Ian Tyson - Some Kind Of Fool

Issued in Canada early 1975 on A&M 387. It's odd. If you are old enough to have seen Ian Tyson's CTV television show with the Great Speckled Bird, you'll recognize this as his show's theme song. But this single did not enter any chart at any time after its release in late 1974 or early 1975. In fact, the album it's on, "Ol' Eon" isn't even listed in his discography on what purports to be the encyclopedia of Canadian music on the web. Nonetheless, it's among his most well-known songs. I offer it here to remind you that Ian Tyson started something when he began performing in 1956, and nurtured it into a popular idiom, with much hard work, travelling and playing. He and ex-wife Sylvia were like royalty in the folk circles of the early-to-late '60s. They were pioneering country-rock and folk-rock along with The Byrds, a decade before it became a "genre." Their later-'60s music struggled to find an audience; Sylvia developed some problems with her throat and stopped performing regularly, and Ian went on mostly alone until 1975, the year Ian & Sylvia gave their last performance, and also the year their marriage ended. Ian then realized his dream of training horses in Southern Alberta. After three years' hiatus from music, Ian made an album at the urging of his new wife, and discovered that he didn't have to struggle anymore - his audience was there, ready-made, and had already grown into the kind of music he had such a hard time selling before. And he became a legend. Ian was ...