Ian Tyson

Ian Tyson CM AOE (born Ian Dawson Tyson in Victoria, British Columbia, on 25 September 1933; died 29 December 2022) was a Canadian singer-songwriter who performed with partner Sylvia Tyson as the folk duo Ian & Sylvia and wrote several notable songs including "Four Strong Winds" and "Someday Soon". Tyson and his then-wife Sylvia Fricker constituted one of the most popular folk duos of the 1960s, Ian & Sylvia. In 1969, they formed and fronted the pioneering country-rock group Great Speckled Bird. Tyson gradually shifted to the cowboy way while still with Sylvia, accentuating the western life through song. Residing on a ranch in southern Alberta, Tyson toured all over the west. In 1989, Tyson was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame. His next albums were cowboy music: I Outgrew the Wagon (1989), And Stood There Amazed (1991), and Eighteen Inches of Rain (1994). In 2005, CBC Radio One listeners chose his song, "Four Strong Winds," as the greatest Canadian song of all time on the series 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version. There was strong momentum for him to be nominated the Greatest Canadian, but he fell short. He has been a strong influence on many Canadian artists including Neil Young, who recorded "Four Strong Winds" for Comes a Time (1978). Johnny Cash would also record that same song for American V: A Hundred Highways (2006). In 2006, Tyson was afflicted with a throat virus resulting in damaged vocal cords and a major change in the texture of his once mellifluous voice into a far hoarser quality. Nevertheless he cut the album, "From Yellowhead to Yellowstone and Other Love Stories" in 2008. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.