First Inuit rock band’ member given top Quebec arts honour – CBC

May 14, 2024

Inuit music icon William Tagoona to be inducted to the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec

For somebody known as one of the pioneers of the first Inuit rock band The Harpoons, you wouldn’t think William Tagoona got his start with the band at the age of 13, jamming to “white people music.”

But singing in his mother tongue of Inuktitut wasn’t allowed at the time, while attending a residential school in Churchill, Man., in the 1960s.

“We were doing cover stuff, we were doing The Beatles, we were doing The Rolling Stones, The Animals… using white man’s instruments – their bass, guitars and drums,” Tagoona said.

Music, even if it was from “white people,” gave him and other children at the Churchill Vocational School some solace, and he said it lit a fire in him.

Read More: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/first-inuit-rock-band-member-given-top-quebec-arts-honour-1.7199396