Celebrated musician Mark Laforme passes at age 69
July 26, 2023
issuu.com
I heard about him from Derek Miller, the guitarist who played the closing ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, and from Dave DeLeary, who did a podcast called Aboriginal Podlatch. I fell in love with Mark's 2006 album, Vintage, especially the songs All Souled Out and Blue Plate Diner.
One day when young Skateycat was maybe 5, she said to me, "Why does he sing "Elephant!" in his song?" This was at the end of every chorus of All Souled Out. I listened to it again and sure as heck I could only hear Elephant! from then on.
Derek and I would correspond every now and again, and when my sister was looking for artists for a course that all the first years were taking at UC Berkeley, I suggested she get Derek Miller, who had just done an album of covers for the movie
Rumble: Indians Who Rocked the World. She got the school to agree to bringing him and his band to California, so I suggested to Derek that he bring Mark LaForme. He did it, so I got to meet him!
After the show, we took everyone to dinner, and we told Mark the Elephant! story. He was very nice about it, though when we got to see him play in Toronto last summer, he re-arranged that line so it definitely sounded more like "Everything!" which he'd intended. During his break we got to visit for a bit, and we got to talking about the issues that Native people faced in our respective communities and he encouraged me to get an orange shirt to commemorate the experiences of those who were sent to residential schools.
Safe journey home, Mark. Thanks for the music.