Dennis Lakusta releases new CD

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Edmontonians recently had the opportunity to sit back, relax and enjoy the original songs and music of Canadian folk music artist Dennis Lakusta, a Metis who now lives in Victoria.

Performing before a packed house at Edmonton's Full Moon Folk Club, Lakusta introduced the audience to a few choice cuts from his new and third CD, Crow-child. One of the songs, "The Warrior's Song," tells the tale of Canada's most historic personalities, the Metis leader, Louis Riel.

The feature song on the CD, Crow-child, speaks a lot to his past, he said. It also weaves in a bit of First Nation chanting, something that can be heard through a variety of compositions penned by this songwriter, as does the his falsetto and soft vibrato.

Lakusta, the off-spring of an epileptic mother and a father who "split the scene" very early in his life, was bandied about from one foster home to another, as well as religious institutions, until he'd gone through no less than 17 different homes.

As a young man who spent most of his life in and out of foster care, he did not get to meet his mom until he was 16. It was just this year that Lakusta met his father at Two Hills, Alta.

Lakusta set off on his own after quitting school at age 17. He wound up spending a lot of time in British Columbia's beautiful Nicola Valley and managed to acquire his first guitar, a Raven, when he was 23.

It was a $25 guitar from the San Francisco Pawn Shop in Vancouver, he said.

When he was not playing guitar, Lakusta worked as a bridge builder for the railroad and also as a warehouseman.

When Lakusta took his first fling at music, it was in the country genre, which is reflected in his folk renditions of today. Around 1970, he made the crossover to folk, which is better suited to the material he writes and which often mirrors his soul, he said.

They are songs of friends and acquaintances, like Megan, a young girl who is immortalized in his song "Megan", which tells of a girl who thinks she's a bird, William who thinks he's a black bear, and Brad, an old coyote trickster. There are songs of the land and environment on the new CD, including "Let The River Run."

Other songs by Lakusta reflect everyday life and philosophies, as well as those of his Aboriginal heritage and traditions.

For Lakusta, his gig at the Full Moon was one of his very first of the circuit tour that began at Calgary. He then plays in Saskatoon, Pincher Creek, Alta. Fernie, Nelson, Vancouver, Victoria, and Nanaimo in British Columbia.