Ian Dawson Tyson (25 September 1933 – 29 December 2022) was a Canadian singer-songwriter who wrote several folk songs, including "Four Strong Winds" and "Someday Soon", and performed with partner Sylvia Tyson as the duo Ian & Sylvia. Early life and education Ian Dawson Tyson was born on 25 September 1933, in Victoria, British Columbia to George and Margaret Tyson. His father George was an insurance salesman and polo enthusiast who emigrated from England in 1906. Growing up in Duncan, British Columbia, he learned to ride horses on his father's farm, and eventually became a rodeo rider in his late teens and early twenties. He took up the guitar while in hospital recovering from a broken ankle sustained in a fall. Fellow Canadian country artist Wilf Carter was a musical influence. He graduated from the Vancouver School of Art in 1958. Career After graduation, Tyson moved to Toronto where he began a job as a commercial artist. There he performed in local clubs and in 1959 began to sing on occasion with Sylvia Fricker. By early 1959 Tyson and Fricker were performing part-time at the Village Corner as Ian & Sylvia. The pair became a full-time musical act in 1961 and married three years later. In 1969, they formed and fronted the group The Great Speckled Bird. Residing in southern Alberta, the Tysons toured all over the world. During their years together, the pair released 13 albums of folk and country music. From 1970 to 1975, Tyson hosted a national television program, The Ian Tyson Show, on CTV, known as Nashville North in its first season. Sylvia Tyson and the Great Speckled Bird appeared often on the series. In 1980, Tyson became associated with Calgary music manager and producer Neil MacGonigill. Tyson decided to concentrate on country and cowboy music, resulting in the well-received 1983 album Old Corrals and Sagebrush, released on Columbia Records. 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). Tyson credited Adrian Chernowol with creating a unique sound for his platinum album "Cowboyography", a unique style that he maintained for his rest of his recording career. In 2005, CBC Radio One listeners chose his song "Four Strong Winds" as the greatest Canadian song of all time on the series 50