Great album, (seventh for the Stony Plain), focused on the world of the workin’ cowboy of the great Canadian plains, Lost Herd was published back in 1999 and is definitely one of the Canadian singer’s best records. Recorded between Toronto and Nashville (with the exception of a couple of pieces recorded on his farm on the outskirts of Calgary), the CD does not tell the legendary story of the epic West populated by cowboys, Indians and outlaws, but winds through a lucid, bitter and poetic narration of the modern day life of the cattleman. Echoing a theme dear to cowboy music (just listen to “Coyotes” by Don Edwards or “He’s Runnin’ Out Of Roundups” by Sons Of San Joaquin), it talks about the unavoidable end of a world that is disappearing under the blows inflicted by an ever imposing ”agribusiness” that requires an unrestrained exploitation of natural resources. “The herd is gone,” sings Tyson with bitterness, but this time there were no Apaches or outlaws to steal it, but it vanished when the immense plains disappeared to make way for a number of husbandries where animals “live” in batteries. The days of cowboys have reached a sad conclusion, Tyson is certainly aware of it for some time, but despite everything it is an awfully hard judgment to accept for a man who for all his life has ridden freely on the prairies, intoxicated by the wind.
Surprisingly, however, Ian Tyson closes the CD with a note of hope entrusted to the song “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, the well-known piece by Harold Arlen brought to success by Judy Garland in the movie “The Wizard Of Oz.” Lost Herd has a touch of melancholy for long stretches, but at the same time it is enchanting, where Tyson’s great voice and poetic vein that emerges from almost all of the ten songs (9 of which are written by Tyson himself) captures in the minds of listeners, images of people and landscapes better than any postcard could. (Gianluca Sitta gianluca@planetcountry.it )
