Ian & Sylvia – The Complete Vanguard Studio Recordings

It has always been a puzzle that Canadian early folk icons Ian & Sylvia Tyson don’t occupy a more central place in the roots music firmament. Even more puzzling is the hostility they generate in some critical circles.

Exhibit A: Dylan and The Band thought enough of the couple to cover a brace of Ian & Sylvia’s songs during the fabled Basement Tapes sessions. But to hear critic Greil Marcus recount it in his 1997 book Invisible Republic, the normally infallible Bob must have been consumed by a rare fever of bad judgment. “They were bland, they were smooth, and as much as Dylan might love the Canadian duo’s songs, there’s nothing in them for him to sing — it’s like grabbing air,” Marcus complains, before later dismissing the Tysons as “pure Rod McKuen or, for a more present-day analogue, Michael Bolton.”

Perhaps they were too clean-cut, too skilled or too apolitical for the radicalized folk movement of the ’60s, where studied amateurism and anti-authoritarianism were often the currency of hipness. A reasoned survey of Ian & Sylvia’s output might put the lie to those harsh judgements. What’s long been needed is a career-spanning anthology that would trace the couple’s pioneering folk revival work through their latter-day adventures in country rock with the band Great Speckled Bird.

However, this handsomely packaged four-disc set doesn’t complete the job. While The Complete Vanguard Studio Recordings goes some distance toward improving access to the Tysons’ work, restricting the collection to their Vanguard years only tells the story up to the point where it really starts to get interesting.

Though some of the duo’s early recordings tend to the Peter, Paul & Mary school of polite folk, there’s no faulting the haunting vocal blend, particularly on their soaring version of W.C. Handy’s “Got No More Home Than A Dog” (with Spike Lee’s dad Bill on bass). By 1963’s Four Strong Winds LP, Ian was flexing formidable songwriting muscle (just ask Neil Young, who had a hit with the title song), and the following year, Sylvia stepped up with “You Were On My Mind” (a hit for We Five).

When they weren’t coming up with their own fine material or reinterpreting traditional music, they also had the good taste to champion the songwriting of Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs, Johnny Cash, Scott Mackenzie…even Bacharach/David and Dylan.

The listener can detect a shift within their work around 1966’s twin releases Play One More and So Much For Dreaming, which hinted at a shift from folk tradition toward a more adventurous sound (including drums and electric guitars). Ian’s evolving songwriting yielded “Summer Wages” and “January Morning”, and the suggestion has been that he began to assert his affection for country music at the expense of Sylvia’s devotion to pure folk — a point the now-estranged couple continues to debate in Colin Escott’s fine liner notes.

Whatever the cause of the change, two years later they had relocated to Music City and enlisted the backing support of some of the Area Code 615 studio cats for Nashville, which included distinctive covers of Dylan’s “The Mighty Quinn” and the Dylan/Rick Danko tune “This Wheel’s On Fire” (titled “Wheels On Fire” here), as well as their own outstanding “Farewell To The North” and “She’ll Be Gone”.

Because this set is pointedly dubbed the complete studio recordings, there’s no live material, and it includes only one previously unreleased track. Later work for MGM, Ampex and Columbia remains uncollected, and in some cases, available only on vintage vinyl. Their ill-starred Great Speckled Bird album (not included here) was reissued briefly on CD several years ago, and it’s a vital piece of early country rock.

Ian & Sylvia are a vital part of folk revival and singer-songwriter history, too, and The Complete Vanguard Studio Recordings is a big part of their story. Hopefully someone will take up the challenge of completing the task.