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I have to credit Ian Tyson with first encouraging me to apply my poetic savvy to the art of song lyric writing. Met Ian for breakfast the morning after a cowboy poetry-music show at The Alberta Bair Theater in October of 1987. Not so incidentally, the performance, orchestrated and choreographed by Wallace McRae, presented an all-star cast, including Chris LeDoux, Tom Eaton, Baxter Black, Wally, Ian, and yours truly. Definitely a personal top-tenner of the past couple decades. So Ian, having read my first full collection, THE MAKE-UP OF ICE, urged me to try my hand at songs. I recall, as if it were last week, my jubilation at the prospect of “The Legend,” Ian Tyson, putting my words to music—singing my images from the main stages across the West; I also remember, unfortunately, how absolutely HORRID were my earliest attempts—so HORRID, in fact, that they received, deservedly so, not a single murmur of response from Ian after I’d toiled for months and then put them in the mail. It took a year or so afterwards before I began to comprehend the oftentimes extreme difference in disciplines between song lyric and poem. I had written Flamenca Duende about flamenco dancer, Maria Benitez, and I was certain that a song lived between the free verse lines. I wrote Maria Benitez—in rhymed and metered verses—and sent it not to Ian but to John Hollis, a singer-songwriter I hadcrossed trails with in the interim. John embellished the chorus, created a melody, and within weeks mailed a cassette (which to this day I cherish as a keepsake) offering my first song co-write. John’s rendering remains one of my favorite collaborations—as do the trio of songs I eventually wrote with Ian.
The Zarzyski-Lyric Co-Write Discography begins with the most recent albums on which the songs were cut, all under my ASCAP publishing handle, BUCKING HORSE MOON MUSIC:
BUCKING HORSE MOON: Wylie and The Wild West (Produced by John Carter Cash, Dualtone/W.J.R., 2007)
CDs are available from Wylie and the Wild West.
Rodeo To The Bone (ZZ-Wylie Gustafson)
Bucking Horse Moon (ZZ-Tom Russell)
Whispering Hope (ZZ-Ian Tyson)
ROCK ‘N’ ROWEL: Paul Zarzyski (Open Path Music, 2007)
CDs are available from the Western Folklife Center and CD Baby.
Calico Fever Blues (ZZ-lyrics & music!)
HEAVENS TO BETSY: Betsy Bell Hagar (Produced by Rich O’Brien, 2004)
CDs are available for purchase.
Hope Chest (ZZ-Betsy Hagar) [listen to the track]
Lucky Charms Of Love (ZZ-Betsy Hagar)
True Cowboy Love (ZZ-Betsy Hagar)
The Christmas Saguaro Soiree (ZZ-Betsy Hagar)
The Best Dance (ZZ-Betsy Hagar)
Star Light, Star Bright (ZZ-Betsy Hagar)
INDIANS, COWBOYS, HORSES, DOGS: Tom Russell (HighTone Records, 2004)
Bucking Horse Moon (ZZ-Tom Russell)
All This Way For The Short Ride (ZZ-Tom Russell)
