Country Singers & Cowboys

Don Bouvette was born in Nordegg, the old coal-mining town west of Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, and grew up one of 13 children on a quarter-section homestead. He worked as a logger, heavy-equipment operator and certified welder before he made his name in country music. By the mid-1980s he had bought the family homestead and was raising his own family there. His brother Ralph described the family as having Cree, French and British Isles ancestry.

Through the early 1980s Bouvette worked the central Alberta country circuit as a solo act, playing lounges, taverns and community halls with a mix of traditional country, country rock and current hits. Windspeaker writer Rocky Woodward heard some Charley Pride in his voice, though he found Bouvette had a style of his own.

Calgary’s Circa Records & Tapes issued his first album, Country (CSLP 8201), in 1982. Bruce Thompson produced it at Circa Sound Studios and played drums, with Jeff Bradshaw on guitar and steel, Myron Scott on violin and Tony Klazek on piano. Three Circa singles followed: ‘Let Me Stop’ / ‘Living Alone’ and ‘Love of a Country Girl’ / ‘Country Rodeo’ in 1982, and ‘Red Hot Steel’ / ‘Summertime Love’ in 1983.

Bouvette recorded Country Singers & Cowboys at Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville in 1985. Steel guitarist Lloyd Green produced and arranged the sessions and played dobro and steel. The band included Pete Wade on lead guitar, Bobby Thompson on rhythm guitar and banjo, Hargus ‘Pig’ Robbins on piano, Henry Strzelecki on bass, Hoot Hester on violin and Hayward Bishop on drums, with The Nashville Edition singing backup. Bouvette wrote all ten songs, including ‘Sweet Alberta Sunshine’, ‘Rodeo Riders’ and ‘Honky Tonkin’ Texas Style’, with Don-Von Music listed as publisher. Circa released the album along with a single of the title track backed with ‘Sweet Alberta Sunshine’ (CS-1222). In 1986 he signed with Alberta Record Distributors.

That September he taped an episode of Native Nashville North at the Rice Theatre in Edmonton’s Citadel complex, sharing the bill with Jody Callihoo. Produced by Rocky and Gail Woodward for CBC and the Aboriginal Multi-Media Society of Alberta, the series presented Indigenous country, rock and dance performers, and coverage of the production named “Cree recording artist Don Bouvette” among its featured acts. It went to air in January 1987. By 1988 Windspeaker counted him among the familiar names in Indigenous country music, alongside Laura Vinson, Priscilla Morin, Edward Gamblin and Ernest Monias.

Country Singers & Cowboys returned on CD in 2003 as Paint Me a Picture, on South 40 Records. In 2009 Bouvette released Marlin’ Darlin’, again with Nashville players: steel guitarists Tommy White and Sonny Garrish, Glen Duncan on fiddle and mandolin, Kelly Back on guitar and Dirk Johnson on keyboards. In July 2010 Windspeaker made ‘What the Hey’ the “Our Pick” in its Aboriginal radio feature. Reviewer Angela Pearson called Bouvette a “legendary Alberta artist” and heard traditional country and bluegrass in the song’s fiddle, guitar, mandolin and banjo.

In February 2011 he played a packed seniors’ centre with his sisters Debbie and Carrie and Carrie’s husband, Teekie Mason, and in May 2013 he was one of more than forty performers at the Bashaw Festival of Stars. In August 2026, the Wetaskiwin Times reported Don Bouvette performing at the annual car and bike show at Peace Hills Seniors Lodge in Wetaskiwin.

-Robert Williston