After a slight delay, Rudy Strangling Wolf is ready to strike a chord.

By Dale Woodard - for the Rocky Mountain Turf Club on February 10, 2023.

Rudy Strangling Wolf - "The Long Way"

The music will get cranked up tonight on the third floor at the Rocky Mountain Turf Club, as the singer and songwriter from the Kainai Reserve holds a CD launch concert for “The Long Way.”
The album is perhaps aptly-named, with the release of The Long Way held up due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This started in 2021 and I had big plans for it to come out in 2022, but of course, COVID came along,” said Strangling Wolf, who lends not only his vocals, but lead guitar to the album. “So that got put to a big halt. I had to wait for quite a while before we were able to go back into the studio and finish it up. Finally, we managed to get back in the studio and finish it off. It was kind of a long one, because I expected it to be out last year. I’m just pleased with how it turned out and that it is out now. The songs did take a little while for me to write. I’m not like some songwriters who can just grab a piece of paper and get something down and have a hit song. It just got to a point where I said it will come out when it comes out.”
The eight-song CD – recorded at Horizon Music in Calgary – boasts Strangling Wolf’s love of country rock, blending in classic rock elements.
“You won’t hear any steel guitars or fiddles in my music,” said Strangling Wolf. “It’s just good harmonies, good guitar playing and good rhythms. It’s like The Eagles and Creedence Clearwater Revival, things like that. John Fogerty wrote really good songs and there are no steel guitars, fiddle or things like that in his music. That is what I wanted my music to be, straight, clean and simple.”
As he gets ready to promote his debut, Strangling Wolf does so with the help of his backing band, Rudz Crew, consisting of his father, Peter Strangling Wolf on rhythm guitar, cousin Marty Wildman on rhythm and lead guitar, Ira Provost on bass and drummer Curtis Black Rabbit.
Strangling Wolf wrote five of the eight songs himself with help from Provost, who released his own album over a decade which Strangling Wolf played on.
“Ira wrote a couple of them and I helped him touch them up a little bit,” said Strangling Wolf, who used studio musicians to record The Long Way. “But he was the main writer of two songs.”
Growing up, there was always a guitar in the house with Strangling Wolf’s father playing in bands.
“I started playing guitar first in the gospel church,” he said. “But country music has always been in my heart. I never really wanted to be country like George Strait, but more rock and country.”
The Long Way is Strangling Wolf’s solo debut, but the musician has prior studio time to his credit thanks to Provost, who recorded an album over a decade ago called Blackfoot Sky.
“He wrote the whole album and got several singers to sing on that,” said Strangling Wolf. “So he gave me four songs that I sang on so that was the first time I had ever been in a studio, but it wasn’t actually my album. So this one is actually my album, my very first album.
Strangling Wolf recently completed a tour of Ontario and Quebec with artist Chelsie Young. He also played a recent concert in Calgary with his cousin, Armond Duck Chief, another established artist and family member who has been a big influence.
“If it wasn’t for Armond I wouldn’t be recording,” said Strangling Wolf. 
“I started going on tours with him and learning all his original music. So he kind of paved the way and got me into the studio. I credit him for me being able to record.”
When he’s not writing, recording and playing music, Strangling Wolf works at the Bringing The Spirit Home detox centre in Standoff as a peer support worker.
“I go to work Monday to Friday. I love my job. It means a lot to me because music is healing and for the clients I work with, they know I’m a musician. I bring my guitar to work once in a while and they love the music. That’s our job, we help people who are out there on the streets.”
Doors open at 6 p.m. for tonight’s event, which will also feature special guests Double Rider and Pretty On The Inside. Tickets are $15 per person.