Page 72 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2019

The Redmen Blues Band: Cecil Gray (lt), Terry Tsotigh (ctr)
and Patrick Tointigh (rt).
Photos by Nancy Smith, Lightninghorse Photography

The emergence of

naTive american Blues

By Murphy Platero lush melody and tender lyrical sound, slow soothing guitar solos

Some years ago, I saw a picture of the infamous and to explosive riffs, words of hardship, pain and tears – the blues
influential bluesman Stevie Ray Vaughan in a magazine, and he imparts a story that many Native Americans know all too well.
was not wearing his usual hat, but a colorful Native American Those who were told that everything has a song, now took the
headdress. He wasn’t Native, but the only reason I could figure blues and made it their own.
why he had changed his look was to make a statement and But it wasn’t new – it’s been there all along – the blues was
honor a People he admired, just like how he wore Indigenous a part of Indian country. I think it’s worth mentioning that when
jewelry when he came on the scene. I believe he was making a we look deep under the surface to the actual creation of the
prophetic statement among those who loved and followed this blues – the Delta blues in particular – one name raises to the top:
amazing music called blues: look out, it’s coming and it’s going the “Father of the Delta Blues,” Charlie Patton. This Black man
be spectacular – Native American blues. And Stevie was right – from the Delta was half Native American, born on a plantation
he foretold the coming like John the Baptist making the way in the to his mother who was a full-blooded Choctaw, which just goes
wilderness for the coming of a new and wonderful message and to show we’ve been there from the beginning.
sound. Today, we see this prophecy coming to the forefront of One of the first Native bands to emerge on the blues scene
blues music through the voices of many Native American artists. came from the plains of South Dakota. A young Lakota family
As musicians, most of us hear something that catches our formed the band Indigenous, with the guidance of their father,
ear or our curiosity. At first, it’s just a melody, lyric, a note or a Greg Zephier, Sr., a well-known spiritual advisor, spokesperson
riff, and from down within, we are drawn to it. Each of us has for the International Indian Treaty Council and accomplished
our story, and though they differ from one another, one thing is musician in the band The Vanishing Americans. Indigenous
always true: we make a choice, a decision, a commitment, and debuted in the mid-1990s and became known by the blues
we start this journey. community within a matter of years. Featuring older brother Mato
Music has always been a huge part of Native American Nanji on vocals and guitar, sister Wanbdi on drums, brother Pte
culture. Through the changes from one generation to the next, on bass guitar and cousin Horse on bongos, Indigenous brought
from the very beginning of the first wave of modern music, each a tremendous pride to the Native community.
generation of Indian country was there – drawn to the sound. Let me pause here to tell you how I fit into all this. From
In most tribes in North America, each generation is taught by the Eastern Agency of Navajo Nation, I started a family band
the elders that we have a song and a prayer for everything that in 2004, The Plateros, and we toured the U.S., performing at
surrounds us, for everything has life and is sacred. some of the most amazing venues. Just a year later in 2005, we
One of the genres blasted through the radios on the performed at the largest Pow Wow in the world, The Gathering
reservations in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s was the blues. With its of Nations. As I handled vocals and bass guitar, and his cousin

70 Blues Festival Guide 2019