‘Beautiful Scars’ Unpacks A Canadian Music Icon’s Discovery Of His Indigenous Identity
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In 2014, at age 53, Tom Wilson, a singer-songwriter from Hamilton, Ontario, with a stack of gold records and stories aplenty, found out quite accidentally that he had been adopted. Soon afterward he learned that his biological parents were Mohawk from the Kahnawake community, just outside of Montreal.
For legions of fans familiar with Wilson’s story thus far—a precocious local teenage rocker grows up to found ’90s major-label alt-rock unit Junkhouse, battles various demons, gets sober, starts to paint, evolves into a troubadour of note in the acclaimed trio Blackie and the Rodeo Kings and the edgier collaborative Lee Harvey Osmond—this revelation marked a substantial shift in his personal narrative and in the subject matter of his creative work.
Wilson’s 2017 memoir “Beautiful Scars: Steeltown Secrets, Mohawk Skywalkers and the Road Home” (Doubleday Canada) became a best-seller in Canada. A new documentary, currently on Hot Docs’ Audience Top 20 list, continues his journey.