Singing again

PALMER — The Alaska State Fair begins Thursday with the remarkable comeback of the Valley’s favorite voice.

Local country music singer Ken Peltier headlines the first night at the Borealis Theater four months after his last round of chemotherapy and radiation treatment for head and neck cancer.

Peltier was first diagnosed with the disease in December of 2008. Both tonsils and 47 lymph nodes were removed by Dr. Jennifer Wingate at Geneva Woods in Anchorage. He was left with a J-shaped scar from the base of his jaw down the left side of his neck and across his upper chest. Then, the real work began.

With radiation once a week and eight-day cycles of chemotherapy, Peltier was left weak and nauseous. Eating and drinking was a chore, and his 6-foot plus frame shrunk by about 35 pounds. What’s worse, he said, is he didn’t play guitar during his treatment.

“It was kind of like pouring salt in a wound,” Peltier said of playing while he was less than fully able.

His doctors followed a protocol developed for singers by Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. The treatment stopped at the end of April, but the damage continued for some weeks after that, he said.

Now, he’s left with cottonmouth, only about half as bad as it could have been without the extra precautions, he said. He has been eating real food for the last month, but still can’t gain any weight.

“I’m trying to figure out what normal is for me anymore,” Peltier said. “It does change you, your whole outlook on things. … Nothing makes you fear or worry like cancer, but once you get just beyond that, you have a different sense of clarity and focus.”

Peltier felt the physical toll cancer took on his body performing a benefit concert in Nashville in June, his first major show after treatment. It was his way to give back to his friend and country star Mel McDaniel, who helped Peltier so much during his treatment.

Standing on stage after sitting for four months, and slinging his guitar over his shoulder where much of the muscle had been removed was exhausting, he said. But he was spurred on by being one of the only unsigned artists at the event and sharing a stage with his musical heroes playing songs from his new album.

Of all his influences, Peltier is quick to cite Waylon Jennings and his band, Waymore’s Outlaws. That’s why it is shear excitement when Peltier talks about his new CD titled “Ken Peltier and Waymore’s Outlaws.”

“Do you know how cool it is to play with your heroes? I have so many hours dissecting their music when I was first learning to play,” he said.

They started recording last year in Nashville. Peltier was diagnosed with cancer after they completed about half the tracks. Determined to finish, 10 of the songs were laid down before his surgery, and he came back for five more songs after the procedure and before chemo and radiation treatment began.

“I really wanted to finish it in case something happened. I didn’t even know if I could sing. I just went in there and wailed it out,” Peltier said.

The masters are being duplicated now, he said, and he hopes to have copies for sale when he takes the stage with the Outlaws on Thursday.

But before that, Peltier will show himself to be the local boy he truly is. The opening act for Peltier and the Outlaws is Peltier and his band that he’s played with for nine years.

“I wanted my band to be who I step out with first,” he said. “I can’t come back and play the main stage without my band. That’s just who I am.”

Even after the show with the Outlaws, Peltier will be a regular around this year’s fair. He will be playing free shows in the beer tent to say thank you to the thousands of people who helped him get through his disease, he said.

He directs people to his MySpace page — www.myspace/kennypeltier.com — for the complete schedule of his appearances.

After the fair, Peltier said he is going to make the rounds between the Mat-Su Lodge and Eddie’s Sports Bar. Both are smoke-free, which he said is his first priority while his throat heals.

He will also continue to educate people about cancer and the lessons he has learned. Processed sugar is proven to make cancer grow, he said, and working out helps burn the acidity in our bodies that causes it to spread.

“I’m actually angry that I know that stuff and our society does nothing about it,” he said. “Yeah, there is the smoke, and I don’t discount that. But it’s a mistake to think that’s only what caused the cancer.”

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.