A few days ago there was a discussion over at Craig Burrell’s blog, All Manner of Thing, about whether “Down By the Salley Gardens” is a folk song, a poem by Yeats (he published it as his own), or a folk song modified by Yeats (my supposition, and here is the post and ensuing discussion). This reminded me of an American murder ballad, “Down By the Willow Garden,” which begins with a similar phrase and which I know from one of Ian and Sylvia’s albums. And it occurred to me that I had never looked for any of their work on YouTube.
A quick search was quickly rewarded. Although I bought Ian and Sylvia’s records in my teens and listened to them over and over again, I never saw them perform in their heyday, the early-to-mid ‘60s. But they had made a few TV appearances, and I was delighted to discover them on YouTube. And even more delighted that one of them included a song that is to me one of their finest moments, an a cappella version of the English ballad “Greenwood Side.”
To my taste these two Canadians, Ian Tyson and Sylvia Fricker, were the best of the pop-folk artists of the ‘60s. By “pop-folk” I mean performers who weren’t directly a product of the authentic folk tradition, but who selected songs from many sources—American, British, black, white—and delivered them in a more polished way for an urban and mostly young audience. Usually this meant a certain sentimentalization and prettification, often a great deal. And the closer those artists approached the style of a Mitch Miller sing-along, the more weightless and dated their music sounds today. Ian and Sylvia were pretty sophisticated musicians, but their style had a harder center and a sharper edge than, say, Peter, Paul, and Mary’s, and their music remains more appealing today than that of most of their peers.
They were especially good on country, Appalachian, and British material. For me they aren’t as persuasive on gospel and blues. They do it skillfully, as in the following clip, but not as convincingly. Most of the pop-folk groups got this music wrong, putting a sort of over-earnest self-consciousness onto music that was meant to be rough and exuberant; Ian and Sylvia don’t escape this, but they’re better than most.
They did, however have a real connection to the Appalachian tradition via country music; this was especially true for Tyson, who had grown up working on ranches in Alberta and British Columbia. His voice sounds a lot like bourbon tastes, and although his natural mode seems to be something close to country and western he can do the old rural sound, too. And Sylvia’s voice has that real plaintive, keening, astringent country tone that can be chillingly beautiful. They could take a genuine country song like “Ol’ Blue” and polish it up without ruining it; all right, it wasn’t “authentic,” but their embellishments were in the spirit of the material.
I don’t remember where I first heard them, but I do remember asking my uncle Jimmy about them. He and his wife Libby introduced me to folk music when I was fifteen or so, and I have very fond memories of hearing people like Furry Lewis for the first time on Saturday nights in their living room. (Someday I’ll write about them; I don’t think they were very happy but they had a lot fun, and they died a few months apart ten years or so ago, not a great deal older than I am now.) Jimmy’s response about Ian and Sylvia’s music was “It ain’t nothin’ but fine.”
I guess that convinced me, because if my memory is not playing tricks on me, the first record I ever bought with my own money was the first Ian and Sylvia album, self-titled. I listened to it and its four successors continually (or so it seems in my memory) throughout my high school years. The last one I bought was Play One More, which came out in 1966 and saw them moving in a more pop-based and less appealing direction, although the good stuff on that album is as good as anything they ever did. The ones that followed were not well-received and I never heard them. But those first five albums—Ian and Sylvia, Four Strong Winds, Northern Journey, Early Morning Rain, and Play One More—still captivate me for the most part, the exceptions being some of the blues and gospel tracks.
They were terrific interpreters of contemporary songwriters, such as Dylan—their “Tomorrow is a Long Time” is my favorite version—and Gordon Lightfoot (ditto for “Early Morning Rain”). They also wrote some great songs: “Four Strong Winds,” “You Were On My Mind.” And Ian was a killer guitarist, especially when paired with a second guitarist who was just as good, John Herald or Monte Dunn. The guitar work on “Ella Speed” (Four Strong Winds) still knocks me out.
Ian has had a fairly successful solo career but I’ve heard very little of his work, an omission which I’ll have to remedy.
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