Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

IQALUIT (May 25/98) - As a hobby, Johnny Oovaut enjoys singing his personal brand of original Christian music. But would he turn it into a full-time career?

"It's good that people are helped buy it but gospel singing as a lifetime pursuit, a lifetime career, I don't think I'd enjoy it," says Oovaut from Quaqtaq, his home in northern Quebec.

"It's hard work, especially when there's a list of 10 bands and you're number 8 and it's 1 a.m. and you're tired of listening to loud music. Not as a career but as a hobby."

Oovaut, now 35, has been at his hobby of what he calls "inspirational

...country, rock, contemporary...Christian music" for about 10 years now.

"I realized some hymns had not been recorded and these new keyboards were coming out and I thought it would be neat to record them with these keyboards and have that kind of sound."

Oovaut sent the recordings to people he knew and they liked them.

"It became a dream to record in a studio and it's become a reality now," says Oovaut, who currently has a total of six recordings under his belt including his newest, and first solo project, entitled "God's Creation Johnny."

While the recording is not yet available in stores, Oovaut says that selling music in the North presents its own set of difficulties.

"The population is very small and local radio gives it too much airtime and people get bored with it and don't want to buy if after that. They've heard it too many times for free."

He says the lack of sales makes it much harder to get enough money together to keep recording and considering how many people are affected by his music, it's important that Oovaut keeps spreading the word.

"We've had a few testimonies, we've prevented suicides," says Oovaut, whose own sister committed suicide at the age of 21.

"I thought for a long time after, how can I prevent that and there's no way to do that physically," he says. "I can't travel all over the North and I thought about writing a song that did that."

"The music goes where we can't and reaches unreachable people."

Oovaut -- also an assistant pastor at the Full Gospel Church in Quaqtaq -- and his two female backup singers have been able to travel across Canada spreading inspiration and he says he just wants to carry on as usual in the future.

"I'll just keep going like I've been going, making recordings of our music. I want to make a recording of traditional hymns, it's a way to make an historical record."