The spate of notable deaths the last few days of December made it difficult to avoid reflecting on those who were lost in 2022.
The new year always brings with it a look back on the previous 12 months, reminiscing about some of the famous and infamous who enriched our lives for many years. These days it seems celebrity deaths have been happening more frequently.
Dec. 29 was a particularly tough day to take. It began with the news of the passing of Ian Tyson at 89 years old. Tyson was one of the most influential singers and songwriters in Canadian music, a mainstay of Toronto’s early 1960s Yorkville folk scene with his then-wife, Sylvia.
His song Four Strong Winds, from Ian and Sylvia’s 1963 album of the same name, topped the charts in Canada and was covered by the likes of Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Waylon Jennings and Neil Young. The Canadian standard’s melody and lyrics about cold, lonely winds and flying snow imprinted themselves on the national psyche. It continues to find its way into lists of the top Canadian songs of all time to this day.
In the late 1980s I was working at CHOW radio in Dain City. It’s not a city at all, just a rural stop between Welland and Port Colborne. Unlike most disc jockeys today, I chose the music I played during my shifts. Though Four Strong Winds was known more as a folk song, I would give the Jennings version a spin frequently. Hearing it today brings me back to those lonely nights in the middle of nowhere, Tyson’s words keeping me company between phone calls from even lonelier listeners.
By then, Ian and Sylvia were no longer a couple and Tyson had retired from the limelight in favour of life on a horse and cattle ranch in Calgary.
But he continued to write and record great songs. He released a stretch of four albums from 1983 to 1989 that expertly documented modern cowboy life, most notably 1986’s Cowboyography, featuring modern classics such as Navajo Rug, Summer Wages and Fifty Years Ago. These records are worth giving a listen.
Though those songs would never reach the heights of his most well-known numbers, they influenced the likes of new generations of country artists, including Corb Lund, Paul Brandt and Tom Russell, whose 2022 release was called Play One More: The Songs of Ian and Sylvia.
As Dec. 29 progressed, the news kept getting worse. Just weeks after the conclusion of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, we lost one of the biggest all-time legends of the sport, Pele, at 82 years old.
The three-time World Cup winner representing Brazil had been battling colon cancer since 2021. He was the face of the game for decades and the ambassador for the 2014 World Cup hosted by his beloved country.
He burst onto soccer’s world scene at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. At only 17 years old, Pele, born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, became the youngest player ever at the tournament. Twelve years later he was the face of Brazil’s World Cup victory in Mexico, scoring off a leaping header in the final and setting up Carlos Alberto with a nonchalant pass for the last goal in the 4-1 victory over Italy.
I remember hearing about him joining the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League (NASL) in 1975. Though he was past his prime, his decision to play the beautiful game in the U.S. was the first step in increasing the sport’s profile in North America. I also recall the fuss he created when he visited Toronto that summer for a game at Varsity Stadium.
In the old VHF/UHF days of TV I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to actually see him play the game. It was later, as an adult, when I was able to understand his role and his prominence in the overall pantheon of sport, and when I could admire him for his humanitarian efforts as much as his athletic abilities.
Finally that same day the world lost an original in the 81-year-old Vivienne Westwood.
Those of us who came of age in the mid- to late-1970s had to endure the disco years, but we also experienced the earth-shattering noise of the original wave of punk music. Westwood and her partner Malcolm McLaren ran a clothing store in London that became the jumping off point for Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious and their band the Sex Pistols.
The leather jackets, bondage gear and safety-pin earrings that became popular around 1977 were all part of Westwood’s aesthetic, and perhaps as big a factor as the music in the noise that such bands created at that time. What most people think of as ‘punk’ fashion today can all be traced back to her creations.
The very next day we lost legendary broadcaster Barbara Walters, who blazed a trail for women in the news industry with her million dollar yearly salary in 1976. Another sad day.
As the calendar got closer to flipping into 2023, I looked back on earlier celebrity deaths, and the list for 2022 was long.
Actors Sidney Poitier, Howard Hesseman, Sally Kellerman, William Hurt, James Caan, Kirstie Alley and Ray Liotta. Comedians Bob Saget, Louie Armstrong and Gilbert Gottfried. Directors Peter Bogdanovich and Ivan Reitman. Athletes Bill Russell, Franco Harris, Maury Wills, Bruce Sutter, Kathy Whitworth and Guy Lafleur. Musicians Meat Loaf, Bobby Rydell, Jerry Doucette, Naomi Judd, Ronnie Hawkins and Olivia Newton-John.
And of course, Queen Elizabeth II.
We grew up with these people as part of our lives, though for most of us we never had the opportunity to actually meet them. But the music and the movies they made, the joy their championships may have brought to us, the impact they’ve had on some of the pivotal memories in our lives is real.
Will future generations realize the impact of Ronnie Hawkins on Canada’s music industry? Will they understand how important Sidney Poitier was as a trailblazer for actors of colour? Will they know how Franco Harris impacted the city of Pittsburgh as more than just a football player and four-time Super Bowl champion?
When they pass we feel real pain, and we reflect on our own mortality and our own place in the world.
And sometimes it makes us wonder, how will we be remembered?
