Ian Tyson inspired by students' 'powerful song'

Ian Tyson doesn't just collaborate with anybody. Sure, the 76-year-old country-folk music icon broke into the business with his former wife Sylvia Tyson in the '60s, and Ian & Sylvia became giants of that era's folk movement. And, in recent years Tyson has also performed with the CPO and recorded with Corb Lund. But working with grades 1 and 2 students from the arts immersion school Calgary Arts Academy? Nobody saw that coming. Even so, Tyson's latest recording, A Song For Spirit, is a worthy and touching folk anthem and we owe it all to a blinded bird. And to Paul Rasporich, the teacher who made the project happen. Rasporich was inspired when he learned about the story of Spirit, a downed golden eagle that was taken to the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation in 2007 after it had been shot and left for dead on a gravel road near Lethbridge. The foundation, dedicated to rehabilitating injured birds of prey, nursed Spirit back to health, but the eagle was to reside with the organization permanently because gun shot pellets had left it blind...more