Ian Tyson, the British Columbia-born cowboy who became a Canadian folk and country music legend and southern Alberta rancher, died Thursday at age 89.
Among his many accolades, Tyson was named to the Order of Canada since 1994 and the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2006. A cause of death was not released Thursday but Tyson was known to have had heart trouble since the mid-2010s.
Born in Victoria in 1933, Tyson learned to ride horses on his father’s southern Vancouver Island farm. He relocated to southern Alberta in his teens to compete in the rodeo circuit.
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Tyson began playing guitar in Calgary after being hospitalized for a rodeo injury and relocated at age 24 to Toronto, where in the midst of the folk music revival he met songwriter and singer Sylvia Fricker. He later recalled he was inspired at that time by the early music of Bob Dylan to try his own hand at songwriting.
Tyson and Fricker married and formed the successful folk duo Ian and Sylvia, whose major recordings include “Someday Soon,” “Summer Wages” and “You Were on My Mind.” His signature work, “Four Strong Winds,” has gone on to be recorded dozens of times by artists ranging from Neil Young and Blue Rodeo to Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and Marianne Faithfull.
Tyson went on to host a national television music show on CTV from 1970 to 1975, after which his marriage to Sylvia Tyson ended and he later relocated again to Alberta. There he took up ranching and training horses, most recently in the foothills region near Longview, about 60 km southwest of Calgary.
Tyson’s musical career saw a renaissance starting in the mid-1980s as he returned to recording and performing. He was named to the Canadian Country Music Association Hall of Fame in 1989, the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame in 2000.
Tyson also “used his skill and passion for music to benefit the community,” the Alberta government said upon his induction to that province’s Order of Excellence in 2006, noting his support of causes such as child safety and education.
“As a compassionate rancher and environmentalist, Tyson has also joined his fellow southern Albertans in work to preserve the natural landscape of rural Alberta,” the province said at the time.
Upon the 2014 completion of a conservation easement for the Waldron Ranch in Alberta’s foothills, Tyson was quoted hailing the rangeland’s preservation as “Good for the elk, bear, deer and all the wildlife that shares the fescue grasslands. Good for the rivers and streams that filter and bring our clean water. Good for the beef cattle that begin their lives in an open-range environment. Good for the urban folks driving Highway 22 to give their kids a glimpse of our last golden west. Good for my soul.”
Tyson continued to record music after a health scare which resulted in open-heart surgery in Calgary in 2015 to replace an aortic valve and a “tune-up” procedure on the heart in 2018. A press release after the 2015 surgery noted he was “impatient to get back to his ranch” but was also “wryly amused that the replacement valve came from a cow’s heart.”
Dignitaries responded Thursday on social media to news of Tyson’s passing, including Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Paraphrasing rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden’s “cowboy’s prayer,” Smith said on Twitter that Tyson had “moved on from this land of beauty to that place cowboys go, where the grass grows green and stirrup high. On behalf of every Albertan, thank you Ian, there will never be another like you.”
“All Albertans will be saddened by the passing of Ian Tyson, an Alberta legend and a Canadian star of folk and country music,” provincial opposition leader Rachel Notley said in a separate tweet, hailing Tyson as a “rancher, rodeo rider and a fine, fine musician.”
“He put Canada on the map with his folk hits and made the world wake up and take notice of the north,” Canadian rock musician Randy Bachman said in a separate tweet. “A true cowboy. Other worlds to sing in, my friend.”
Tyson’s record label, Stony Plain, said Thursday his family will hold a closed service at a later date and that donations can be made to a legacy fund in his name at the Western Folklife Center, a Nevada-based organization known for hosting the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, where he regularly performed. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network
