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.

Let's start with the Sylvia Tysons we meet on stage. The first thing you notice is the long dark hair - her trademark all these years o then the warn generous mouth and the deep searching eyes.

The lady's about to turn 60, but you'd never know it. The voice may not be quite a bright as it was in the days of her early fame, but it's still true and clear and ready to wrap itself around any emotion.

The she flips her hair, the way she's been doing for years, and suddenly, I'm back in 1967. It's the first time I saw her in concert at my college gymnasium. She was standing at a microphone, wearing a peasant blouse and belting out the lyric to "Lovin' Sound". I've been a fan ever since.

Although 33 years have gone by, I could swear she still looks the same. But wait, something's different tonight. No, not just the between songs patter you find at any concert. She's spinning stories from her past, and she's turning into the people she's telling you about. Wonderful people, like Maggie, the teenage friend who helped educate her about how to deal with boys ("a hand inside the bra is a ticket straight to hell"). And that's how it goes: songs and stories and people from the life of Sylvia Tyson.

No, it's not a biography. There's only one sardonic mention of the Ian in "Ian and Sylvia"
"When we broke up, I gave him back my wedding ring. Later on I remembered that I had paid for it."

She prefers instead to paint hilarious portraits of television makeup artists, or spin a bittersweet sage of a friend who lost her mind.

It's not a game of connect-the dots-, but in the end you wind up with a complete portrait of Sylvia Tyson.

River Road and Other Stories could use more staging and fluidity to push the envelope further toward becoming a real piece of theatre, but as a chance to spend two hours with an important part of Canadian musical history, it'll do just fine.

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.

On the day we talked there, in a screened sunroom overlooking a quiet and colourful garden, she couldn't even find a copy of the much-praised new CD, Kick It Down, by her singer/songwriter son, Clay Tyson.

"All I have is this postcard promoting the release," she says, admiring Clay's classic features, the piercing eyes, the square jaw. "A chip off the old block, isn't he?"

The only musical instrument in view is a small, brightly polished accordion, which she had been playing when I rang the doorbell.
There's no reason to dwell on the past when the present is so full of promise. All Tyson is thinking about on this day is how to pack in enough rehearsal time at a Danforth Ave. studio later in the afternoon before heading out to Chester, N.S., for the East Coast premiere of her one-woman show, River Road And Other Stories.

Part revue, part theatre, part retrospective, River Road opens in Toronto at Canadian Stage this Wednesday at 8 p.m., and runs Wednesday through Sunday for two weeks.

It's a concept piece not unlike A Matter Of Heart, the current theatrical tribute to another Canadian folk music icon, the late Stan Rogers, playing at the Jane Mallet Theatre through Aug. 12. Tyson's show digs deeply into the origins of her most enduring story songs - plus a handful of new ones - and gives her the opportunity to explore their landscapes and the characters who inhabit them within
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an interweaving, spoken dramatic framework.
"This wouldn't have come about if I hadn't been encouraged by the recent stage adaptation of (Timothy Findley's novel) The Piano Man's Daughter and by its director, Paul Thompson," Tyson says.

"I've always believed in the dramatic possibility of songs. I learned that from folk music when I was a teenager. Folk music was a great training ground for this.

"With this show, I'm able to expand on the songs and augment them and move back and forth between them with longer spoken-word stories."

In River Road's main three stories, Tyson assumes several characters, including that of her own grandmother, whose strength and beliefs have emerged in the singer's past songs.

She spent a year writing the dialogue and sequencing the songs for River Road, which received standing ovations at two unofficial debut performances a couple of months ago in Fergus, Ont.

"I was very encouraged by that," she says. "I knew then that I was on the right track with this."

And the River Road track might never end. Eminently portable and accessible to constant revision, the show is Tyson's moveable musical feast, an ever-evolving thing. "I was resistant to the idea of using pre-recorded music (provided by a small ensemble of friends including bassist Randy Kempf and Prairie Oyster pianist Joan Besen), but it makes sense . . . . I can do this show anywhere, anytime, without worrying about musicians hanging around on stage waiting for song cues in the dialogue.

"I'm comfortable with this," she adds, "particularly because it allows me to tell stories they way I like to, the way women like to hear them. Have you ever noticed women tell stories differently from men? They always start with the punchline, then fill in the background, which is always more interesting, more textured than what men do - move from A to B with as little inconvenience and information as possible.

"And it's not as if, at my age, record companies are knocking down my door. This is a way I can keep writing songs, keep performing, keep travelling, keep my artistic juices flowing and not have to make concessions or compromises.

"The best thing about maturity is that you become comfortable with your roots, with who you are and with what you've done.
"That's what River Road does for me."

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.

But unlike a straightforward autobiographical treatise, Tyson's work tiptoes along the ledge between truth and fiction without letting the audience in on which is which. Tyson's characters and anecdotes (usually centred around childhood friends or eccentric old relatives) are almost certainly drawn from fact, but likely embellished with observation inspired by other characters she has encountered. Tyson spins tales with the feel of a humorist. Thus, we are regaled with the adventures of Maggie, the best friend who decides to become a nun, or old relatives with names like Rose or Violet, who share characteristics we would probably recognize in our own kin.

For most singers, stories like these would simply be a way to create bridges between songs. In River Road , they are intended to stand by themselves. But while Tyson is working in the storyteller tradition here, it must also be remembered that she is best known as one of Canada's foremost folksingers (with an Order of Canada to show for it), so music is obviously a large part of the performance.

But her approach here is somewhat minimalist. She performs completely solo, accompanying herself with a barely audible acoustic guitar or accordion. The audible instrumentals are provided by backing tapes, but it is to her credit that her timing is seamless, and live musicians are never missed.

Tyson's voice is still remarkably rich and resilient, as evidenced on numbers such as Rejean ("inspired by a conversation overheard on a train") and the Kitty Wells, Honky Tonk Angel- styled Pip, Won't You Please Take Me Home .

If there is a criticism to be made, it is simply that the anecdotal portion of the performance seemed slightly unnatural. The audience is always aware that Tyson is delivering narrative from a memorized script, the result being that she occasionally comes across like a high-school student delivering a prepared speech before an English class. At the end of the performance, when she did her thank-yous to the crew, she was much more open and natural. Hopefully, that more spontaneous approach will eventually find its way into the body of the performance.

But, of course, this medium is a new one for the 59-year- old Toronto resident. No doubt she will soon feel as comfortable delivering the monologues as she does the songs that made her famous.

River Road & Other Stories continues at The Canadian Stage Company in Toronto, Wednesday through Saturday, to Aug. 19 (416- 368-3110).