A Stony Plain artist’s bio
Ian Tyson
A Canadian icon reflects on the things that
matter to him: The prairies, the legends of the
West, and the changing life of a veteran artist
Stony Plain releases “Songs from the Gravel Road”,
Ian Tyson’s first CD of new songs since 1999’s “Lost Herd”
The gravel road runs from Ian Tyson’s ranch house in the foothills of the Rockies south of Calgary. It’s about a mile away from the stone cottage that he uses as a writing retreat, and the daily walk — in good weather and bad — is a time for thinking, for watching the sky and the birds and the deer, and for writing songs.
The trees along the gravel road were planted years ago, and local legend says the cottage was built by hand in either 1916, or maybe 1940 — nobody seems very sure — by the folk who settled that stretch of country. The walls are two feet thick, and there’s a new steel roof. There’s a living room, two tiny bedrooms, and a big bathroom with a furnace in the middle of it.
And, like Tyson’s songs, it’s here to stay.
There’s no pen and paper on the walk along the gravel road; no miniature tape recorder. That has to wait until Tyson’s arrived, shrugged off his coat, adjusted the heating, and warmed up his winter-chilled fingers.
Tyson has long been one of Canada’s most respected singer-songwriters. A pioneer who began his career in the early days of the first folk boom in the ’60s, he was one of the first Canadians to break into the American popular music market. In the years that followed he hosted his own TV show, recorded some of the best “folk” albums ever made, quit the music business and became — after years of backbreaking work — a rodeo rider and a successful rancher.
And then, in the mid-’80s, he returned to music with a vengeance, combining his two separate lives in songs that explained the reality of “western culture” and the mindset of a cowboy in a sometimes-alien world.
Tyson’s list of honours — from the Order of Canada to platinum records, Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Awards — is too lengthy to repeat. He tours constantly across Canada, and through the western states in the US.
Ian Tyson is not a prolific songwriter. There are times when he despairs that he won’t write another song — but then they come to him, often as he walks along the gravel road. “I guess 80 per cent of my songs come on that walk,” he says.
“Sometimes they come fast; other take a lot longer. There’s one song here, ‘The Ambler Saddle’, that seemed to take for ever; Ambler was a legendary man, and there are so many stories about him — many from people who knew him — and I wanted the song about him to be true to him.” And there’s another song, “This is My Sky”, that came in 20 minutes.
Tyson cuts demo versions of his songs in the stone cottage (“although the furnace makes such a racket you have to turn it off when you’re recording”), after he’s written down and joined the phrases and snatches of melody he’s discovered on his walks down the travel road. His regular on-the-road accompanists, Gord Matthews (guitar, vocals) and Gord Maxwell (bass, vocals) play a key role in the way the songs develop, and in making the demos.
The recording process that follows takes Tyson a long way from the gravel road — just about as far, physically and mentally, as he’s prepared to go.
“Songs from the Gravel Road” was recorded in Toronto with celebrated producer Danny Greenspoon — and a backup band of some of the best players in Toronto. And if the likes of guitarist Kevin Breit, horn players Phil Dwyer, Steve McDade and Guido Basso, and drummer Mark Kelso are better known in the jazz community than the world of “country” music, that’s cool with Tyson.
“I took a gamble,” he says. “They’re young guys, they’re great jazz and pop musicians, and they have no connection with my kind of life. I wanted them to bring a different sensibility to the songs. And they are songs that I couldn’t hear with the standard ‘country’ instrumentation, which is often so mind-numbingly predictable.”
The sessions went incredibly fast — the group cut five songs in a single afternoon, in part because the demos Tyson had made in the stone cottage were such good guideposts. Now the record is done, and Tyson is settling into another heavy round of touring in Canada and the United States.
He’ll miss the Alberta skies, the deer along the gravel road, and he stone cottage. But he wants to share the true stories of a part of Canada too few people know, and the details of lives well lived.
—30—
For further information, contact:
Stony Plain Records (403) 468-6423 FAX (403) 465-8941
E-Mail: info@stonyplainrecords.com
Web site: www.stonyplainrecords.com/net
|
Add to Shopping Cart
