Revving up the band
The next Sam Tutanuak album is looking like a good bet to be released sometime during the next 12 months.
Tutanuak, 57, now back in Rankin Inlet for a spell, felt the pull of music at the tender age of six.
Singing along to the tunes coming out of the family radio while growing-up in Baker Lake just seemed like a natural thing to do.
Fast forward eight years and, at the tender age of 14, teenage Tutanuak picked-up his older brother's guitar and started learning the basic chords.
Of course, it also came in handy that his older brother wasn't around at the time.
It took Tutanuak about a year to master the instrument's basic chords and, from there, it was no turning back.
Tutanuak still chuckles when it comes to the guitar, pointing out that he is still, most definitely, learning his instrument.
He said he started writing his own music to perform after his kids were born around 35 years ago, making him about 22 at the time.
“I'd say it was, probably, about 10 years later when I started to truly feel that I could do this,” said Tutanuak. “The Kivalliq Inuit Association (KIA) brought-in a bunch of people from Rip Roarin Productions in Ottawa.
“They were doing an Inuktitut CD for the KIA and asked anyone who had Inuktitut music to go to the CBC and audition. It took about four days for me to agree to go there and after they told me that I sounded pretty good, I thought maybe I would have a chance at this.
“I wrote a song about my kids and when I played it people started telling me it sounded pretty good. The first time I finished a song and realized it was actually pretty good myself was around the early '90s. It knocked me for a bit of a loop.
“I'm actually getting tingles now just talking about it,” he laughed.
Tutanuak said the first time he heard himself on the radio his jaw dropped and he was literally dumbfounded.
He said he never felt an experience quite like it.
“I lost my passion for it around 2011and then it seemed to come back around 2019. Now, since this past February, it's been one, I think I have something here, after another. I'd say, right now, I have about 12 songs ready to go if I entered the studio this week.
“In all honesty, just this morning, it came over me and I put paper to pen and just started writing. When I was finished I really liked the lyrics. Now I just have to figure out the chords to it. If you feel it, you know it's going to come out.
“The order doesn't really matter. On my 2010 album I had these chords, but no lyrics to them. Then it was, poof, it all came together. I didn't write the lyrics to it, my daughter did, about The Three Musicians (which hit number one on the National Aboriginal Countdown charts in 2010), and it came together so well, it was really cool.
“Another time, when I went sober for a little while in 2012, the chords and lyrics just came out, almost at once. When that happens, it always seems to be a song that turns some heads and people turn-up the volume right away. That's when you know for sure you really have something.”
Tutanuak said he's hit the four-year mark with his sobriety and, lately, he's been more comfortable playing sober than he was in the days when he'd have a few.
He said both times were great, he's not going to deny that, but there were too many times when he drank while playing that he's end-up having a few too many.
“I really think a lot of musicians have a few before playing just to get rid of the nerves. There were times I'd play somewhere with no booze allowed and I was just shaking before going on stage. So, I've honestly experienced it both ways.
“I finally got back at it recently and was working with a couple of producers. We're just doing the paperwork and they're going to look after the funding to cover the studio time, so I'm confident in telling everyone that within the next 12 months there will be another Sam Tutanuak album cover out there hopping around.
“I have the material pretty much ready to go and I'm really looking forward to getting back in the studio. I don't plan on giving-up my musical dreams for awhile just yet!
“I can't thank the people enough who keep supporting me and I'm hoping everyone will like the new album once it comes out.”
Darrell Greer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Kivalliq News
