Neil Young – AcousticMusicScene.com

Remembering Ian Tyson, 1933-2022

Michael Kornfeld — Sat, 07 Jan 2023 16:48:05 +0000

Ian Tyson

Ian Tyson, an influential Canadian troubadour best known for having penned the hit songs “Four Strong Winds” and “Someday Soon” as half of the internationally acclaimed folk duo Ian & Sylvia, died on December 29, 2022 at his ranch in southern Alberta at age 89. Folk DJ Charlie Backfish will pay tribute to him and his music during a special edition of his long-running weekly radio show Sunday Street that airs January 8 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET on WUSB 90.1 FM on Long Island, NY and online at wusb.fm or https://tunein.com/radio/WUSB-901-s2324/.

Born to British immigrants in Victoria, British Columbia on September 25, 1933, Tyson grew up in Duncan, BC. He was a rough-stock rodeo rider in his late teens and early 20s and took up the guitar as “the means by which to pass the time” during a two-week hospital stay while recovering from a shattered ankle — an injury he sustained in a bad fall while competing in the Dog Pound Rodeo in Alberta.

Tyson hitchhiked from Vancouver to Toronto in 1958 after graduating from the Vancouver School of Art and became part of the city’s nascent folk scene centered around the coffee houses of its bohemian Yorkville neighborhood. There he met a young singer named Sylvia Fricker, who would become his musical and life partner for a while. They moved to New York, where noted manager Albert Grossman (Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary, Pozo Seco Singers, etc.) signed Ian & Sylvia to Vanguard Records and they became an important part of the early 1960s folk revival.

The duo released its eponymously titled debut album in 1962 before getting hitched two years later. They would go on to record and release nearly a dozen albums. Although Ian and Sylvia’s 1964 sophomore release, Four Strong Winds, featured primarily covers of songs by others, its original title track became one of Canada’s best-loved songs and, along with “Someday Soon” and Sylvia’s “You Were on My Mind,” has been covered by numerous other artists — a number of whom will be featured on Sunday Street.

Here’s a link to view a video of Ian and Sylvia performing Four Strong Winds for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3m7ckGhnsc

As the folk boom began to wane later in the 1960s, spurred in part by the British Invasion, Ian & Sylvia moved to Nashville and began incorporating elements of country and rock into their music. They formed the band Great Speckled Bird in 1969 and becoming pioneers of country-rock, along with the Byrds and others.

After hosting a national Canadian television music show from 1970 to 1975, Tyson realized his dream of returning to the Canadian West. His marriage to Sylvia had ended in divorce in 1975 and Tyson, disillusioned with the Canadian country music scene, opted to return to his first love – training horses in the ranch country of southern Alberta.

Tyson Turns to Cowboy Songs and Western Music

His songwriting was greatly affected by his change in lifestyle – most notably on his third solo album, 1983’s Old Corrals & Sagebrush, comprised solely of traditional and new cowboy songs that he recorded after spending three idyllic years cowboying in the Rockies at Pincher Creek. Although Tyson didn’t know it at the time, a cowboy renaissance was about to find expression at the first Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering that year in a small cow town in northern Nevada. Invited to perform his ‘new western music” at it, Tyson was a regular attendee at the gatherings for more than 30 years. Tyson’s 1987 album Cowboyography also helped to re-launch his touring career across Canada and the U.S.

Tyson seriously damaged his voice following a particularly tough performance at an outdoor country music festival in 2006. “I fought the sound system and I lost,” he said afterwards. With a virus that took months to pass, his smooth voice was now hoarse, grainy, and had lost much of its resonant bottom end. After briefly entertaining thoughts that he would never sing again, he began relearning and reworking his songs to accommodate his ‘new voice.’ To his surprise, audiences now paid rapt attention as he half-spoke, half-sung familiar words, which seemed to reveal new depths for his listeners, according to publicist Eric Alper. Although a heart attack, followed by open heart surgery in 2015, further damaged his voice, Tyson continued to release music well into his senior years – including the 2015 album Carnero Vaquero and his last single, “You Should Have Known.” Released in September 2017 on Stony Plains Records, the Canadian label on which he released 15 albums since the 1980s, that song unapologetically celebrates the hard living, hard drinking, hard loving cowboy life.

Tyson was a Much-Honored Artist During His Lifetime

Tyson earned numerous awards and accolades over the years. A Juno Award recipient for country male vocalist of the year in 1987 and a Canadian Country Music Hall of Famer since 1989, Tyson was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame – along with his former wife and singing partner, Sylvia, three years later. He became a member of the Order of Canada in 1994, received a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in 2003, and was inducted into the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2006. ASCAP paid tribute to him during the 20th annual Folk Alliance International Conference in 2008, while he was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2019.

January 7 Sunday Street Tribute to Ian Tyson will Feature Music, Stories and Reflections

On the January 7 edition of Sunday Street, Backfish will explore Tyson’s wide-ranging career. He’ll share some recently-recorded reflections from Tom Russell, a widely acclaimed folk and Americana singer-songwriter, painter and essayist who co-wrote may songs with Tyson and recorded Play One More: The Songs of Ian and Sylvia (2017), featuring some of the duo’s lesser-known songs.

A Tom Russell painting of his longtime friend, mentor and musical collaborator Ian Tyson.
“It’s hard to come forth with words about the passing of Ian Tyson, wrote Russell in a Facebook post shortly after he died. “My friend and mentor for so many years. He was the best man at our wedding in Elko. We co-wrote at least 10 songs including Navajo Rug [the 1986 Canadian country song of the year], Claude Dallas, Rose of San Joaquin, When The Wolves No Longer Sing, and Ross Knox. We had a good talk a little while ago. My thoughts go back to many great memories of co-writing songs in a cabin in the Rockies. It’s a sad day. He’ll be with me forever.”

Here are links to view videos of Russell and Tyson performing Tyson’s classic “Summer Wages” and their co-write “Navajo Rug” in Calgary in 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4Rk-E_spoI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGlbCQ_DjdE

The three-hour radio show will also feature stories and observations from Tyson himself, Sylvia Tyson, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, interspersed with music. “Many of Tyson’s songs, as well as his vocals on the songs of others will be part of the three-hour program, according to Backfish. Besides Tyson himself, Ian and Sylvia, The Great Speckled Bird, and Tom Russell, listeners will hear from Neil Young (who covered “Four Strong Winds” on his 1978 album Comes A Time), Gordon Lightfoot (who Ian and Sylvia mentored and whose song “Early Morning Rain” was the title track of their 1965 release), Greg Brown and Bill Morrissey, Lucy Kaplansky, Fourtold, Gretchen Peters, James Keelaghan and Jez Lowe, Marianne Faithfull, Cindy Church, Corb Lund (an Alberta-based Canadian country artist with whom Tyson performed a series of concerts in 2018 and who told CBC News in a 2019 interview “He’s kind of our Willie Nelson or Johnny Cash or Leonard Cohen. He’s a guy who’s most embodied the region in art, musically at least.”), Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, The McDades, Michael Martin Murphey, and Bob Dylan (who recorded Tyson’s song “One Single River,” along with the Band, in Woodstock, New York, in 1967).

Quick Q & A with Jon Shain

Michael Kornfeld — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:36:44 +0000

Jon Shain has developed and refined his own contemporary version of the Piedmont blues, a bouncy energetic style that developed in and around his adopted hometown of Durham, North Carolina and to which he was introduced while a history major at Duke University. After graduating in 1989, Jon decided to pursue a career in music and has been writing songs and honing his fingerstyle guitar playing skills ever since. A 2009 International Blues Challenge finalist, he tours regularly and will help close out the AcousticMusicScene.com showcase at this month’s Southeast Regional Folk Alliance (SERFA) Conference in Montreat, NC. Kathy Sands-Boehmer posed some questions to him about his recently released eighth solo studio album, Ordinary Cats, and his career to date.

Jon Shain
In this interview Jon Shain goes into detail about the making of his latest CD, Ordinary Cats, geeky music tuning, strings, and musical modes, and, oh yeah, a bit about some of the inspirational people in his life. It’s interesting to note Jon’s comments about people’s conceptions about blues in the folk world and folk in the blues world. It’s always fascinating to learn more about this Haverhill, Massachusetts born and raised bluesman.

Your newest recording, Ordinary Cats, features you on electric guitar. When you wrote the songs, did they just scream for a more electric sound?

Originally, when I started the CD, I was thinking of a really stripped down guitar and vocal sound. But these things have a way of developing organically, and one added instrument sound often begets another. When we added the drums to a few of the tunes, it just pushed the music in a direction that I decided to embrace instead of fighting. I’ve always played the electric guitar on the side — more in the last 15 years or so — on other people’s recordings and shows than on my own, so it was pretty easy to add it to this recording. I have a whole set of electric guitar influences that don’t really have to do with my acoustic guitar influences, so I think it works fine to have “two” of me on some of the songs.

Was it your intention from the beginning to make this a more rootsier album than your past recording ventures?

Well, we started working on two projects at the same time — the live album with my group — which became The Kress Sessions [released in 2011] and the beginnings of Ordinary Cats [just released]. I decided to put the more ragtime, swing-influenced songs on the live one and make that one sound different from the studio album. Probably, if anything, it is the lyrics that set the songs apart. They both sound pretty rootsy, in my opinion — I just indulged my classic rock background a bit more on Ordinary Cats. It was a conscious decision not to use the exact same instrumentation on it as in the last few albums. So a different backing vocal sound was key to that. And not using as much dobro and harmonica gave us room to experiment with more keyboards and multiple guitars, and with mandolin tracks.

Tell us about the other players on Ordinary Cats.

FJ Ventre played upright bass and electric bass and co-produced the album with me. He engineered the whole project and did a great job. The main male backing vocalist was Greg Humphreys, a buddy of mine and talented singer-songwriter who has a very cool husky but high vocal style. The female backing vocalist was Lizzy Ross, who is a great young talent also from North Carolina. Pete Connolly, from the alt-folk group Birds and Arrows, played the drums on several tracks; his sound helped define our arrangement decisions going forward from there. Danny Gotham played mandolin and mandola, adding nice textures to the guitar parts. The keyboards were added by Wes Lachot and Lindsay Rosebrock, with Jim Kremidas adding pedal steel to one track also. Our mix engineer was the great Chris Stamey — and he always adds a few little musical doo-dads along the way.

You have cited Neil Young and Stephen Stills as inspirations for the sound on this latest record. What is it about their style that makes its way onto your record?

I have been a big fan of Neil Young, Stephen Stills, CSN (& Y), and Buffalo Springfield since I was a kid. I think it was those fringe suede leather jackets that piqued my interest. I used to always ask my parents to stop at Deerskin Trading Post on Rt. 1 in Danvers, when we were on our way to Boston for things, just so I could look at those coats. I finally did get a used one when I was in my 20s in a shop in Asheville, NC. Now I can’t wear it because you need a certain amount of hair to pull off that look. I’m hoping my daughter will discover that jacket someday and make it her own . . . but I digress. . . . Anyway, Stills and Young both did a lot with Drop D tuning and drone strings, and with certain musical modes. Not to get too music-geeky, but I use the mixolydian and dorian modes a lot in my playing, and I’m sure that’s influenced by those guys. When you cross in the blues- pentatonic style influence, it’s like a weird cross between Celtic folk music and American blues. I am interested in exploring that mesh.

One of your career highlights is that you were an International Blues Challenge finalist. Please tell us more about that competition and what you played when you became a finalist.

The International Blues Challenge thing was fun. FJ Ventre and I decided to enter the local competition here in the Triangle. I never entered it before because I’m not crazy about the idea of music as a competition. But we thought it might be fun to try and see if we could get a free trip to Memphis out of it. We won our local contest and then went to Memphis to compete against the winners of all the regions — people who had won their contests in California, Mississippi, countries in Europe, Australia — you name it. There were 60 acts competing in our division (the solo/duo division) and we were divided into 6 venues of 10 acts each, playing two nights in front of two different sets of judges. We won our venue and then went to the finals on the third night in the Orpheum Theater — the last six acts remaining — quite an honor. We played my original songs — “Ten Days,” “Full Bloom” (an anti-war song), an Elvis song that FJ sang as our tip of the hat to Memphis, and probably something else that I can’t remember right now. We didn’t win. The emcee said to us as we left the stage “You were my personal favorite act.” But we probably didn’t win because we were too “folky.” I think I’m considered a folk musician by the Blues crowd and the Folk Alliance people think I’m the blues player in the room.

You’re so well known for being such a great fingerstyle guitar player. How does it feel to be up on stage and have so many people staring at your hands?

I always thought they were checking out my legs! It’s fun — I like to ask if there are other guitar players in the room — because I use a lot of open tunings and play slide, etc. And being a teacher, I enjoy sharing the information and letting people in on what I’m doing.

I love asking traveling musicians about life on the road. If you had to write one of those Reader’s Digest essays about the most memorable person you met while touring, who would it be about?

I think it would end up being a novel instead of a Reader’s Digest piece… We have met so many memorable people on the road over the years, both onstage and off — people who I love to see every time I visit a town and people I’m hoping never to run into again. Lots of people have been kind to me and my musical compadres — putting us up in their homes, feeding us, and sustaining us. And there have been real evil shits out there, too, though I don’t run into them as much in the folk world as when I was playing rock clubs in my youth. Rather than naming any of the shits, I will tip my hat to some of my favorite people. As far as other musicians I’ve had the pleasure to meet and play with, some folks who have really been gracious and supportive to me have been Roy Book Binder, John Hammond, Jorma Kaukonen, Amy Ray. . . . The list of generous hosts, venue owners, friends, and family is far too enormous to elaborate on, so at the risk of leaving anyone out in print, I’ll suffice it to say that I am in great debt to many!

To learn more about Jon Shain, visit his website.

Kathy Sands-Boehmer
Like many of us, Kathy Sands-Boehmer wears many hats. An editor by profession, she also operates Harbortown Music, books artists for the Me and Thee Coffeehouse in Marblehead, Massachusetts, serves as vice president of the Boston Area Coffeehouse Association (BACHA) and on the board of directors of the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA). In her spare time, Kathy can be found at local music haunts all over New England. This and many previous Q & A interviews are archived at www.meandthee.org/blog and www.everythingsundry.wordpress.com, as well as in the Features section of AcousticMusicScene.com.

Neil Young, Old Man Luedecke, Le Vent du Nord Win JUNO Awards

Michael Kornfeld — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 23:03:02 +0000

The 40th annual JUNO Awards were presented by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS), March 26 and 27 in Toronto. Internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter Neil Young was the big winner, while Nova Scotia-based Old Man Luedecke and Quebec-based group Le Vent du Nord captured awards for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year Solo and Group, respectively.

Young, who was named Artist of the Year and the recipient of the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award, also was recognized for Adult Alternative Album of the Year (Le Noise). As one of Canada’s most respected and influential artists from the past 40 years — along with Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell and The Band — Young also was paid homage to during a televised Sunday night all-star tribute featuring such young, up-and-coming artists as Sarah Harmer, Justin Rutledge, Serena Ryder and The Sadies. The tribute also saluted Toronto, this year’s host city, where each of the artists first made their mark and where the first JUNOs were presented in 1970. Young, who began performing in the 1960s, is a member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He’s also a co-founder of Farm Aid and of a school that educates children with serious speech and physical impairments.

Old Man Luedecke (Photo: Mark Maryanovich)
For Old Man Luedecke, an emotive singer-songwriter and old-time claw hammer-style banjo player, this year’s JUNO Award for My Hands are on Fire and other Love Songs was the second he received in that category. Luedecke, who records for Black Hen Music in Canada, also was cited for Roots and Traditional Album of the Year: Solo in 2009 for his previous recording, Proof of Love.

Le Vent du Nord (www.photoman.ca)
It was also the second time that Le Vent du Nord was bestowed with a JUNO for Roots and Traditional Album of the Year: Group, having previously received one in 2003 for its debut release Maudite Moisson. A lively and prolific Quebecois quartet of talented singers and multiinstrumentalists, whose repertoire includes both traditional folk and original compositions, Le Vent du Nord was recognized this year for Le Part du Feu, an album that also made a number of top 10 lists for 2009 and 2010. The Borealis recording artists also were named Ensemble of the Year in the 2010 Canadian Folk Music Awards last November.

To view video excerpts of live performances from Le Vent du Nord’s award-winning album and more, simply click on this link:http://www.leventdunord.com/english/pages/videos.php

Winners Named in 52nd Annual Grammy Awards

Michael Kornfeld — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:24:07 +0000

Many of the winners in the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, presented by the Recording Academy — including those in the recently renamed and expanded American Roots Music field — were announced online prior to televised ceremonies on January 31 from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Citing the increasing growth of traditional music, the Academy’s board of trustees voted last year to split the category Best Contemporary Folk/Americana into two categories: Best Contemporary Folk Album and Best Americana Album. In addition, the Folk Field was renamed American Roots Music and now also includes the Best Traditional Blues Album, Best Contemporary Blues Album and Best Bluegrass Album categories, along with Best Traditional Folk Album, Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album, Best Native American Album and Best Hawaiian Album.

Winners in the American Roots Music Field include:

Best Americana Album (Vocal or Instrumental)

Electric Dirt
Levon Helm [Dirt Farmer Music/Vanguard Music]

Best Bluegrass Album (Vocal or Instrumental)

The Crow / New Songs For The Five-String Banjo
Steve Martin [Rounder]

Best Traditional Blues Album (Vocal or Instrumental)

A Stranger Here
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott [ANTI]

Best Contemporary Blues Album (Vocal or Instrumental)

Already Free
The Derek Trucks Band [Victor Records]

Best Traditional Folk Album (Vocal or Instrumental)

High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project
Loudon Wainwright III [2nd Story Sound Records]

Best Contemporary Folk Album (Vocal or Instrumental)

Townes
Steve Earle [New West Records]

Best Hawaiian Music Album (Vocal or Instrumental)

Masters Of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar, Volume 2 (Various Artists)
Daniel Ho, George Kahumoku, Jr., Paul Konwiser & Wayne Wong, producers
[Daniel Ho Creations]

Best Native American Music Album (Vocal or Instrumental)

Spirit Wind North
Bill Miller [Cool Springs Music Group]

Best Zydeco Or Cajun Music Album (Vocal or Instrumental)

Lay Your Burden Down
Buckwheat Zydeco [Alligator]

In addition, awards were presented for:

Best Traditional World Music Album

Douga Mansa
Mamadou Diabate [World Village]

Best Contemporary World Music Album

Throw Down Your Heart: Tales From The Acoustic Planet, Vol. 3 – Africa Sessions
Bela Fleck [Rounder]

Best Tejano Music Album

Bordera Y Bailes
Los Texmaniacs [Smithsonian Folkways]

Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package

Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (1963-1972)
[Reprise]