Willie Thrasher

Willie Thrasher (born 1948) is a Canadian Inuit musician from Aklavik, Northwest Territories. He has recorded both as a solo artist, and as a member of several bands, including the Cordells, and Red Cedar, with Morley Loon. Thrasher has advocated for Inuit and First Nations issues for much of his career.

Thrasher was born in 1948, in Aklavik. He was born into the traditional Inuit hunting culture of the western Arctic; his father was a whaler and hunter. At age five, he was removed from his family and placed in the Canadian government's residential school system. In Aklavik, he attended the Immaculate Conception and Grollier Hall Residential Schools until he was sixteen. Thrasher learned to play drums on a kit in the gym. After leaving school, he worked as a forest firefighter in Whitehorse, and began playing in rock groups shortly after. A fan of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, Thrasher formed a band called the Cordells with his brother and friends.

The Cordells toured northern Canada in the late 1960s and early 1970s, playing schools and community halls. Based out of Inuvik, they were considered the town's first rock and roll band, and played mostly contemporary songs and covers. After a show in the mid-1970s, Thrasher was approached by an elderly man and challenged as to why he didn't play music that reflected his Inuit heritage. From that point, Thrasher moved into more personal songwriting and began studying Inuit music.

After this change in style, Thrasher joined Canadian artists such as Buffy Sainte-Marie and Willie Dunn in exploring their Inuit and First Nations roots in the mid-1970s, and speaking out on political issues. Thrasher toured heavily in this period, and suffered from alcoholism. In the early 1980s, Thrasher made two recordings with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Northern Service: Spirit Child, a full-length studio album of original songs, and Sweet Grass, a live recording in Val-d'Or, Quebec, with fellow First Nations musicians Willy Mitchell, Morley Loon, and Roger House.

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