[mplpost] Winnipeg FF Saturday - continued

[Tony Dalmyn]

When I left this and rushed off Sunday morning, I was reaching Ian Tyson.

I wondered if being at a folk festival might move him to reach back to the
early years.  It did not.  He stuck to the cowboy material - as he did when
he last appeared at the WFF.  I think that was in 85 or 86 as he reinvented
himself as a cowboy singer - perhaps the only real cowboy singer on the
musical scene.

He was well received - I realized that a good part of the audience would
have been at the festival in diapers, if at all, the last time around.  He
had a polite, respectful hearing and in the end an enthusiatic round of
applause and an encore.

Partly, he played through adversity.  It was hot and stayed hot and humid
through the evening.  The audience contended with some mosquitos.  Perfomers
under the lights had heat and bugs in all sizes, especially zooming light
crazed moths.  After one or two songs he was taking off his white stetson
and mopping his face and hat brim.  At that point he made a little joke that
it still beat haying.   He had launched into Leaving Cheyenne and was
choking his lines - literally.  The back up guys would rewind - they hoped
he could cough it out but he ended up breaking for a glass of water.  He
seemed to get mad and asked if they could do anything about the bugs.  He
recovered quickly and brushed it off with a festival one liner - that son of
bitch had a full access pass.

His set seemed to earn respect for his pure devotion to a single theme and
style, and a clarity of vision.  He also revealed a little about a few
songs, and a lot about his life and dreams.  The song is a dream song, and
it mentions his father  He introduced this as a song inspired by his father,
a Welshman who came to Canada to be a cowboy.  Smugglers Cove is a song
about a visit to the beach, and playing at being a cowboy.  The dream of
being a cowboy seems to have stayed with him, even in his years as a 60's
style folksinger.  He walked away from that but came back as an independent.
I suspect that more than a few in the audience would question the values of
cattle ranching, historically or in the present, but his vision of the
circle of life on the high plains is romantic and compelling.

As  I said, the last act of the night was De Danaan who appeared in good
form as they came on.
Tony Dalmyn
Winnipeg



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