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Loading... The Long Trail: My Life in the West (edition 2010)by Ian Tyson (Author)
Work InformationThe Long Trail: My Life in the West by Ian Tyson
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Memoir Tyson's autobiography feels an awful lot like sitting around a barroom and listening to an interesting-looking old geezer talk about The Good Old Days. How much the reader enjoys this will depend largely on how one's interest in and tolerance for stories of the Great Folk Scare of the 1960s, Ian & Sylvia, and yarns about cowboying. It's interesting stuff, but Tyson never really opens up about his inner life. He remains largely a mystery -- a man with two failed marriages and a string of short-lived love affairs, who can still turn around and write heartbreaking love songs; a city boy whose early interest in horses became an obsession in his later years and looms as large on the stage of his life as does his musical career; an indifferent student who never showed any great interest in the written word other than the cowboy tales of Will James (or at least doesn't share any such interest with the reader), who suddenly blossoms into a first-class lyricist. Fans of his later solo work will pick up some inside information about where some of his lyrics came from, and that's about as intimate as Tyson gets with his reader. no reviews | add a review
A Canadian icon on his longstanding love of the West and his life in "one of the last true cowboy countries on either side of the border." "I live on a ranch about six miles east of the town of Longview and the old Cowboy Trail in the foothills of the Rockies. On a perfect day, like today, I can't imagine being anywhere else in the world. Of course, I'm not going to say there aren't those other days when you think, 'What am I doing here?' It's beautiful country and it can be brutally tough as well." --Ian Tyson Ian Tyson's journey to the West began in the unlikely city of Victoria, BC, where he rode his dad's horses on the weekends and met cowboys in the pages of Will James's books, and eventually followed that cowboy dream to rodeo competition. Laid up after breaking a leg, he learned the guitar, and drifted east, becoming a key songwriter and performer in the folk revival movement. But the West always beckoned, and when his marriage to his partner and collaborator Sylvia broke up and the music scene threatened to grind him down, he retreated to a ranch and work with cutting horses. Soon, he'd bought a ranch in Alberta and found a new voice as the renowned Western Revival singer-songwriter and horseman he is today. This book is Ian's reflection on that journey... No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)782.421642The arts Music Vocal music Secular Forms of vocal music Secular songs General principles and musical forms Song genres Western popular songs Country westernLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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