Metis singer gains long due Acclaim

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The petite, bespectacled woman sitting behind a cluttered desk at Ben Calf Robe

School looks more like a teacher than an award-winning singer/song writer.

Laura Vinson doesn't look like a glamorous musician at all. In fact, she looks like the sort of teacher students dream of - approachable, energetic, warm and humorous.

Vinson is all that plus the glamour, but the polished performer who swept this year's Alberta Recording Industry Awards only comes out after school now.

And when she does, watch out.

Vinson led the band during the seventh annual Alberta Recording Industry Awards held February in St. Albert. Voted female recording artist of the year, Vinson also garnered best album of the year with Rise Like a Phoenix. Vinson and her band Free Spirit were named best roots/traditional/ethnic artists on record, won best album design, and snatched the best music score of the year with Shared Spirit.

Rise Like a Phoenix is Vinson's seventh album, one that almost didn't make the studio. After doing the bar circuit for years, Vinson tired of being involved in an industry which used her music to sell alcohol.

"I really felt like there was a lot better use of music than making people drunk," Vinson, 46, said about quitting the bar scene.

And winning top billing only after going part-time was like a message from the Great Spirit.

"Things happen because they're supposed to. Sometimes those lessons are hard ones. But there's a lot more purpose in what I'm doing here than what I was doing," said Vinson.

Vinson, a Metis from Brule, Alberta, bought her first guitar from an Eaton's catalogue in 1975. The eldest of seven children, she has been writing poems and making music as far back as she can remember. But Vinson's life wasn't all music. She helped her dad, who was an outfitter, and rode barrel races during rodeo season.

Vinson's mother encouraged her to enter university, and complete her education degree at the University of Alberta. Then what was a part-time job to pay for her studies became a full-time career.

Thirty releases with two top-ten hits, tours in Europe and North America and numerous nominations later Vinson began a long journey back to her Native roots. It

was a liberating trip in more ways that one.

"I was a top 40's Western act. And I found myself writing about being a half breed," said Vinson, playing with a pen.

"I wondered why I was writing this, because I couldn't use it. But it's one of

the hottest songs on the (Rise like a Phoenix) album."

Getting back to her roots means giving back, too. Vinson's work with Native students is a way of playing a part in the future of her people, encouraging young people to pursue their education and keep ties with their culture.

And music? Well, some things weren't meant to change.

"I will probably always write music. That doesn't go away, said Vinson, with a smile.