Sylvia Tyson released her brand new album on Nov. 3.
It will also be her last.
“It was time,” she said, of the aptly titled The End Of The Day, which is out now on Stony Plain Records.
“It is kind of a gathering of all of the things that I wanted to record, but never got around to. I just felt that it was time to record. I really feel that this may be the best album that I have ever done.”
The album captures Sylvia’s intensely personal artistry while portraying a public figure at peace with her ordered life as a songwriter and as an artist.
She sings of memories, family histories, and lost loves and transports us from warm kitchens to post-war Berlin to rain-slicked streets to bluesy cabarets to lush gardens.
It’s a record she could only write now, after a lifetime of honing her craft and studying human nature as a revered songwriter, broadcaster and author.
“It’s the good times I remember at the end of the day,” she sings on a collection of songs that look back across a life well-lived, while offering advice for those just starting out on their own unique journeys.
A pillar of the Greenwich Village folk scene from the late 1950s through the ’60s, Sylvia was half of the groundbreaking duo Ian & Sylvia, which headlined NYC’s Carnegie Hall and topped the Billboard charts, all while championing Village contemporaries Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot by being the first popular artists to record their songs. Moreover, Sylvia’s own song “You Were On My Mind” and Ian’s “Four Strong Winds” became standards that were covered by dozens of popular artists.
Throughout the ’60s and early ’70s, Ian & Sylvia produced13 popular albums and toured extensively in North America and Europe, sharing their manager, Albert Grossman, with such luminaries as Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, The Band, and Janis Joplin. The duo were equally influential in the country genre with their band Great Speckled Bird.
Throughout her career, Sylvia has composed numerous enduring songs. Her repertoire includes “River Road,” recorded by Crystal Gayle in 1980 and “Yesterday’s Dreams,” recorded by Nana Mouskouri.
Ian & Sylvia classics she wrote include “Woman’s World,” “Sleep on My Shoulder,” “Love Is a Fire,” “Same Old Thing,” “Denim Blue Eyes,” “Pepere’s Mill,” and “I Walk These Rails,” songs that have touched and inspired fans, songwriters, and musicians the world over.
In recognition of her trailblazing solo career, Sylvia has been honored with a bevy of prestigious awards, including the Order of Canada in 1994 and an induction into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2019, she was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Sylvia has recorded 10 albums as a solo artist and written more than 200 songs. She has for the last 20 years also recorded and performed with three other well-known Canadian female singer-songwriters in a group called Quartette. She’s also had a long and distinguished radio and television career, both in music and in documentaries, and inspired a dazzling array of contemporary recording artists along the way.
