It's perhaps stating the obvious to observe that Ian & Sylvia's critical reputation has grown over the decades. Though they last recorded together nearly five decades ago (they divorced in 1975), the best of their music -- which is to say the seven albums they cut for Vanguard between 1963 and 1968 -- have never dated. They feel as fresh as ever, and as moving both in their interpretations of traditional songs and in their brilliantly imagined originals. The misfires amid their output number, in my count, not more than half a dozen and are easily excusable next to the high mountain of enduring songs, not to mention outright classics, in their oeuvre.

One greets the appearance of a "new" Ian & Sylvia release first with shock, then with gratitude. The project is Sylvia Tyson's; ex-husband Ian Tyson goes mentioned nowhere in the credits, perhaps because health issues have him otherwise engaged. One presumes, of course, that this happened with his full consent. The Lost Tapes consists of two discs of material recorded in the early 1970s. The recording suggests mostly live performance, with perhaps the stray studio studio effort. Unfortunately, zero information about locations, dates and personnel is provided, frustrating those of us who care about such things. Mike Regenstreif, the knowledgeable chronicler/historian of Canada's folk scene, thinks, "Most -- if not all -- of these tracks are from The Ian Tyson Show," which aired on Canadian television between 1970 and 1975.

By far the more inspiring of the two is the first, which has the Tysons reprising notable songs from their 1960s repertoire, including the especially strong Ian-written "Four Rode By," "Summer Wages" and -- inevitably -- "Four Strong Winds." Steve Gillette and Tom Campbell's often-covered "Darcy Farrow," which previously appeared (in an oddly botched arrangement) on the couple's 1965 Early Morning Rain, shows up in a superior treatment. Ian would revisit it on his 2015 solo album Carnero Vaquero. (I reviewed that one in this space on 30 May 2015.)

If Ian & Sylvia recorded the Carter Family's "Keep on the Sunny Side" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" on earlier albums, they're not in my possession, and I have nearly all of their catalogue in my CD collection. If hardly obscure or under-recorded, they're still a pleasure to hear. Fans will recognize such traditional fare as the Scottish "Nancy Whiskey," the Irish "Little Beggarman" and the American "Come All You Fair & Tender Ladies," the last of these one of my favorite Ian & Sylvia's readings of an authentic folk song, originally cut on their 1966 So Much for Dreaming. Their otherwise-wonderful take on the 19th-century outlaw ballad "When First Unto This Country" -- collected by Alan Lomax, though it is likely that the version on Ian & Sylvia's eponymous 1963 debut was learned from the New Lost City Ramblers -- repeats an odd error in the last line, namely making the biblical Jacob, as opposed to Joseph, the possessor of a coat of many colors.

By this time the couple had been singing these songs in concert for years. In some instances they sound even better than they do on the studio versions. Some cuts are distinct from the originals in being augmented by a very good band. Another virtue is that the audiences don't clap as soon as they hear the opening chords of a beloved number; they save the appreciation till the end.

The first disc features the country songs "Crazy Arms," a 1956 hit for Ray Price, sung in French as it would be on the Tysons's Great Speckled Bird (1970), and Lillian Starr's lovely 1964 Canadian bilingual chart-topper "The French Song," well known in Canada but rarely heard south of the border, where much of country fandom looks askance at anything not spoken or sung in English.

It is the second side that disappoints, drawing in part upon popular Nashville songs of the period. These aren't bad, and the Tysons deliver them pleasantly enough. But they were already ably covered by the original artists, among them Patsy Cline, Buck Owens, Lefty Frizzell and other masters of the genre. Even "The Last Thing on My Mind" is clearly derived from the Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner arrangement cut in 1967, and not from the earlier recording by its author, Tom Paxton. This seems strange inasmuch as Ian & Sylvia knew Paxton, along with his composition, from their days on the Village folk scene. They have a go, not very interestingly, at a soul song and, a bit more happily, with Jimmie Rodgers' "Jimmie's Texas Blues" and -- improbably -- Robert Johnson's "Come On in My Kitchen." The CD concludes on a high note with Ian's pointed reading of Utah Phillips's "The Goodnight Loving Trail," presaging the Western-folk/cowboy-culture songs with which he would be associated from the 1980s to the present.

None of this grumbling means that if you love Ian & Sylvia, you shouldn't have this on your record shelf. Here's a tip of the hat to Sylvia and to Stony Plain for making possible this welcome act of artistic preservation.

The Rails -- James Walbourne and Kami Thompson -- will not be, nor are they intended to be, a British Ian & Sylvia for the 21st century, but they could be, or could have been, the second incarnation of onetime folk-rock couple Richard & Linda Thompson, who happen to be Kami's parents. I reviewed their previous album, Other People (as in, I suspect, "hell is other people"), enthusiastically on 25 August 2018, and it ended up on my Rambles.NET best-of-the-year list.

At some point following that, I recall reading that guitarist Walbourne was making noises, so to speak, about "playing loud," which he does on this disc to not particularly edifying effect. Though Cancel the Sun has its moments, too often it's just near-generic electric-guitar rock, sometimes with echoes of the Beatles and the Kinks, who did this sort of thing a whole lot better. Maybe I ought to start a disappointment-of-the year list.