How I got from 78's to Ian Tyson

We all have a favorite kind of music. Conventional wisdom indicates that we always love the music we grew up with. The songs that were popular when we first fell in love. Or first got our teenage heart broken. First drove a car. First did a few things without adult supervision. I have to mention a Beach Boys song now, and this has nothing to do with this post. I just feel like throwing it in. One of the "car songs" makes me feel like America is a car club and this is the song that is the best example of the genre. No one from anywhere but the U.S. could understand the lyrics. The song is called "Fun Fun Fun". You remember it. "She'll have fun fun fun 'till her daddy takes the T-Bird away". It was a catchy little tune ala Chuck Berry. The lyrics told the story of a girl who went to the hamburger stand instead of the library. When she drove her dad's T bird she drove so fast that the "INDY" 500 looked like a Roman chariot race. She looked like an Ace and she drove like an Ace. Eventually her dad takes away the keys to the Thunderbird. This is the best car song ever written. The images of Americana are tightly condensed and woven, everybody loves it. Yes, I love "Little old Lady From Pasadena" and
"409", Dead Man's Curve", Little Deuce Coupe". They're all great. That T-Bird song with the good looking girl is the best.

Anyway, we fall in love with the songs of the period when we fell in love. When I was in Jr. High I was listening to the car songs and the slow dance songs and wanted so much to be "liked" at the Friday night "teen club". But I had an older brother. He had a driver's license and some limited use of the family car. A 1961 Mercury Comet. Straight six "three on the tree". He took Karate lessons and he took guitar lessons. He told me over and over about this guy in high school named David Legg who played acoustic guitar and sang folk songs at some school functions. One of the songs he sang was "Where Have all the Flowers Gone?" The Kingston trio had just come out with it. This guy David had, according to my brother, all the girls in the school falling in love with him. He was part "Collegiate" and part "beatnik" I kept that in the back of my mind. I have an older sister, she is the oldest. She had the first folk album I had ever seen, (the Kingston Trio) let alone heard. It was almost the first 33 1/3 album in our house. We had a Mickey Mouse Club album that was the first LP album I had ever seen. I thought the new format was just for the Micky Mouse club. So my brother had this "Stella" guitar and it was really mostly a toy guitar. And a friend of our father gave my brother a "Gretsch" guitar and I got the Stella. I couldn't play it but I could imagine while holding it having a girl or two that I liked in school liking me. After the Kingston Trio album, my sister got a "Peter, Paul and Mary" album. Then one day my brother brought home a "Tom Paxton" album. He listened to it over and over. I didn't have anything else to do and I listened too. It was protest folk songs and Paxton had written them. They couldn't be folk songs if this guy had just written them. Could they? The term singer-songwriter hadn't been coined. I learned lyrics to those Paxton songs, and chorded along on the Stella. The strings had never been changed. If one broke, you just did without. The Paxton record was called "Ramblin' Boy". Soon I was "Ramblin" around my suburban neighborhood. And if I missed the bus to school, I would just "Ramble" and walk, and if I got there late, well I'd been walkin down a long dusty road, doin' hard travlin'. I knew even then, I wasn't much of a rambler. I couldn't wait to get a car or a cycle. And a girl. Next my brother brought home an album that had a black and white cover with a picture of a hick looking guy with a big scowl on his face. I said to my brother "who the heck is Bob Dylan?" But I pronounced it Dye- lin. My brother told me how to pronounce Dylan and that Dylan was better than Paxton. Little did we know, that was actually Dylan's third album. We literally wore that record out. That album, called "The Times They are a Changin" made me forever a "folkie". There were many more albums and folk groups and singer-songwriters to come, in my coming of age genre. But the very next record my brother brought home was the Canadian folk duo "Ian and Sylvia". I couldn't pronounce "Ian" any better than I could "Dylan". That was immediately our new favorite album.
I still liked pop music. The top 40. Some of the folk songs crossed over and made the pop charts. "Blowin' in the Wind" by Dylan was recorded by everyone. But for some reason my brother and I just sort of tuned into Ian and Sylvia, and we got their records. On the Vanguard label. We sang the songs and tried to copy the harmonies. Ian and Sylvia were not on the top 40 and none of my friends knew about them. There were boy/girl duos on the charts. "Dick and Dee Dee". Nino Tempo and April Stevens. Paul and Paula. But we liked the folky almost bluegrass acoustic guitar and primal vocals of Ian and Sylvia. Ian wrote "Four Strong Winds" and "Someday Soon" and Sylvia wrote "You were on my Mind". They were married for about ten years, and went their separate ways. They were on Canadian TV with a few different shows. After a break of a few years, Ian had a second recording and writing career.

I wound up discovering that Ian, at age 78 is still around and writing and performing. I ordered an Ian Tyson legacy guitar from Mackenzie and Marr out of Montreal.

And I just ordered "The Long Trail", Ian's autobiography. I also ordered a book called "Four Strong Winds" which tells the story of Ian and Sylvia. So I'll know a big backstory whenever I get a chance to read that. All I've said about Ian so far is just what I remember from my childhood. I also ordered some Ian Tyson CD's from when he was in his fifties, sixties, and seventies. I'm sure I will like them.

But it's hard to try to go back and recapture the memories. I used to love "The Saint" on TV with Roger Moore and now when I watch it on Retro TV, it seems dull and contrived. Same with "Robin Hood" and "Mr. Ed". And "Bonanza" is the worst.

I won't get completely back into Ian and Sylvia. I've checked out a few things on YouTube. It's OK and fun to see how young they look and how old I feel. There's something about Ian. An old man now. He is maybe the last real singing cowboy. He's the real deal.