Under the moniker Ian & Sylvia, Ian and Sylvia Tyson were a Canadian folk duo that came to occupy a central role in the folk music revival that rattled and twanged out of Bleeker Street, beyond Greenwich Village, and into the popular music charts in the early 1960′s. The pair moved to Greenwich Village where they signed with Albert Grossman, mega-manager for Bob Dylan Peter, Paul and Mary. Grossman got them a deal on Vanguard, the duo played the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 and 1965, and they introduced the music of Gordon Lightfoot to the world when they cut “Early Morning Rain” and “(That’s What You Get) For Lovin’ Me.”

The pair were in the center of that blue denim dust devil when Ian says he may have turned Bob Dylan on to marijuana. Of course, Dylan paid it forward to The Beatles. The ramifications stagger their contemplating. Here’s Ian’s remembering…

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This spring we mark 50 years since we lost Richard Fariña in a tragic motorcycle accident on April 30, 1966. The author of this great article at The Guardian assumes most readers will be familiar with Fariña as a literary figure who wrote the novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me which was published only weeks before Fariña’s death. The article looks at Fariña as a literary link between the Beats and the hippies.

Of course every songwriter in Nashville and I know that Fariña was a folk singer in the same Greenwich Village scene where Bob Dylan made his name, and that Fariña’s most memorable music can be found on the records he recorded with his wife, Joan Baez’ sister, Mimi.

I haven’t read Fariña’s novel, but it’s fun to find out something unexpected and new-to-you from an artist you already respect, isn’t it? Looking forward to reading that one. If you already have it on your shelf fill us in with a comment about the book. If you’re not familiar with Fariña’s music or if you just haven’t heard Richard and Mimi in awhile here they are killing it with Pete Seeger on his Rainbow Quest television show about two months before Richard’s death…

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