as a child, tutmarc sang in a church choir. as pre-teen, he sang and played guitar and banjo, and in his teens, he played hawaiian-style acoustic steel guitar. he worked with a traveling vaudeville troupe. in his early 20s, tutmarc moved to seattle to work in the dock-area shipyards. in the mid-1920s, tutmarc became known for his tenor voice. in the late 1920s, he performed on the radio and in a variety of theaters.