An all-star Ian Tyson tribute band is performing this Friday and Saturday night at one of Ian Tyson's favourite venues.
'The Gift' will be playing at a venue Tyson played numerous times and featured in his 'Live in Longview' album, the East Longview Community Hall.
The Hall had a tribute mural and a plaque dedicated to him on July 4, 2024, with both of his children attending.
Coming up this weekend, band manager Peter North explained that 'The Gift' has been paying tribute to Tyson for decades before his passing.
"It sort of blows me away that we've been doing this show on and off for 24 years. Stewart McDougall and I put it together in the early 2000s just because we wanted to pay tribute to Ian. Too many tributes come after somebody's passed."
Tyson passed away on December 29, 2022.
North has lined up an all-star cast of musicians and singers for the special event.
"The core five members right now are Stewart [MacDougall], guitarist Gordie Matthews, who was in Ian's acoustic trio for ten years, Thom Moon on drums, who started playing with Ian in 1980 and played on numerous albums and toured with him for years and played on special events, Julian Kerr, who played on the 'One Jump Ahead of the Devil' album and also played piano, he used to fill in for Stewart when he couldn't make it, and on fiddle we had Myron Szott for years, who was with Ian for years and he was just a terrific musician and also knew Ian's music inside out and sadly just over a month ago Myron passed away. Calvin Vollrath had been subbing in for him on fiddle, and it's very sad for us, but also, if you're going to lose somebody, we've got a great fiddle player replacing him. And Calvin played on a couple of Ian's albums and also worked on the Sun Country TV series that Ian co-hosted in the 80s out of Edmonton. The singers are John Wart Hannam, Ian Oscar, former lead singer for One Horse Blue and Tracy Millar, who's well known in the traditional country circles out on the rodeo circuit and theatre circuit. I don't have any hesitation in calling it an all-star band."
They will be performing a wide variety of Tyson's songs from his vast catalogue of songs.
There are still a few tickets left. Click here for the link.