December 30, 2022 | Awake & Dreaming

While the sporting world and football fans were grieving the passing of Pele, the country music & Canadian music scene also had a major legend passing. Singer-songwriter Ian Tyson also passed away at the age of 89 at his ranch near Longview, Alberta. The Member of the Order of Canada (in October 1994) wrote a significant number of modern folk songs, including “Four Strong Winds” and “Someday Soon”, and performed with partner Sylvia Tyson as the duo Ian & Sylvia.

Tyson was born to British immigrants in Victoria, and grew up in Duncan B.C. Right after his graduation, Tyson bagged a job in Toronto as a commercial artist where he performed at local clubs. In about 1959, he actually began his singing career with Sylvia Fricker. In 1961, the beloved duo began performing a full-time musical act and three years later they got married. By 1969, they began a group called, The Great Speckled Bird. The musical duo released over 13 folk and country music albums. In 1970, Ian Tyson famously hosted a national television program, called, The Ian Tyson Show, which aired on CTV. The show aired till 1975 and was titled Nashville North for its first season.

In 1980, Ian Tyson began working with Neil MacGonigill and delivered several albums focussed on the country and cowboy niche. His famous works include Old Corrals and Sagebrush. The man popularized “Cowboyography” and was on a winning streak as he went on to deliver famous albums focused on cowboy music including, I Outgrew the Wagon (1989),And Stood There Amazed (1991) & Eighteen Inches of Rain (1994). In 1989, Tyson was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame. 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. He has been a strong influence on many Canadian artists, including Neil Young, who recorded “Four Strong Winds” for Comes a Time (1978).

In 2006, Tyson sustained irreversible scarring to his vocal cords as a result of a concert at the Havelock Country Jamboree followed a year later by a virus contracted during a flight to Denver. He was nominated for a 2009 Canadian Folk Music Awards for Solo Artist of the Year. The album includes a song about Canadian hockey broadcasting icon Don Cherry and the passing of his wife, Rose. Tyson was married twice. Both marriages ended in divorce. His first marriage, to his musical partner Sylvia Fricker, ended in an amicable^[14] divorce in 1975. Their son Clay (Clayton Dawson Tyson, born 1966) was also a musical performer and has since moved to a career modifying racing bikes.

His second marriage in 1986 to Twylla Dvorkin also ended in divorce in 2008. The couple had a daughter together named Adelita Rose. The song Four Strong Winds, written by Ian Tyson, was named as the greatest Canadian song of all time by the CBC-Radio program 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version in 2005. There was strong momentum for him to be nominated the Greatest Canadian, but he fell short.

Edson Arantes do Nascimento (born 23 October 1940), known more famously as Pelé , has passed away at the age of 82. The former Brazilian professional footballer who played as a forward and regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and labelled “the greatest” by FIFA, was among the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th century. In 1999, he was named Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee and was included in the Time list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. In 2000, Pelé was voted World Player of the Century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) and was one of the two joint winners of the FIFA Player of the Century. His 1,279 goals in 1,363 games, which includes friendlies, is recognised as a Guinness World Record.

Pelé began playing for Santos at age 15 and the Brazil national team at 16. During his international career, he won three FIFA World Cups: 1958, 1962 and 1970, the only player to do so. He was nicknamed O Rei (The King) following the 1958 tournament. Pelé is the joint-top goalscorer for Brazil with 77 goals in 92 games. At the club level, he was Santos’ all-time top goalscorer with 643 goals in 659 games. In a golden era for Santos, he led the club to the 1962 and 1963 Copa Libertadores, and to the 1962 and 1963 Intercontinental Cup. Credited with connecting the phrase “The Beautiful Game” with football, Pelé’s “electrifying play and penchant for spectacular goals” made him a star around the world, and his teams toured internationally to take full advantage of his popularity. During his playing days, Pelé was for a period the best-paid athlete in the world. After retiring in 1977, Pelé was a worldwide ambassador for football and made many acting and commercial ventures. In 2010, he was named the honorary president of the New York Cosmos.

In Brazil, he was hailed as a national hero for his accomplishments in football and for his outspoken support of policies that improve the social conditions of the poor. His emergence at the 1958 World Cup, where he became the first black global sporting star, was a source of inspiration. Pelé married three times, and had several affairs, producing several children. At the age of 73, Pelé announced his intention to marry 41-year-old Marcia Aoki, a Japanese-Brazilian importer of medical equipment from Penápolis, São Paulo, whom he had been dating since 2010. They first met in the mid-1980s in New York, before meeting again in 2008 and marrying in 2016. His Instagram account confirmed his death at the hospital from multiple organ failure, a complication of colon cancer, on 29 December 2022.