Willy Mitchell

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This article is about the Canadian musician. For the American producer, see Willie Mitchell (musician).

Willy Mitchell (born Percy Williams; 1953)[1] is a Canadian First Nations musician. Mitchell recorded and toured mostly in the 1970s with his Desert River Band. He co-organized the 1980 Sweet Grass festival in Val-d'Or, Quebec, which gathered Inuit and First Nations musicians from across Canada.

Biography[]

Mitchell was born Percy Williams in Malone, New York, in 1953, after his Algonquin and Mohawk parents were turned away from a hospital in Cornwall, Ontario.[1] He was raised in Kitigan-Zibi in southern Quebec by his maternal grandmother. His grandmother gave him the nickname "Willy".[1]

In 1968, he started touring northern Quebec with his first band, called the Northern Lights Group.[2] In January 1969, Mitchell was shot in the head by a police officer during an altercation over stolen Christmas lights.[3] Mitchell was originally reported dead by the media.[4] He used the money from a settlement resulting from the incident to buy a Fender Telecaster Thinline guitar.[3] After recovering, he formed the Desert River Band, and began touring and recording. Mitchell wrote the song "Big Police Man" about the experience.[1]

Mitchell and the Desert River Band performed live for Ottawa's CJOH-TV's program, New Faces, in 1970, and began touring heavily after that. Mitchell spent four years at the all-First Nations , in La Macaza, Quebec, where he studied traditional botany, photography, and film making.[4] In 1980, with Janine Poirier Macdonald, Mitchell organized a festival featuring his contemporaries in the First Nations and Inuit music industry. Called the Sweet Grass Festival, performers included were Willie Dunn, , Willie Thrasher, and Morley Loon, whom Mitchell worked with frequently. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Northern Service recorded the performances, and released an LP, Sweet Grass Music, in 1982.[5] Mitchell released several privately printed albums in the 1990s, and currently lives in Dolbeau-Mistassini, Quebec.[1]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Howes, Kevin (2014). Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock and Country 1966–1985. Light in the Attic Records. pp. 10–11.
  2. ^ "La ballade de Willy Mitchell, fondateur du festival Sweet Grass de Val-d'Or". CBC-Radio-Canada. November 21, 2014.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Lynskey, Dorian (December 4, 2014). "Forgotten Native American musicians: 'We could have been the next Nirvana'". The Guardian. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b Walker, Lance Scott (March 9, 2015). "Getting Shot in the Head is the Least Interesting Thing Willy Mitchell Has Done". Noisey. Vice Media. Retrieved August 16, 2015.
  5. ^ Wright-McLeod, Bryan (2005). The encyclopedia of native music : more than a century of recordings from wax cylinder to the Internet. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-8165-2447-1.
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