Great Speckled Bird | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | The Great Speckled Bird |
| Origin | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Genres | Country rock |
| Years active | 1969–1976 |
| Labels | Ampex, Columbia, A&M, Stony Plain |
| Past members | Ian Tyson Sylvia Tyson Amos Garrett Ken Kalmusky Bill Keith Ricky Marcus Buddy Cage N. D. Smart Jim Colegrove Jeff Gutcheon David Wilcox Ben Keith Peter Ecklund Billy Mundi Red Shea Gordon Fleming Jim Baker Pee Wee Charles Rolly Sally Jim Morgan Ed Wideman Kim Brandt Gord Neave |
Great Speckled Bird was a country rock group formed in 1969 by the Canadian musical duo Ian & Sylvia. Ian Tyson sang, played guitar and composed. Sylvia Tyson sang, composed and occasionally played piano. The other founding members were Amos Garrett on guitar and occasional vocals, Ben Keith on steel guitar, Ken Kalmusky on bass and Ricky Marcus on drums. They were named after the song, "The Great Speckled Bird", as recorded by Roy Acuff (1938). [1]
The group was featured in the film Festival Express , a documentary about the music festival of the same name that took place in 1970. The shows were scheduled, and the performers traveled by train, across Canada. In the film, Great Speckled Bird performs "C.C. Rider", along with Delaney Bramlett and members of the Grateful Dead. A performance of the Dylan/Manuel song "Tears of Rage", without the aforementioned accompaniment, is included in the extra features of the DVD release.
In 1970, the group became the house band for the television show Nashville North, produced by the CTV network and filmed at the CFTO-TV studios in Toronto, which, after one season, became the Ian Tyson Show. [2] [3] The show ran until 1975.
The group backed Ian & Sylvia until the duo parted ways in 1975. They also backed Ian Tyson as a solo artist, for his 1973 debut solo album and his live performances, [4] [5] until 1976. [6]
| Year | Album | Album Artist | CAN | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | Great Speckled Bird | Great Speckled Bird | 54 | Ampex |
| 1972 | You Were on My Mind | Ian & Sylvia and The Great Speckled Bird | Columbia | |
| 1973 | Ol' Eon | Ian Tyson | 81 | A&M |
| Year | Single | Chart Positions | Album | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CAN Country | CAN AC | CAN | |||
| 1970 | "Trucker's Cafe" | 9 | 94 | Great Speckled Bird | |
| 1972 | "You Were on My Mind" | 4 | You Were on My Mind | ||
| 1973 | "Love Can Bless the Soul of Anyone" | 46 | 61 | Ol' Eon | |
| 1974 | "Great Canadian Tour" | 13 | |||
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1970 | The Johnny Cash Show | performed "Crazy Arms" and "Long Long Time to Get Old" |
| 1970 | Nashville North | produced by the CTV network |
| 1971–1975 | The Ian Tyson Show | produced by the CTV network |
| 2003 | Festival Express | filmed in 1970 |
Ian & Sylvia were a Canadian folk and country music duo which consisted of Ian and Sylvia Tyson. They began performing together in 1959, married in 1964, and divorced and stopped performing together in 1975.
Festival Express is a 2003 documentary film about the 1970 train tour of the same name across Canada taken by some of North America's most popular rock bands, including the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, Buddy Guy, Flying Burrito Bros, Ian & Sylvia's Great Speckled Bird, Mountain and Delaney & Bonnie & Friends. The film combines footage of the 1970 concerts and on the train, interspersed with contemporary recollections of the tour by its participants.
Ian Dawson Tyson was a Canadian singer-songwriter who wrote several folk songs, including "Four Strong Winds" and "Someday Soon", and performed with partner Sylvia Tyson as the duo Ian & Sylvia.
David Karl William Wilcox is a Canadian rock musician.
"Four Strong Winds" is a song written by Ian Tyson and recorded by Canadian folk duo Ian and Sylvia. Tyson has noted that he composed the song in about 20 minutes in his then manager Albert Grossman's New York apartment in 1962. A significant composition of the early 1960s folk revival, the song is a melancholy reflection on a failing romantic relationship. The singer expresses a desire for a possible reunion in a new place in the future but acknowledges the likelihood that the relationship is over.
Thomas George Russell is an American singer-songwriter. Although most strongly identified with the Americana music tradition, his music also incorporates elements of folk, rock, and the cowboy music of the American West. Many of his songs have been recorded by other artists, including Johnny Cash, The Texas Tornados, k.d. lang, Guy Clark, Joe Ely, The Sir Douglas Quintet, Jason Boland, Nanci Griffith, Katy Moffatt, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Sailcat, Iris Dement, Dave Alvin, and Suzy Bogguss.
Sylvia Tyson, is a Canadian musician, performer, singer-songwriter and broadcaster. She is best known as part of the folk duo Ian and Sylvia, with Ian Tyson. Since 1993, she has been a member of the all-female folk group Quartette.
Quartette is a Canadian country-folk group consisting of Cindy Church, Caitlin Hanford, Gwen Swick and Sylvia Tyson. Each of the four members also record as solo artists in addition to their work as a group.
Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers is the debut solo album of Gene Clark, released in February 1967 on Columbia Records, catalogue CS 9418. It was his first effort after his departure from folk-rock group the Byrds in 1966. The music is a unique mixture of pop, country rock and baroque psychedelic tracks, which received favorable reviews and reinforced Clark's stature as a talented singer-songwriter. Unfortunately for Clark, it was released almost simultaneously with the Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday, also on Columbia, and partly because of his 18-month absence from public attention was a commercial failure.
Great Speckled Bird is a country rock album by Great Speckled Bird, a band formed in 1969 by Canadian musicians Ian and Sylvia Tyson. The other group members at the time of recording were Buddy Cage, on pedal steel guitar, Amos Garrett, on guitar and backup vocals, and N.D. Smart, on drums. Nashville session musicians David Briggs and Norbert Putnam sat in, with Briggs on piano and Putnam on bass guitar. Although founding member Ken Kalmusky is listed in the original liner notes, he had actually departed the group prior to recording.
Colleen Susan Peterson was a Canadian country and folk singer, who performed both as a solo artist and as a member of the band Quartette.
Ken Kalmusky was a Canadian bassist from Stratford, Ontario. He worked with some of the top names in the music industry, including Ronnie Hawkins, Ian and Sylvia, Jerry Reed, Amos Garrett, and Todd Rundgren. Kalmusky was a session musician and toured the world, playing stages from Massey Hall, to The Grand Ole Opry.
Amos Garrett is an American-Canadian blues and blues-rock musician, guitarist, singer, composer, and musical arranger. He has written instructional books about music and guitar. Garrett holds dual citizenship and was raised in Toronto and Montreal. He is best known for his guitar solo on Maria Muldaur's recording "Midnight at the Oasis". He has written books about music, such as "Amos Garrett—Stringbending: A Master Class".
"You Were on My Mind" is a popular song written by Sylvia Fricker in 1961. It was originally recorded by Ian & Sylvia, but better known versions were recorded by We Five and Crispian St. Peters.
Cindy Church is a Canadian country and folk artist. Church released three studio albums on Stony Plain Records and was nominated for Best Country Female Vocalist at the Juno Awards in 1995 and 1996. She is also a member of the award winning group Quartette.
Buddy Cage was an American pedal steel guitarist, best known as a longtime member of the New Riders of the Purple Sage.
Danny Greenspoon is a Canadian music producer, music engineer, guitar player and film composer mainly in the Canadian music industry. Greenspoon is also the President of "The Audio Truck Inc.", a mobile recording studio recording materials for television, radio, and record. From 1989 to 1996, he was Popular Music recording producer for CBC Radio in Toronto producing recordings of jazz, popular music, folk music, country music and world music, for broadcast and commercial release, and from 2004 to 2016 he did most of the live recording for JazzFM91.
Gregory Raymond Quill was an Australian-born musician, singer-songwriter and journalist. He lived in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and was an entertainment columnist at the Toronto Star newspaper from the mid-1980s until his death in May 2013. In Australia he came to popular fame as a singer-songwriter for the country rock band Country Radio (1970–73). Their biggest hit, "Gypsy Queen", co-written by Quill with bandmate Kerryn Tolhurst, was released in August 1972 and peaked at No. 12 on the Go-Set National Top 40. After getting an arts grant, Quill travelled to Toronto in 1974 and by the mid-1980s had become a journalist with the Toronto Star. By 1983 he was married to Ellen Davidson, a public relations executive. Greg Quill died on 5 May 2013, at the age of 66, from "complications due to pneumonia".
"Someday Soon" is a song composed by Canadian singer-songwriter Ian Tyson who recorded the song with Sylvia Fricker as the duo Ian & Sylvia in 1963. Cited by Richie Unterberger of Allmusic as "clearly point[ing] toward [its writer's] future C&W/cowboy direction", "Someday Soon" would be brought to prominence via a 1968 recording by Judy Collins, and subsequently recorded by a number of artists primarily in the country and western field. In 2010 "Someday Soon" was honored by the Western Writers of America as one of the "Top 100 Western Songs" of all time.
Red Shea was a renowned Canadian folk guitarist. Over his career, he helped define the sounds of artists such as Gordon Lightfoot and Ian and Sylvia Tyson, and was a regular on the TV show of Canadian Country music singer Tommy Hunter.
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