There is only one Ed Peekeekoot. His unassuming charm and humility make it easy to take his presence here in the Cowichan Valley for granted, but it’s not hyperbole to call him a legend. Watching some of his performance videos on YouTube makes me want to call an emergency meeting with everybody who has TikTok. “This man should be a star!” But Ed Peekeekoot doesn’t need to be a star. In a 2010 interview Ed said “an artist is aware of surroundings and their beauty” and Ed has been reflecting the beauty of his surroundings for over 50 years. In carvings, paintings, stories, instruments and in his music, “ear paintings,” as he calls them, he takes his direction from an incorruptible personal credo: “if it moves your spirit, it will move others, because we’re all connected.”
Ed Peekeekoot is from the Ahtahkakoop Cree First Nation in Saskatchewan. He grew up in a musical and supportive family, however, that support did not always come in the form we might naturally assume it did. While his uncles got him started on the guitar, there was a limit to how much musical instruction they would give to the young boy. “Nobody taught me” he says recalling his early experiences. He took his lessons listening to his uncles, taking his fiddle into the woods alone to find his voice. “Each step was an adventure. I valued each different stage. Learning new chords was so exciting.” When his uncle finally gave him the guitar off the wall, which the young Ed Peekeekoot had long admired, his mother put it in an open tuning and showed him how to use a butter knife to play slide.
Over the past 50 years, Ed has played every kind of gig you could imagine and many you probably would not. He has joyfully brought his music to festivals, schools, corporate events, retreat gatherings and snowmobile dances across North America. Asked to describe his relationship to an audience, Ed says “you treat them as well as you can, like they came to visit in your house. Hopefully they come out inspired.”
The Cowichan Folk Guild is thrilled to present Ed Peekeekoot at our October Coffeehouse, held as always, on the second Saturday of the month in the hall of the Duncan United Church, October 14th. Our open stage before the feature is open to everybody, and the show begins at 7:30pm, doors at 7.