Passing through Stringband's ranks at various times were Ben Mink, Terry King, Zeke Mazurek, Calvin Cairns, Dennis Nichol, Jerry Lewycky, and Nancy Ahern.
[1] The group pioneered independent recording and artist-controlled album releases in Canada, and was noted for songs that explored Canadian themes, often with a humorous bent.
No Stringband songs became commercial hits, though several became widely known, including "Dief Will Be the Chief Again", Bossin's tongue-in-cheek tribute to former Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.
However, Mink would return to the group's orbit in later years to produce and mix projects by Stringband, as well as solo material by Hammond.
Meanwhile, Bossin recruited singer-songwriter Nancy Ahern as a replacement for Hammond—but at Hammond's insistence, this trio was not initially allowed to bill themselves as Stringband.
Adding new violinist Zeke Mazurek and the group's first permanent bassist, Dennis Nichol, beginning in January 1980 Stringband resumed touring and playing folk festivals a few months each year.
After a series of gigs at Vancouver's Expo '86 Stringband effectively dissolved, with Hammond and Bossin electing to concentrate on their solo careers.
Bossin's titles include "Tugboats", "The Maple Leaf Dog", "Show us the Length", "Lunenberg Concerto", and "Daddy Was a Ballplayer."
Hammond's songs include "Vancouver", "Flying/Spring of '44", "I Don't Sleep with Strangers Anymore", "La jeune mariee" and, with Bossin, "Mrs. Murphy".
If Bob, like a ventriloquist, projected his voice into his characters, Marie-Lynn used her talent like a ouija board to tap into the past and bring to life women who never got to tell their stories."
Cristall concludes: "[Theirs] is a story of victory against the odds; of how an intrepid band of dissidents confronted the dominance of foreign mercenaries to carve out a niche for homegrown music.
It is the story of two important creative talents who disliked each other upon first meeting and proceeded to work together for the next two decades, battling behind the scenes while, on stage, they delighted hundreds of thousands of listeners from Tuktoyaktuk to Toronto, Mexico City to Moscow.
Stringband laid down the roots of independent recording in Canada; they inspired scores if not hundreds of musicians, and they left behind a dozen of the best songs ever written in this country."