Tufts is a finger-style guitarist living off-grid with his wife and daughter in the bush in Ontario. Tufts has been playing music for enjoyment since 1963 and as a profession since 1974. His father's job with the Canadian Government moved the family to Denver, Colorado in the U.S. in the 1960s at a time when the folk and rock music genres were influencing opinion everywhere. Other postings that influenced him musically took him to Ottawa, Ontario, and Rome, Italy. Upon returning to Canada to complete high school, he began to work as a full-time musician and continues to do so to this day. In 1974 he moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick, to begin pursuing his own musical career as a singer-songwriter and guitarist for A JOINT EFFORT, and later a reformed version of that band called REDROCK HOTEL The Effort released on lp upon the groups disbanding, and one 45 rpm recording with RedRock was released in the late 70's. Tufts has worked as a session musician and sideman for a variety of artists including Tom Paxton, Kathryn Briggs, David Francey, Colleen Peterson, Laura Smith, Laura Bird, Ian Tamblyn, Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop, Charlie Sohmer, The Arrogant Worms, Wayne Rostad, Susan Aglukark, Tracey Brown, and George Fox. In 2014 with Kathryn Briggs he formed the duo K.E.W.T.. They are joined by double bassist John Geggie. Two albums were released over the next two years. In 2016, under suggestion by luthier Linda Manzer, the trio formed The Algonquin Ensemble to musically interpret the canvases and life story of Canadian Group of Seven motivator Tom Thomson. Their piece, SONIC PALETTE: Tom Thomson's Voice Through Music 100 Years Later, premiered at the McMichael Canadian Art CollectionJuly 9, 2017 to a sold out audience. Tufts has recorded six albums, one of which remains unreleased. Three of these albums are on Borealis Records. Arctic Rose is the opening cut from Susan Aglukark’s 1982 debut album, first titled DREAMS FOR YOU and re-released as ARCTIC ROSE. The music is written by Terry Tufts as well as the original lyric after being approached by the album’s producer, Randall Prescott, who was looking for material for the project. The lyric deals with a friend or Aglukark’s who was sent South from her home to school. His experience was not a good one and he took his own life. Randall Prescott briefly told of the incident to Tufts and Tufts changed a song he had already written to accommodate the story. Later Prescott said Aglukark, referring to her late friend, had told him “he was so beautiful” and Prescott asked Tufts to put the line in the song, Aglukark never being able to be present for the writing. Aglukark added two lines in Inuktitut at the beginning of the song sung to the guitar riff Tufts constructed. The original lyric Tufts wrote to his music is below: ARCTIC ROSE He came from the Keewatin where half the year was night But he never knew what darkness was ‘til he’d seen those city lights He never really felt the cold ‘til he walked in white man’s shoes A stranger in the strangest land, abandoned and abused They sent him south away from home and buried him in school A flower pulled out by the roots, a hunter without tools. CHORUS It’s not the sharpness of the blade, It’s how much light it throws It’s more the way the wisdom’s used Than just how much one knows Why would you pick the perfect flower When you could have watched it grow? A worthless act, a waste of life When you pluck the Arctic Rose And then the warm came creeping and the restlessness took hold Calling back to older ways, the path deep in his soul And when his hopes had taken flight and his dreams all but let go He silently let go of life and the spirits brought him home Dying bloom in fading light, as dark as dark can be Never to become the flower that he was meant to be REPEAT CHORUS
W.T. TUFTS SOCAN
Discography
As Part Of K.E.W.T. (with Kathryn Briggs & John Geggie)
