The Day Anne Hills Sang with Ian Tyson

Ian Tyson and Anne Hills, Rio Grande Scenic Railroad, Colorado

There are moments in music that you don’t plan for, and you wouldn’t know how to do it again if you tried.

This was one of those.

As many of you know, for years my railroad ran a concert series at the top of La Veta Pass, at a place called Fir.

We were in the club car, on the way back down from La Veta Pass.

By that point in the day, everything had already happened. The train ride up. The meadow. The concert, Anne Hills, followed by Ian Tyson. The crowd had heard what they came to hear, Anne’s lovely voice, Ian Tyson singing songs from an earlier time. People were satisfied. Relaxed. Settling into the ride back to Alamosa.

In the club car, the usual thing was unfolding, one of my favorite parts of the day, the club car jam.

Fred Hargrove, our host, had his guitar. I had mine. People were gathered around, some sitting, some standing. Songs were moving around the room in that informal way they always did. No set list. No plan. Just whatever came next.

Anne Hills was there, sitting close by, guitar in hand.

Shaun was playing harmonica. Ian Tyson’s band was with us, Gord and Gord, one on guitar and one on bass. They had already eased into the circle, listening and playing along where it felt right.

Ian himself wasn’t there at first.

Then he came in.

He sat down across from Anne.

At some point, someone in the car asked for “Summer Wages.”

Ian hesitated. He said he didn’t really remember it. It had been a long time.

That could have been the end of it.

But Anne said, with her beautiful smile, that she loved that song.

The Gords started to play.

And then Ian picked up his guitar.

Gord and Gord, Ian, Anne: Summer Wages

What happened next wasn’t dramatic in the way people sometimes imagine musical moments to be. There was no announcement. No shift in the car that said, “Pay attention, something important is about to happen.”

It just began.

Ian started to sing.

Anne listened for a moment, and then added harmony.

And suddenly, the whole train ride changed.

Not in volume. Not in energy. In focus.

People leaned in. Conversations stopped. Even the small movements you don’t notice in a club car like that one seemed to settle. It wasn’t that people were told to be quiet. It’s that no one wanted to miss anything. Phones came out for video of this.

I was a few feet away from two artists who were sharing a song that had lived for decades, finding its way back into the moment.

There were no microphones, no stage, no separation.

Just the song.

I don’t remember exactly where I was sitting. I don’t remember who else was in the car. I don’t remember what happened after it ended.

I remember how it felt.

There are certain moments when you realize you are experiencing something that cannot be repeated in quite the same way again. Not because it’s rare in a musical sense, but because everything that made it possible, the people, the place, the timing, the willingness to just let it happen, has come together in a way I couldn’t have arranged.

That was one of those moments.

And the remarkable thing is, it happened in a club car on a railroad in a remote part of Colorado.

No more than 40 people. No production. No expectation.

Just a group of people who had spent the day together, now sharing something on the way home that turned out to be just as remarkable as the concert they had come for.

When I think about nights at Wesley’s Place, or any listening room, I think about that moment.

Not because we are trying to recreate it.

But because it reminds me what is possible when the distance between the music and the listener disappears. Which it often does in a small listening room. And I show up hoping for moments like that to occur.