Ian Tamblyn is a national treasure. A fine guitarist with an expressive, melodious voice, the central Canadian singer-songwriter's greatest gifts are his poetic, evocative songs.A wide-ranging traveller with a painter's eye for essential detail, Tamblyn brought stories of the scope and soul of Canada to the George and Dragon's backroom on a recent night. It was a warm and wonderful musical treat.

A hushed, attentive crowd packed the intimate, Fernwood venue. Tamblyn opened the concert with a series of songs celebrating this province's natural beaty. References to Fraser lake, McBride, Port Hardy, Nanaimo, Haida Gwai, and Gabriola Island peppered his narrative's of B.C's "deep green, green-on-green."Tamblyn's dazzling finger picking and thoughtful vocals conjured-up rushing rivers and echoing canyons, a fevered bus ride through a verdant landscape, and the ghostly, last call of our nation-spanning national dream. "Once this train is gone, it won't be back no more," Tamblyn's vocal seethed, adding with a broken, whispered coda, "and it's goin', goin, and it's gone."

He's a great storyteller, and the evening's rambling, tangent-spiced song introductions were as entertaining as his wise, painterly songcraft. A silly, pun-adled geological love song called The Ballad of Mica and Magma followed an even sillier, playful narrative inspired by a Tibeten monks' musical tour of Canada called The Gypsy Kings Play Manitoba. A send-up of all things worldbeat, the latter was sung in a Month Pythonesque, skewered Spanish accent.

A spooky story about a haunted canoe trip in northwest Ontario introduced the exquisitely poetic Woodsmoke and Oranges. With it's "there's something about this country, it's part of me and you" punchline, Woodsmoke and Oranges was a highlight in a repertoire of nation-celebrating treats. Christine Graves offered a short set of sweet, deeply personal songs that included a couple of stunning acapella radings. Tamblyn joined her on second guitar for a set-capping Sleeping with the Moon. Then Tamblyn produced a second series of evocative, introspective folk narratives. Many of the songs triggered goose-pimple inducing epiphanies. Ian Tamblyn is a Canadian folk music master, and his latest local show was a gem.


Joseph Blake, Victoria Times, June 3, 1999