Rare South East Land Otter Champs 7" on Tlinket

If you ever get your hands on this record, grab it right away. On side A, a track called “Wolf-Like Howls from the Bathhouse,” accompanied by the meandering but brilliant B-side, “O Cities, Infamous, Cruel, Undeserving.” Wild, earnest, and far-reaching recordings–halfway between songs and tundra wind.

The South East Land Otter Champs recorded for Tlinket Archives between 1963-1967. Led by Vernon Wright, an almost mythic adventurer of Tlinket and Russian descent, they toured throughout the Alaska region and into Northern Canada, often delivering food and medical supplies to hard-to-reach regions. An early photograph of his cargo showed toiletry supplies, medical crates, blankets, and record crates.

One of the performance posters described Wright as the “tobacco king of the south east,” most likely due to delivering cigarettes to the coastal fishing villages.

The S.E. Champs (commonly called) stopped recording in 1968, after which Wright and two others worked at an auto parts store in Funny River, Alabama. Re-contacted and reunited in 1987, they recorded a few more songs for the then-dwindling Tlinket Archives label, with Wright’s son Wesley on accordian.

It’d be great to see the footage from the reunion shows, but so far I haven’t been able to find anything.