Best of the Vanguard Years

Artist: Ian & Sylvia
Label: Vanguard Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 015707951623
EAN: 0015707951623
ASIN: B000009NLP

Release Date: 1998-08-11

Related Categories:

General

| Folk | Styles | Music

Traditional Folk

| Folk | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Folk Rock

| Rock | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

Revival

| Folk | Styles | Music

Listmania:

Overlooked Folk and Bluegrass
albums always on top of pile
DYNAMIC FOLK & BLUES DUOS

Tracks:

Early Morning Rain
The Circle Game
For Lovin' Me
You Were On My Mind
Four Strong Winds
Some Day Soon
Ninety Degrees By Ninety Degrees
The Mighty Quinn
Cutty Wren
Short Grass
Un Canadien Errant
When I Was A Cowboy
Changes
Gifts Are For Giving
Satisfied Mind
Keep On The Sunny Side
Play One More
Rocks And Gravel
Come In Stranger
Nancy Whiskey
This Wheel's On Fire
The Renegade
Mary Anne
Oh Katy Dear
The Greenwood Sidie (The Cruel Mother)

Similar Items:

Ian & Sylvia - Greatest Hits
Early Morning Rain
Pack Up Your Sorrow: Best Of The Vanguard Years
Four Strong Winds
So Much for Dreaming

Customer Reviews:

Mitch and Mickey! (A Mighty Wind).......2006-12-26

Not definative but pretty good throughout (except maybe the last few tracks). They were good until they tried to rock out. I'd grab a few other songs from their earlier works in place of anything they electrified. I prefer their original version of You Were on My Mind, the one hit for the We Five. I don't think Ian & Sylvia knew they had a hit on their hands. For you Mighty Wind Fans, this is Mitch and Mickey in a nutshell.

If you have ears you need some Ian and Sylvia.......2006-04-24

What distinguished Ian and Sylvia was a driving respect for music, and Ian strong roots in real Western music, and a musical integrity and ingenuity that surpassed that of most "folksingers" of their period. They never drifted off into the direction of smooth pop oriented singing. There might have been the usual attempt to take them in a "folk rock" direction in the last years they were together, something they did take seriously and made fun of from the stage of their performances in the late 1960s.

However, these recordings have a strength of their commiment to music that has the bite, the twang, the strength, and the snap of real folk music and of folk originated blues and country music. The standards of production particularly their work with the great guitarists Johnny Herald and Monte Dunn, not to mention Ian Tyson's own developing skill with the guitar, and the tastefulness of the ensembles has not been matched since in acoustic music.

Ian and Sylvia's music works now even when the pop folk sensibility that surrounded them has deservedly withered away. I spend a lot of time talking with, playing with, hanging out with people who treasure completely traditional folk music which is not at all what Ian and Sylvia ever pretended to play, although especially at the beginning it was one of their most important sources. I have found even three or four decades after the duo ended, that a tremendous respect and a lot of listening goes on to Ian and Sylvia which is not true for other folkies like Joan Baez or Bob Dylan.

Of course, Ian Tyson continued a great career of his own, longer and actually larger than what happened with Ian and Sylvia as a writer of songs rooted in his Canadian Western origins. The skills unveiled in songs like "You were on my mind" and "Four strong winds" have won Ian a bunch of Grammies and Junos (the Canadian equivalent). He is still out there performing, making great albums and being who he has always been, a straight shooter, a no bs artist.

Sometime in the 1980s, an urban legend appeared that is still strong that Sylvia Fricker had died, killed herself, or otherwise left this life. She is very much alive, still singing, and over the years has done great folk oriented shows for the CBC.

Oh, one thing I forgot.

Aside from all this analysis, Ian and Sylvia are just so darned good that anyone with ears desperately needs to have as much of their music as they can either afford or steal!

There is now a complete recordings set out on CD from Vanguard and if you can afford that, you might want to get it.

A great folk duo.......2001-12-30

I may be a minority of one but Ian and Sylvia are my favorite of the 60s folk groups. Sylvia has an earth-mother voice, Ian is a good picker and writes great songs, and they had a Canadian accent to their music which made them different from the legions of American groups. Cowboys are Ian's favorite subject and his "Four Strong Winds" is one of the greatest folk songs ever. It's about a drifter, and his girl, and goin' out to Alberta in the Fall. He also wrote the definitive rodeo song: "Some Day Soon." Judy Collins possibly did it better than Ian and Sylvia, but just barely.
One of the best songs is "The Renegade" by Ian, a defiant declaration by an American -- or rather Canadian -- Indian. Sylvia does a Dylan song, "This Wheel's on Fire," and makes it sound like a song that Dylan didn't write. "Nancy Whiskey" is a anti-drinking song, that made me want a drink. "Rocks and Gravel" is a bluesey, bass-heavy chain gang song. Ian and Sylvia's version of "Early Morning Rain" is one of the best. "Ninety Degrees by Ninety Degrees" is incomprehensible and un-folk, but the vocal harmonies are intriguing.
Ian bought a ranch in Alberta with the money he made from "Four Strong Winds." Just like in the song, Sylvia chose not to live out there where the "winds blow lonely" and there "ain't too much to do." That was the end of Ian and Sylvia. Life imitates art.

music built to last.......1999-01-08

Amazing how Ian and Sylvia's music, which some purists once foolishly dissed as too slick and commercial-sounding to pass the authenticity test, holds up more than three decades after the passing of the folk revival that brought them out of Canada and onto the international stage. Ian Tyson, once again a significant figure on the folk scene, is today the undisputed king of the new cowboy music. Probably he has fans who've never heard, or even heard of, the songs he and partner, subsequent wife, and finally ex-wife Sylvia Fricker Tyson recorded in the 1960s. This generally well-chosen set, taken from their classic Vanguard recordings, is a chance to hear the duo, depending on where you're coming from, for the first or yet one more time. There's a good mix of the couple's originals, including hits such as "You Were on My Mind," "Four Strong Winds," and "Some Day Soon," covers of Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash, Phil Ochs (whose "Changes" is a highlight here), and Bob Dylan, and traditional songs and ballads. Among these last are the gorgeous French-Canadian "Un Canadien Errant" and an affecting rendition of the Caribbean sailor's lament "Mary Ann," plus solid readings of Anglo-Celtic-American standards "Nancy Whiskey," "Katy Dear," and "The Greenwood Sidie." On the other hand, "Rocks and Gravel," from the African-American prison-song tradition, needs more vocal heft than the Tysons are able to bring to it. Among the newer material David Rea's pretentious "Ninety Degrees by Ninety Degrees" makes an unwelcome reappearance. Ian's "Play One More," surely his most uninspired composition (hobbled, moreover, with a clumsy arrangement), comes inexplicably out of moth balls, leaving the listener to wonder why a neglected masterpiece like "Four Rode by" was left hanging in the closet. On the other hand, another overlooked jewel, "The Renegade," among the finest of the many splendid songs Ian has composed, is here in all its tragic glory. All in all, with the exceptions noted, this is music built to last.

Music CD:

Music CD

Music CD

Music CD

First Light ~ Richard & Linda Thompson

I'll Be There: Songs for Jobs with Justice ~ Si Kahn

Deadly Relics

Blind in Paradise ~ Takara

Heavy Heavy Heavy ~ Geraldo Pino & The Heartbeats

Gurimja ~ Jacy

Bones Blues ~ Pete Magadini and Don Menza

Stile Libero ~ Eros Ramazzotti

Kamen Rider Kuuga Ongakushu ~ Various Artists

Shadowman ~ Shado Man