson says of the writing process, which he continues to labour over each day. "Because you’ve used up a tremendous amount of your personal experience over the years."
He says it’s no coincidence that his best-known and most celebrated song, Four Strong Winds, was one of the first he ever wrote.
He penned the classic track, considered one of the greatest Canadian songs ever written, in the early ’60s just before marrying former musical partner Sylvia Tyson and going on to conquer the folk circuit.
"I wrote it in New York City, on a rainy autumn afternoon, as a matter of fact," Tyson recalls in a recent phone interview from his Rocky Mountain ranch south of Calgary. "I remember those days. I don’t remember last week, but I remember those days."
He borrowed his then-manager’s little apartment on Manhattan’s east side to write the song. It took about half an hour.
"It was just a song, I wanted to see if I could do it," he says. "And I found out apparently I could, but . . . that really gets back to the whole root of that thing — I had my whole life experience to draw on that I hadn’t used."
That remarkable song went on to find an extended life through covers, with some 50 versions recorded in the first five years after its release. Neil Young, Sarah McLachlan, Hank Snow, Bob Dylan, Waylon Jennings, the Tragically Hip and Johnny Cash are among those to have put their stamp on it.
Most recently, the song has been tackled by country-pop veterans Blue Rodeo, whose rendition kicks off a tribute album to Tyson’s songs released last month.
The Gift: A Tribute to Ian Tyson (Stony Plain Records) includes 15 songs culled from five decades. It features Corb Lund with MC Horses, Jennifer Warnes on Blue Mountains of Mexico, Gordon Lightfoot singing Red Velvet and The Circus in Flames with Buddy Cage taking on Someday Soon.
"I think it’s just about perfect," Tyson says of the song selection, even though he was not involved in the process. "There’s a couple songs that I would rather have had . . . but I won’t say which ones they are. The vast majority of the songs on the album are ones I’d have chosen."
Tyson’s last album of new material came in 2005 with Songs From the Gravel Road, and it was six years before that that the cowboy came out with 1999’s Lost Herd.
The Alberta rancher says he’s plugging away at new tunes but suggested a whole album of new material would be quite a ways off.
"I’ve got two or three songs I’m trying to finish and they’re being stubborn," says Tyson, whose day typically begins at 5:30 a.m. with ranch chores.
"But I think one of them is pretty good and it’s almost done. So I’ll just try to keep working on it ’til it gives up."
Songwriting has become a ritual of sort, notes Tyson, who is also fighting degenerative arthritis.
"I go to my writing place," he says. "I practise the guitar everyday because at my age, you know, with arthritis and stuff, you use it or lose it. You have to really keep doing it or you’ll suddenly find it’s gone. So I try to do that and it’s a grind. Some days it’s a lot of fun and other days it’s a total drag but you have to do it."
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