Ian Tyson is a legend in the music business. He was a rodeo cowboy and logger from B.C., who got famous in the '60s as a Canadian folk singer and songwriter. He paired up with a Toronto singer named Sylvia Fricker, and "Ian and Sylvia" became megastars in Canada and the U.S. The two of them split in the mid-'70s; the folk music era had died. Ian retreated alone to his home territory in the western provinces. He went back to his previous life as a rodeo cowboy and rancher, and began penning cowboy ballads. I was introduced to Tyson's music in the late '70s during my seven-year stint as an entertainment journalist in Nashville. I interviewed hundreds of country music celebrities--even Roy Rogers--but the elusive Ian Tyson was one I'd never met. He'd attained almost mythical status to me, this rich-toned balladeer who'd chucked the bright lights and fast life to return to what he really loved: working his own ranch on the edge of the mountains in Alberta.
Yesterday Ian Tyson ate lunch in the "Monti's Room" with Don and me. He was in Thompson to do a benefit concert for the high school. He and his two backup guys were returning from the Pendleton Roundup, and they were headed back to Alberta. I made arrangements to interview him for a speculative piece for a magazine. He agreed, so I picked him up yesterday morning and brought him to Shorthorse for lunch and a chat.
For reasons so deep and complex that I can't express them to many, this was bigger than Roy Rogers for me. Ian Tyson. Eating beef barley soup and sourdough bread with Don and me. Later we strolled out to look at the horses, and then went back inside for an informal visit. This is the type of interview I'd learned to do, and done so many times, under the tutelage of my old Music City News editor, Lee Rector. Lee's in Reno now. He wanted like everything to come up to meet Ian himself, but was tied up. He said he'd be here with us in spirit, and I know he was. Lee's a songwriter too. We spent many a long night in his Nashville kitchen, along with a myriad of drop-in talented musicians and songwriters (they were just "neighbors" then), picking and singing Tyson songs and swilling down beer and cheap wine. "Four Strong Winds," "Summer Wages," "Someday Soon" were always on the nightly playlist.
Aside from the fact that he's still alive, time hasn't otherwise been kind to Tyson's looks or his voice. He'll be 75 next week. He looks like a bony, gnarled up old bareback rider (which he is) who's tipped a few too many bottles of whiskey out behind the chutes. His voice is all but gone. That part made me want to cry at his concert last night. It was painful listening to him. But, as Lee reminded me in an email this morning, we'll always have Tyson's strong, clear baritone voice in our audio files.
Ian played my guitar yesterday in our living room. It's a Martin D-28 that I bought new in Nashville in 1980. I bought it because I could afford it at the time, and because it was a connection with Ian Tyson's acoustic music. A couple days ago when I was tuning it in prep for this interview, I broke a string. It's hard to find a good guitar string in Sanders County, Montana, on a Saturday afternoon. But I got a light-gauge string from our friend Dave Oliver who left it on his kitchen table for me to pick up Sunday morning, since he and wife Deb were going to Missoula that day. It was a totally inappropriate string for my guitar, but it was better than nothing. I offered a lame apology to Ian when he strummed it.
When I brought him back to his motel room after lunch, he told me to wait a minute. He dashed into his room, came back out, and handed me a set of professional quality D'Addario wound steel guitar strings.
How ironic that I had to come this far in my life, to this little place called Thompson Falls, to realize a huge dream. Shorthorse itself is a dream come true...and now this. I-God, Woodrow!!
