Worthwhile Canadian Music

The Canadian folk and folk-rock duo Ian & Sylvia began performing together in New York in 1961. They married in 1964 and broke up — musically and maritally — in 1975 (with at least one later reunion concert). Their most famous song, written by Ian, was "Four Strong Winds," which has been covered many times. In 2005, CBC listeners vote "Four Strong Winds" the greatest Canadian song of all time. 

Sylvia also wrote the much-covered song, "You Were on My Mind." 

Ian's cowboy hat was not an affectation. He had actually been a rodeo rider in British Columbia before he took up music. Sylvia was from Chatham, Ontario.  

[For those who did not get the reference in the post's title — intended absolutely ironically, I assure you — see here.]

I've always loved the line "guess I'll go out to Alberta" because my grandparents lived there in the early 1960s, long before the oil boom and the development of Calgary as the "Dallas of Canada." (Neil Young was from Winnipeg, where my grandparents also lived for most of their years in Canada.)

Another great Canadian songwriter:

Ian & Sylvia were on the famous Festival Train that was chartered to take leading performers — including the Grateful Dead, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Janis Joplin — from Toronto to Winnipeg to Calgary in 1970. As seen in the British documentary "Festival Express," they were among the few who stayed sober during the trip. This is what they looked like in those days: