Background
The second of four children, her father was an appliance salesman for the T. Eaton Company, and her mother was a church organist, who also led the choir.
The second of four children, her father was an appliance salesman for the T. Eaton Company, and her mother was a church organist, who also led the choir.
But she says she knew from a young age that she wanted to be a singer, and she left Chatham in 1959 to perform in Toronto. From 1959 to 1974, she was half of the popular folk duo with Ian Tyson. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, she and Ian Tyson also fronted the country rock band Great Speckled Bird.
Perhaps her best-known song was "You Were on My Mind", which was originally recorded by in 1964.
Sylvia wrote it in 1962, and has said it was the first song she wrote. The song became a popular hit single in the mid-1960s for the San Francisco-based folk-rock band We Five and also for the British popular singer Crispian Saint Peters.
lieutenant has become a rock and roll standard which has been covered numerous times. 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 ().
In 2011, she wrote her first novel, a 420-page book entitled Joyner"s Dream.
Sylvia Tyson was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1994. She was nominated seven times for a Juno Award, the first being in 1987 as Country Female Vocalist of the Year. But despite these nominations, she has not yet won a Juno award. The Canadian Music Hall of Fame inducted as a duo in 1992. In 2003, Sylvia Tyson herself was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.
Since 1993, she has been a member of the all-female folk group Quartette. Sylvia Tyson has contributed offstage to the Canadian music scene as a board member of FACTOR and the Juno Awards. Sylvia Tyson was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1994.
