Not to be confused with the American nature artist (1930-2016) of the "How & Why Wonder Books" who helped "restore endangered species of animals to Israel."

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22walter+ferguson%22+103&rlz=1CAJMBU_enUS1046&biw=1366&bih=649&tbm=nws&ei=5On6Y6TVO8ap5NoPwNiSkAM&ved=0ahUKEwik18ibtrL9AhXGFFkFHUCsBDIQ4dUDCA0&uact=5&oq=%22walter+ferguson%22+103&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LW5ld3MQAzIFCAAQogQyBQgAEKIEMgUIABCiBDIHCAAQHhCiBFDnCViVHGDdHmgAcAB4AIABiAGIAfgCkgEDMC4zmAEAoAEBwAEB&sclient=gws-wiz-news
(a few obits - all in Spanish)

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22walter+ferguson%22&source=lmns&tbm=vid&bih=649&biw=1366&rlz=1CAJMBU_enUS1046&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYleHXt7L9AhWaE1kFHSIaCFMQ_AUoAnoECAEQAg
(videos)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Ferguson_(singer-songwriter)

https://www.hemispheresmag.com/inspiration/art-culture/walter-ferguson-king-of-calypso-is-still-reaching-music-fans/
(from last November)

Excerpt:

....His whole life a humble banana and cacao farmer, Ferguson—aka Segundo—has nevertheless received many of Costa Rica’s most prestigious awards. In 2018 he was officially declared a “distinguished citizen” for innovating Costa Rican calypso, which has been recognized as intangible cultural heritage. The National University gave him an honorary doctorate, and his birthday, May 7, is known as the National Day of Costa Rican Calypso. He achieved all this without ever stepping into a recording studio, preferring to stay in his beloved Cahuita—a place his compact, rhyming character studies bring to Technicolor life, a place he put on the musical map. Instead, over the years he self-recorded more than 100 songs on a simple cassette recorder from the quiet of his bedroom and shared his music freely, selling tapes to visitors from all over the world who were eager to take a piece of Cahuita home with them. Many of them have since returned these keepsakes to Ferguson, as part of an ongoing project to cement his legacy.

Not that Ferguson has been overly concerned with that legacy. On his 100th birthday, he told the Tico Times, in one of his final interviews before age took hold of his voice, that the day was “nothing special.” To Costa Rica’s largest newspaper, La Nación, he explained why the attention he received didn’t come as a surprise: “My mom always told me that I was going to be a good composer.”

Walter Gavitt Ferguson was born in 1919, about 30 miles down the coast in Guabito, Panama. His father was a Jamaican cook, his mother a Costa Rican seamstress and baker of Jamaican descent. When Ferguson was 2, they moved to Cahuita, a village accessible only by boat that had been settled by Afro-Caribbeans at the turn of the century. His father, like most everyone in town, worked for the United Fruit Company, which became the de facto government.. The area was cut off from the rest of the country, and the isolation allowed a unique culture to percolate. Weekends, everyone came out for cricket matches, baseball games, evening dances, and concerts where Shakespeare was recited over pedal organ.

At dusk, especially when the moon was full, neighbors gathered in circles and sang songs they called calypsos, a genre that originated in Trinidad and Tobago. Improvised, topical, and satirical, calypsos are rooted in the oral traditions from which enslaved West Africans drew spiritual sustenance. Forbidden to speak to one another, they instead sang kaisos, songs with cleverly disguised messages, often incorporating tales of Anansi the Spider, a lowly arachnid who triumphs over far more powerful foes through sheer cunning and ingenuity.

Without access to newspapers and radios, calypsonians were raconteurs, chronicling current events, employing wit and wordplay. Ferguson was drawn to the form early, and soon people would come to him with stories, knowing he’d write them with funny, catchy rhymes. He was also a natural musician, teaching himself the harmonica, dulzaina, ukulele, clarinet, and guitar...

(snip)

And here's one in English - but somehow, his name is misspelled:

https://ticotimes.net/2023/02/26/costa-rica-calypso-legend-walter-furgeson-dies-103

(There's an audio recording from YouTube included.)

By
Tico Times
February 26, 2023

Regarded by many as a national treasure and goodwill ambassador for Limon and Costa Rica, Walter “Gavitt” Furgeson passed away this Saturday.

If you were in Cahuita in the 70’s or 80’s you may have had the chance to hear him play live in one of the bars/pulperias that marked the center of town and where the bus from Limon stopped.

Limon and Cahuita was considered then another world apart from the rest of Costa Rica.

In those days electricity in Cahuita was yet a dream for most and national borders were still a concept only. The highway from San Jose to Limon was promised but the ancient wood car train built in the 1800s (55 stops and 10 hours) was the way most went to the Caribbean Coast. His music was the source of local entertainment on most weekends.

Walter Furgeson encompassed the music and culture of the English speaking Afro Caribbean culture of Costa Rica. He sold homemade cassette tapes of his music out of a cardboard box. Those tapes traveled the world in the suitcases of those lucky enough to have one, making the humble musician an international Calypso legend.

Born in Panama, Mr. Furgseson was just granted honorary Costa Rican citizenship just this past week by the Costa Rica government.

It is truly a sad day here in Costa Rica but we celebrate his long life and the gift of the unique Costa Rican Calypso music he has given us all.