Joe Loutchan (1938 - 2021)
Joe Loutchan was born in southern Manitoba. He grew up listening to his family play music and his father gave him first (homemade) fiddle at age four. He received a real fiddle at age fourteen and never looked back. When the family moved to Winnipeg, Joe apprenticed to a program on winding electric motors, but musicians were being paid twenty-times as much per hour and within three years, Joe had a band and was playing weekend dances. He got his own radio show , joined a bluegrass band touring Manitoba, and then headed for the Yukon.1)
Barney Roberge, the long-time manager of the ’98 Hotel, met Loutchan at Crag Lake when that area was first developed. Roberge was building a cabin and Loutchan came and spent the day sitting on the veranda of the house next door and played his fiddle. Loutchan and Merv Bales started playing music at the ’98 Hotel in the late 1980s and they were the house band for decades. Joe Allain played bass guitar and he joined the band around 2000. Loutchan’s wife, Nicole Morgan, filled in from time to time until Merv couldn’t play in a smoky bar anymore and then she became full time.2)
Tourism Yukon used Loutchan’s musicianship to promote the north in Mexico, Texas, Seattle, and at Disneyland’s 25 Anniversary in California. He played on the steps of Parliament on Canada Day, for the Governor General at Fort Selkirk, and for Prime Minister Mulroney in Whitehorse. He has travelled Alaska and the NWT. Joe made four CBC recordings and was selected Yukon Fiddle Champion many times.3)
In 2008, the ’98 Hotel band members included Joe Loutchan on fiddle and vocals, Nicole Morgan on fiddle and guitar, Merv Bales on guitar, and Little Joe Allain playing bass. Rusty Reid showed up occasionally with fiddle and keyboards. Bales was a long-time guitar player who has played with some of the legendary musicians through the years.4)