Sylvia Tyson

Who is Sylvia Tyson?

Sylvia Tyson, CM, is a musician, performer, singer-songwriter and broadcaster. From 1959 to 1974, she was half of the popular folk duo Ian & Sylvia with Ian Tyson.

From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, she and Ian also fronted the country-rock band Great Speckled Bird. More recently, she has been a member of the all-female folk group Quartette.

Perhaps her best-known song was "You Were on My Mind", which was originally recorded by Ian & Sylvia in 1964. The song became a massive hit single in the mid-1960s for the San Francisco-based folk-rock band We Five and also for the British pop singer Crispian St. Peters. It has become a rock and roll standard which has been covered numerous times.

She married Ian Tyson in 1964; they divorced in 1975. During their marriage, they had one child, Clay Tyson. Sylvia has contributed offstage to the Canadian music scene as a board member of FACTOR and the Juno Awards. She also established an independent record label, Salt Records, in the early 1980s.

With Tom Russell, she was an editor of the 1995 anthology And Then I Wrote: The Songwriter Speaks.