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10 August 2010
From Jazz to Rock, American Indians Enrich Popular Music
Washington — Rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix is best known for his jazz- and blues-influenced electric guitar skills, but a new exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) reveals something else that inspired him: his Native American heritage.
Hendrix’s paternal grandmother was part Cherokee, said NMAI curator Christopher Turner, and his family loaned his colorful, full-length patchwork leather coat for the exhibition — along with Hendrix’s leather necklace and leather pouch. These items, on display for the first time, make a powerful statement about the guitarist’s pride in his ancestral roots.
“The family told us stories of how he was inspired by his grandmother and her background in a unique way, so his Native heritage is an important part of his music and his legendary status,” Turner said.
American Indian artists have had groundbreaking careers in almost every aspect of popular music, from jazz and blues to folk, country and rock. The NMAI exhibition, Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians in Popular Culture, explores the influence of American Indian musicians both in the spotlight and in supporting roles — with and without public recognition of their Native heritage.
Funk guitarist Stevie Salas (Apache), who has worked with and written for industry greats such as Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart and George Clinton, helped conceptualize some of the ideas for Up Where We Belong. His stunning green electric guitar is on display.
“Everyone in [this] exhibit,” Salas said, “was a musical outsider who found a way to fit into a mainstream world, perhaps a bit by accident. But our Native heritage was always there — even if sometimes in a subtle way. Going through the exhibit is a music history lesson and, in a way, an American history lesson.”
FITTING INTO A MAINSTREAM WORLD
Many American Indian artists today proudly acknowledge their heritage, and some — such as folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie — integrate their identity into their music. But in the early 20th century, many did not have this freedom. “The ‘color barrier’ varied,” Turner said, “depending on the candidness of the musician about his/her Native identity.”
Few people in the 1930s realized that Mildred Bailey, known as one of the first great jazz singers, was a Coeur d’Alene and Spokane Indian. “It would not have been possible for her to portray herself as a Native person” because of the prejudice of that era, Turner said. By the mid-1930s, Bailey was a household name, known for her work with bandleader Hoagy Carmichael. She was recognized as having a “timeless sound” by her secondary-school friend Bing Crosby.
In contrast to Bailey, jazz trombonist Russell “Big Chief” Moore was open about his Tohono O’odham heritage. “His Native background was part of the act in a very show-business way,” Turner said. When Moore played with jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, he sometimes wore a headdress for press appearances. While traveling with African-American bands, Moore often would be sent into restaurants and hotels to order food or get a room, since service was frequently denied to black musicians.
Cellist/double bassist Oscar Pettiford became “very bitter about being a road musician because of the treatment he experienced touring,” Turner said. A pioneer of the jazz form known as bebop, Pettiford worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Woody Herman. Although his mother was Choctaw and his father was Cherokee and African American, Pettiford did not find that identifying himself as Native helped with prejudice on the road. “He was always perceived as African American, and could not express the true complications of his background effectively in the social climate of that time,” Turner said.
MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF MUSIC
Among the musicians highlighted in the exhibition are Peter LaFarge (Narragansett), whose folk songs were recorded by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash; Jesse Ed Davis (Kiowa/Comanche), lead guitarist for Taj Mahal; and guitarist Link Wray (Shawnee). Wray is known as the inventor of the “power chord,” and guitarists Pete Townsend of The Who and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin cite him as an inspiration. The exhibition features his 1958 Danelectro Longhorn guitar.
The exhibit also features Rita Coolidge (Cherokee), a multiple Grammy Award-winning vocalist; Buffy Sainte-Marie (Plains Cree), whose song “Up Where We Belong” inspired the title of the exhibition; and Randy Castillo (Isleta Pueblo), heavy-metal drummer for Ozzy Osbourne. Robbie Robertson (Mohawk), whose work with The Band earned him a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, continues to be a force in music. Redbone, a 1970s pop group started by two Yaqui/Shoshone brothers, can be seen in the exhibition’s short film performing their hit song “Come and Get Your Love.”
Native musicians have affected popular music in critical ways, Turner said. “American music wouldn’t be the same without them. What if Johnny Cash had never found Peter LaFarge and recorded ‘The Ballad of Ira Hayes’? It was a career turning point for Cash and country music itself — through this Native folk songwriter. And if Link Wray had not experimented with the sounds of the electric guitar, rock music might have been very different.”
“By reviewing these great achievers and noting the groundbreaking and industry-changing music they made, we support the potential for young Native people to pursue this career path, among others,” Turner added. “This is already happening, and the last section of the exhibit, ‘Keeping the Beat,’ highlights the many Native musicians active today in all forms of music.”
Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians in Popular Culture runs through January 2, 2011. For more information, see the website of the National Museum of the American Indian.
(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)
