TORONTO - With her national touring theatrical show and newly released album, both of which are titled "River Road and Other Stories," Canadian singer/songwriter Sylvia Tyson superbly sums up a remarkable four decade career.

The 18-song album, featuring a poignant photo of Canada's folk/country music matriarch by fellow countryman Bryan Adams, was released Tuesday (5) by her Salt Music label, which is distributed in Canada by Outside Music.

Still brimming with unbridled enthusiasm over the July sessions, helmed by producer Danny Greenspoon at the Canterbury Music Company Studios here, Tyson, who turns 60 on September 19, jokes, "The album was put together in land speed record [time] due to growing theater commitments. I was a real bitch on the phone. I got on every body's case to get it done."

"It's quite a range of songs. She's a remarkable woman, " says Greenspoon, who played in Tyson's backing group from 1978-86, replacing now internationally renowned producer Daniel Lanois.

The album and theatrical show features Tyson repertoire from throughout her lengthy career, including "You Were On My Mind", "River Road" (recorded by Crystal Gayle in 1980), "Denim Blue Eyes", and "Woman's World." There are also two previously unrecorded songs, "Hazel's First Ride" and "Donegal Tavern." The theatrical presentation also includes Tyson's stories and personal anecdotes which are available in a booklet ...(with the CD).

"Despite the autobiographical aspect of it, the show is about songwriting," says Tyson. "I'm quite proud of [the production] because I've never put [the songs] together like this before.

"The album should do well, because there has not been a recording as complete as this by Sylvia," says Stewart Duncan, director of music at the Indigo Book Music & Café chain, which operates 14 stores in Ontario.    More....

There were two Sylvia Tysons at Berkeley Street last night: one on stage and one in my memory.

The fact that my mind was divided between the past and the present seems highly appropriate, because River Road and Other Stories is about time, memory, music and how they all fit together ......More

The singer/songwriter and former spouse of the equally tireless cowboy balladeer Ian Tyson doesn't sit surrounded in her sprawling old Rosedale home by the souvenirs of a rich life in music - first with the Ian and Sylvia folk duo, which in the 1960s was among the half-dozen leading acts of the time, then as a solo performer in the 1970s through the mid'90s and most recently as a member of the groundbreaking all-female country/folk ensemble Quartette. ......More

For most of us, there are few things in life more evocative than music -that single chord or lyric that twists time and space to open, ever so briefly, a window on the past and its people, places and experiences.

Most of us, however, are not songwriters - and even the few who are aren't songwriters of the calibre of Sylvia Tyson, whose new one woman show, River Road And Other Stories, had its Toronto premiere at Canadian Stage Berkeley Street Theatre Wednesday night.

For songwriters like Tyson, the people, places and experiences inspire the single chord or lyric -a process she reveals with quiet wonder in this new show. in its way, River Road takes Tyson back to the coffee houses that spawned her career, before the young girl from Chatham, Ont., hooked up with Ian Tyson to become one half of Ian and Sylvia, major players in the folk movement that flourished in the '60s and early'70s. As Tyson quietly recalls small moments in her life, it is easy to imagine her seated in a smoky Yorkville, dive, spacing out her lovingly crafted songs with personal patter. It would be equally easy. to imagine her sitting in a sunny kitchen, pouring tea for a friendly stranger and regaling them with anecdotes while she strums her guitar.

It is that kind of easy familiarity, as much as its limited use of theatrical device, that gives the evening its charm.

What gives it its back bone, however, is Tyson's music -a rich grab bag of songs - the sad, the nostalgic, the humorous, the reflective and even the slightly embittered, each introduced by a story or vignette - that sets the stage. .....More

There were two Sylvia Tysons at Berkeley Street last night: one on stage and one in my memory.

The fact that my mind was divided between the past and the present seems highly appropriate, because River Road and Other Stories is about time, memory, music and how they all fit together ......More

The singer/songwriter and former spouse of the equally tireless cowboy balladeer Ian Tyson doesn't sit surrounded in her sprawling old Rosedale home by the souvenirs of a rich life in music - first with the Ian and Sylvia folk duo, which in the 1960s was among the half-dozen leading acts of the time, then as a solo performer in the 1970s through the mid'90s and most recently as a member of the groundbreaking all-female country/folk ensemble Quartette. ......More

It is a not-unusual human characteristic, after having accumulated a healthy whack of life experiences, to want to take stock and recap what has gone before. For writers, this often results in an autobiography. For athletes, politicians, warriors and the like, something seemingly autobiographical, but likely ghost- written. Yet what's a songwriter to do? Somehow, it just doesn't seem fair to have to encapsulate one's entire existence into a three-minute ballad.

Veteran Canadian singer-songwriter Sylvia Tyson has found an answer to this artistic dilemma. In her one-woman show River Road & Other Stories , she has put together a collection of old and new songs, integrated with a series of lengthy stories and anecdotes, to create something that falls somewhere between music, drama and sitting on Jay Leno's couch. ......More