Muskoka Mosaic: Huntsville’s first lady of song
Introducing Tina Turley
HUNTSVILLE – She’s as Muskoka as it gets. Tina Turley’s family came to the area in the early 1800s and settled in the Etwell area. On her mother’s side, the Greens settled in Port Sydney at least three generations ago.
There’s a family cemetery in Etwell where about 15 Turleys and Newmans, mostly loggers and farmers, are laid to rest.
Tina was born at Fairvern when it was the local hospital.
The family hunt camp, bought by two great-great aunts, covers 200 acres back behind the Stisted Fairground and Turley has the original oversized deed, written in calligraphy.
Turley and her twin sister, Jackie, spent their early years in a house across from West Road Variety. She attended the old Stone Schoolhouse for Grade 1.
Then Turley moved around between Port Sydney and Allensville.
Turley’s father Ed worked for the post office, but he was best known for his music, playing locally with his bands the Muleskinners and Maple Street 79. He also played fiddle at old time dances and square dances at area community halls.
Turley started joining in as a little girl; her dad sang, played fiddle, guitar and bass and she played drums.
“That’s where I got my country roots,” she said. “I was eight years old when I taught myself a few chords.”
If there was a talent show around, her dad would enter her in the contest she tended to win.
By the time she was 13 she was playing licensed events. She had special permission but had to leave the licensed area during breaks. She laughed as she recalled one venue where the only unlicensed area for her to sit was in the beer cooler on top of the beer cases.
“On Friday night I’d get home from school, have a shower, dad would get home from work, we’d load up and there we’d go,” she said.
At 18 she got an offer to play in Denam and Lace, an all-girl band in Toronto. She packed up her little Chevette and was off.
From 1986 to 90 she travelled with the band throughout southern Ontario performing contemporary country tunes, covering stars like Tanya Tucker and k.d. lang.
The group’s single, Kick in the Heart, on which Turley sings vocals, went to number 15 on the Canadian charts.
In 1991 she took on Nashville. With some support and the blessings of her family and friends she began travelling to the country and western capital.
“It was awesome. I would stay sometimes for three months, sometimes for 10 weeks,” she said. Turley did a lot of networking and worked on songs with writers down there.
“I lucked out; I had some really good leads,” she said. “Dad used to go to Nashville and he met up with some people. He told me to look them up and I ended up staying in their spare room – they took me under their wing.”
Turley had a half a dozen songs published that are still in the Nashville vaults.
In Huntsville she was playing with the band Loose Boots, which has developed over the years to become Tina Turley and Loose Boots.
Coming off the stage at the Anchor Inn in Parry Sound she was approached by Lance Rumble who liked her sound and wanted to help her further her career.
He was a friend of Dini Petty, and brought her to see Turley at a showcase in Toronto. Petty was impressed with Turley’s music and the two busloads of people that showed up from Muskoka to hear her at the showcase. That is just one example of the hometown support Turley has appreciated throughout her career.
That performance led to an appearance on Petty’s national television show.
From there she was asked to headline the Policeman’s Ball at the Maple Leaf Gardens. She opened for Tim McGraw that year and did numerous television and radio spots.
In 1995 she started recording her CD This Could Be It, a compilation of four songs. She recorded the disc in Edmonton and finished it back in Nashville.
The CD got lots of radio play; Turley hired a publicist and released three videos.
“All three videos got medium rotation on CMT – to my knowledge there’s no other independent artist that has done that,” said Turley.
The CD did well in Canada, the northern United States and Europe.
For two summers Turley toured western Canada, playing the stampede, Big Valley Jamboree and the Edmonton exhibition, while also hitting radio stations and other venues along the way.
But then a series of family illnesses clipped Turley’s wings, starting with her grandmother, Olive Turley, who died of cancer in 1999.
“I lived at my grandma’s when I was home. She had been my mentor,” said Turley. “She loved music, went to every square dance there ever was. I used to get down … get flustered – she kicked my sorry ass out the door, and said, ‘Don’t you ever let anyone get you down.”
In 1998 Turley took a part-time proofreading job at the Huntsville Forester to keep her closer to home and family. But music was still her passion and priority.
In 2002 she moved to the production department of the newspaper full time.
“Both my parents were diagnosed with cancer; dad became terminal. I didn’t want to be on the road … I hadn’t been home most of my life.”
And to the delight of her many local fans, she kept performing.
Ed Turley had established a Harvest Jam at Jay T’s bar on Thanksgiving Sundays to raise money, food and toys for the Salvation Army and Turley continued the jam for three years after his death. After 12 years, the event evolved into the Family Traditions Hoot at the Fairgrounds – Helping Out Our Town.
This will be the sixth year for the Hoot, a county and folk hootenanny that took place for two years at the Huntsville Fairgrounds before moving to the Stisted Fairgrounds. Musicians and music lovers travel from as far away as Kirkland Lake, Collingwood and Barrie to perform to about 700 people throughout the day. Last year 16 acts performed on two stages raising $2,300 toward refurbishing the Stisted fairgrounds building.
The event will take place again this year, but the venue is yet to be decided.
“We could do it back at Stisted but I think we were bursting at the seams last year. We’re looking for about 100 more acres,” she joked.
As for romance, Turley said all her other relationships tested her to wait for her angel; she met Barry Markle on Nov. 11, 2007 at a friend’s hunt camp. He grew up in Huntsville as well, but was a year ahead of Turley at school so they didn’t really connect until then.
She shares a home with the contractor and their dog Tater, a retriever/Australian shepherd mix. Markle’s daughters Karla and Emma round out the home.
For Turley, life is a cherished gift.
“Live every day like it’s your last and just be good to each other; I think that’s really important.”