Marc Lauture: a first-class performer
Some people have an ear for music and can master any instrument they want without any effort. For them it sounds as easy as counting to three for most of us. This seems to be the case for Marc Lauture.
Marc Lauture was born in Haiti where he spent his youth. His father was a lawyer and his mother a school teacher. He was their only child. There was music in the house all the time as his mother's sister who lived with them was a classical pianist.
Of course classical music was not exactly the musical genre that Lauture was attracted to. Just the same he was gifted with an amazing musical ear. At a young age, he and his friends managed to build a drum on which he learnt.
The political chaos in Haiti was bad so his parents decided to send him away to boarding school in 1959.
“My parents had selected two boarding schools where I would learn a trade, one was in Germany and the second one in Rimouski, Quebec. My mother insisted to send me in Quebec because of the language, she wanted me to keep my French” explained the musician in an interview.
So the matter was settled and the young man was sent to get a vocational education in a technical school in Rimouski where he studied to be a diesel mechanic. By the time that he received his diploma, Marc Lauture had made a life for himself here in Quebec.
“I think I was 14 years without returning to Haiti. Going back there after so many years was a culture shock for me, I took it all in stride but it was crystal clear that I would never move back there. My life was now in Quebec” he said.
“My mother was the one who would come to visit from time to time. After finishing school I moved to Quebec City where a friend of mine had a little family band. He taught me how to play the guitar.”
“I met a band from New York who hired me for a tour in Atlantic City. I worked 4 years with that group. I had no experience but I was good at imitating Elvis, the Beatles, the Platters and I liked it a lot. This is when I started singing” Lauture recalled.
The band played in the region for a while but an opportunity presented itself. One day while playing in St. Andre de Kamouraska, the owner came to see him and offered him to start his own band to sort of become the house band.
He introduced Lauture to two other local musicians who could do the job with him. This offer sounded appealing to him so the singer decided to take the chance. He would stay there for two years.
“This guy paid for my first guitar and Fender amplifier, he was like a father to me. To this day, his son and I still keep in touch. Now I had to hone my guitar skills and practice with my new band, which was fairly easy” he said.
A couple years after that, Lauture was working with his 3 piece band in Riviere du loup when he got a call from a friend. This guy was working at a piano bar at a Marie Antoinette restaurant in Rimouski.
“He asked me to replace him because he was transferred to another restaurant of the same chain in Quebec City. He said he would leave his organ (at the time organs were the standard in most piano bar) and his PA system at the bar for me to use. I agreed even if I had never played an organ. I didn’t have much time to learn the instrument good enough to do the job” he stressed.
He went home and borrowed an organ from the Manoir Princeville where his girlfriend was working at that time. It took him five days to learn how to play the organ. This is how he got his start in the piano bar business, (which