Post by Dietmar on Jun 28, 2008 16:45:17 GMT -5
This year´s NATIVE AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS on Saturday, October 4, 2008
at the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel in Niagara Falls, NY will feature a special tribute to Rickey Medlocke, guitarist of Lynyrd Skynyrd and former singer/guitarist of Blackfoot.
Rickey Medlocke
Now, I don´t know how many of you are familiar with his former band from Jacksonville/Florida, BLACKFOOT, that played a kind of Southern Rock/Hardrock mixture. But until today it is the most successful American Indian-Rockband ever. They have sold millions of records, inclusively their signature songs “Train, Train” and “Highway Song”. By the way, Blackfoot is one of MY favorite bands of all time!
The original band of the late 1970ies to the 1980ies consisted of:
Rickey Medlocke, (voc, git) who´s father is Lakota from Rosebud and his mother half Choctaw, half Scottish
Greg T. Walker, (bass) who is Muskogee Creek
Jackson Spires, (drums) who was half Cherokee, half Cheyenne (he sadly died recently)
Charlie Hargrett, (git) the only “white guy”
Blackfoot
Today Blackfoot is still touring with only two original members, Greg T. Walker and Charlie Hargrett. Greg recently talked to Michelle LaRose (http://phantomphotography.com) and presented some interesting views about his Indian heritage:
You are from the Muskogee Creek Indians?
Greg T. Walker: Mmm-hmm
Can you tell us a little bit about the Muskogee Creek Indians?
Greg T. Walker: Well originally they occupied what is now the entire state of Georgia, geographically. My family, my mother and my dad's side both were in the very northern tip of Florida about forty miles south of today's Georgia/Florida boarder. At one time it was the largest tribe in the entire southeast in terms of numbers. A very powerful tribe, not a warring tribe.
People think Indians are savages and all that. That's not necessarily true. Anybody would fight to protect their own of course. We've been around for centuries and centuries. From the Creek is where you get Seminole, actually Mikasuki. From Mikasuki come Seminole. We're blood related but Creek was there from day one. That's not uncommon. There are a lot of larger tribes that bands split off from; they're still related they're just living in different areas. It's and old, old tribe. Muskhogean is the actual dialect itself. A very difficult language. It's very hard to speak it,
I can tell you that.
Yeah, I saw that on the Internet. Estonko means hello.
The language does look very difficult.
Greg T. Walker: Actually it's Estonko… You don't pronounce the "E" and the "K" is more of a "G" sound.
Stongo!
Greg T. Walker: Yes! There's a lot of "V's" in this language. It reminds me of Russian, what
little bit of Russian I've seen. It just does not get pronounced anywhere near the way it's spelled.
But that's not untrue of other languages either if you think about it. This seems to be very, very difficult. Not the one now but the Medicine Man we had about ten years ago was fluent in it.
The way he spoke it with such ease. He's known my family since before I remembered him actually. He and my brother went to school together and graduated together. He spoke it so easily. I was like, "How do you do that?" I've got the books and the tapes and I've listened to it and its really, really difficult. "See you later" is "Mvto" and it's pronounced "Mad-Oh" like M A D O. It's nothing like it's spelled. It's a difficult language.
Being a member of the Muskogee Creek tribe, why is the band named after another Native American tribe?
Greg T. Walker: [Laughing] We get asked that a lot. When we first formed we were actually called Hammer for about six months. We left Florida and went to New York City and found out a band on the west coast had released an album called Hammer. We said, "Well, we have to change the band name." So we changed it to Free and about two or three weeks later "All Right Now" came out. We said, "We have to change the name of the band again!" [Laughing] We were sitting around talking, just throwing around ideas day after day. We really wanted to do something that pertained to our heritage. Jackson was Cheyenne and Cherokee. Neither one of those sounded like a band name. Creek doesn't. One night he just said, "Blackfoot!" and we said, "Yeah!" It just had a nice strong sound to it. Also we were watching Johnny Cash who always had a segment on his show once a week, he had a variety show for about a year. He always did a five-minute or so segment on Native Americans. If I remember right we had watched it that night or maybe we were watching it at the time that's how the name popped into Jackson's head. It was Jackson's idea to use that name. We said, "Yeah! We like that. It's bold." We didn't think much more about it at the time other than we acknowledged that it was a name that not any of us were a member of.
We liked the name! It's as simple as that.
Tell us about your stage wear. Is it authentic? Does it have meaning?
Greg T. Walker: It's pretty much traditional for my people because we're what you call "Woodland" which most of the east coast tribes are. I think that the stereotype Plains Indians that you see in the movies and Hollywood that are always running across the plains on horseback with a bow and arrow shooting a buffalo, which of course you didn't have in Florida or Georgia. Woodland had exposure to European probably one hundred and fifty, two hundred years, maybe even more than some of the other cultures because of the ships coming over in the fifteen hundreds.
By the sixteen hundreds, certainly before the seventeen hundreds a lot of cotton and calico was being worn and fabric rather than just 'skins'. They were still being mixed, a little of each. The leggings were common because of briars, especially in Florida. I was raised there. It's pretty thick in those woods to this day. As far as shirts… yeah, I do have a calico shirt and I have other shirts.
A little more is accepted today with the brighter colors and more modern colors, but still in the traditional style. A pullover that has no buttons. It's authentic in the sense that it's a Woodland style, there's more cotton. It's authentic in that respect. I remember at one point… Medicine MaN got all over me for wearing a deerskin shirt. I mean got mad at me! I said, "Lighten up! What's up? This took a lot of work. It's all done by hand. It has horse hair on it." What he didn't like was the beadwork down the sleeves because that's not Creek. I felt like saying, "Well excuse me.
I didn't know!" There's so little written on our people. Now the Oklahoma Creek, there's like forty thousand of those guys. The eastern branch of the Florida Creek Nation, up until just a few years ago was about two hundred and sixty. The last time I checked about a year and a half ago, all of a sudden it's around two thousand members. I thought, gosh what happened? That's an awful big jump in five years! I think it's just gotten to be the cool thing to do because everybody that talks to us just about, the first words out of their mouth is, "Oh I'm part Cherokee.
" I wish somebody would say, "I'm part Apache" or something. Gosh!
RTJ & Greg T. Walker: [Laughing]
Greg T. Walker: It's fairly accurate. The style is certainly accurate. I try to not use synthetics.
The ribbons on my shirts, those are ribbons that you buy in a fabric shop. They had shiny fabric back then. They had silks probably two thousand years ago. I try to stay as accurate as I can. That kind of period correct. If you go to powwows today and you watch the Fancy Dancers and the Grass Dancers you see a lot of multi colored silk, polyester and everything else and it's ok because the style is still accurate. We didn't wear breastplates for one thing. I used to wear breastplates on stage. Our people never ever wore breastplates. We didn't wear headdresses like you're used to seeing in the movies. It was more of a turban and the prized possession was an ostrich feather. I don't particularly like the looks of them on me so I choose not to wear that.
I've seen that you actually make breastplates; you also make native jewelry and crafts. How come you don't offer that at shows? I would think you could make a fortune if you took your art on the road with you.
Greg T. Walker: I probably could but to be honest with you I do not have time. I'm standing here as we speak looking at my bead bin and all my supplies. I've got elk skin rolled up. I've got hair pipe and porcupine quills, glass, brass and everything else. I've got about eight chokers laying here of my own in disrepair and I've been saying every week, "I want to fix those next week.
" I just don't have time. I miss it because I thoroughly enjoy doing it. It's great therapy. If you have a lot going on sometimes and you need a break… it's a creative process. I try never to make two things exactly alike. I really miss doing it. I probably just need to quit saying I don't have the time and make the time. I've made the breastplates, I've made bows and arrows, quivers, shields, lances. Everything I make is usable, functional. You can go shoot the bow and arrow. You can hunt with it. I just don't have the time.
Greg T. Walker
at the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel in Niagara Falls, NY will feature a special tribute to Rickey Medlocke, guitarist of Lynyrd Skynyrd and former singer/guitarist of Blackfoot.
Rickey Medlocke
Now, I don´t know how many of you are familiar with his former band from Jacksonville/Florida, BLACKFOOT, that played a kind of Southern Rock/Hardrock mixture. But until today it is the most successful American Indian-Rockband ever. They have sold millions of records, inclusively their signature songs “Train, Train” and “Highway Song”. By the way, Blackfoot is one of MY favorite bands of all time!
The original band of the late 1970ies to the 1980ies consisted of:
Rickey Medlocke, (voc, git) who´s father is Lakota from Rosebud and his mother half Choctaw, half Scottish
Greg T. Walker, (bass) who is Muskogee Creek
Jackson Spires, (drums) who was half Cherokee, half Cheyenne (he sadly died recently)
Charlie Hargrett, (git) the only “white guy”
Blackfoot
Today Blackfoot is still touring with only two original members, Greg T. Walker and Charlie Hargrett. Greg recently talked to Michelle LaRose (http://phantomphotography.com) and presented some interesting views about his Indian heritage:
You are from the Muskogee Creek Indians?
Greg T. Walker: Mmm-hmm
Can you tell us a little bit about the Muskogee Creek Indians?
Greg T. Walker: Well originally they occupied what is now the entire state of Georgia, geographically. My family, my mother and my dad's side both were in the very northern tip of Florida about forty miles south of today's Georgia/Florida boarder. At one time it was the largest tribe in the entire southeast in terms of numbers. A very powerful tribe, not a warring tribe.
People think Indians are savages and all that. That's not necessarily true. Anybody would fight to protect their own of course. We've been around for centuries and centuries. From the Creek is where you get Seminole, actually Mikasuki. From Mikasuki come Seminole. We're blood related but Creek was there from day one. That's not uncommon. There are a lot of larger tribes that bands split off from; they're still related they're just living in different areas. It's and old, old tribe. Muskhogean is the actual dialect itself. A very difficult language. It's very hard to speak it,
I can tell you that.
Yeah, I saw that on the Internet. Estonko means hello.
The language does look very difficult.
Greg T. Walker: Actually it's Estonko… You don't pronounce the "E" and the "K" is more of a "G" sound.
Stongo!
Greg T. Walker: Yes! There's a lot of "V's" in this language. It reminds me of Russian, what
little bit of Russian I've seen. It just does not get pronounced anywhere near the way it's spelled.
But that's not untrue of other languages either if you think about it. This seems to be very, very difficult. Not the one now but the Medicine Man we had about ten years ago was fluent in it.
The way he spoke it with such ease. He's known my family since before I remembered him actually. He and my brother went to school together and graduated together. He spoke it so easily. I was like, "How do you do that?" I've got the books and the tapes and I've listened to it and its really, really difficult. "See you later" is "Mvto" and it's pronounced "Mad-Oh" like M A D O. It's nothing like it's spelled. It's a difficult language.
Being a member of the Muskogee Creek tribe, why is the band named after another Native American tribe?
Greg T. Walker: [Laughing] We get asked that a lot. When we first formed we were actually called Hammer for about six months. We left Florida and went to New York City and found out a band on the west coast had released an album called Hammer. We said, "Well, we have to change the band name." So we changed it to Free and about two or three weeks later "All Right Now" came out. We said, "We have to change the name of the band again!" [Laughing] We were sitting around talking, just throwing around ideas day after day. We really wanted to do something that pertained to our heritage. Jackson was Cheyenne and Cherokee. Neither one of those sounded like a band name. Creek doesn't. One night he just said, "Blackfoot!" and we said, "Yeah!" It just had a nice strong sound to it. Also we were watching Johnny Cash who always had a segment on his show once a week, he had a variety show for about a year. He always did a five-minute or so segment on Native Americans. If I remember right we had watched it that night or maybe we were watching it at the time that's how the name popped into Jackson's head. It was Jackson's idea to use that name. We said, "Yeah! We like that. It's bold." We didn't think much more about it at the time other than we acknowledged that it was a name that not any of us were a member of.
We liked the name! It's as simple as that.
Tell us about your stage wear. Is it authentic? Does it have meaning?
Greg T. Walker: It's pretty much traditional for my people because we're what you call "Woodland" which most of the east coast tribes are. I think that the stereotype Plains Indians that you see in the movies and Hollywood that are always running across the plains on horseback with a bow and arrow shooting a buffalo, which of course you didn't have in Florida or Georgia. Woodland had exposure to European probably one hundred and fifty, two hundred years, maybe even more than some of the other cultures because of the ships coming over in the fifteen hundreds.
By the sixteen hundreds, certainly before the seventeen hundreds a lot of cotton and calico was being worn and fabric rather than just 'skins'. They were still being mixed, a little of each. The leggings were common because of briars, especially in Florida. I was raised there. It's pretty thick in those woods to this day. As far as shirts… yeah, I do have a calico shirt and I have other shirts.
A little more is accepted today with the brighter colors and more modern colors, but still in the traditional style. A pullover that has no buttons. It's authentic in the sense that it's a Woodland style, there's more cotton. It's authentic in that respect. I remember at one point… Medicine MaN got all over me for wearing a deerskin shirt. I mean got mad at me! I said, "Lighten up! What's up? This took a lot of work. It's all done by hand. It has horse hair on it." What he didn't like was the beadwork down the sleeves because that's not Creek. I felt like saying, "Well excuse me.
I didn't know!" There's so little written on our people. Now the Oklahoma Creek, there's like forty thousand of those guys. The eastern branch of the Florida Creek Nation, up until just a few years ago was about two hundred and sixty. The last time I checked about a year and a half ago, all of a sudden it's around two thousand members. I thought, gosh what happened? That's an awful big jump in five years! I think it's just gotten to be the cool thing to do because everybody that talks to us just about, the first words out of their mouth is, "Oh I'm part Cherokee.
" I wish somebody would say, "I'm part Apache" or something. Gosh!
RTJ & Greg T. Walker: [Laughing]
Greg T. Walker: It's fairly accurate. The style is certainly accurate. I try to not use synthetics.
The ribbons on my shirts, those are ribbons that you buy in a fabric shop. They had shiny fabric back then. They had silks probably two thousand years ago. I try to stay as accurate as I can. That kind of period correct. If you go to powwows today and you watch the Fancy Dancers and the Grass Dancers you see a lot of multi colored silk, polyester and everything else and it's ok because the style is still accurate. We didn't wear breastplates for one thing. I used to wear breastplates on stage. Our people never ever wore breastplates. We didn't wear headdresses like you're used to seeing in the movies. It was more of a turban and the prized possession was an ostrich feather. I don't particularly like the looks of them on me so I choose not to wear that.
I've seen that you actually make breastplates; you also make native jewelry and crafts. How come you don't offer that at shows? I would think you could make a fortune if you took your art on the road with you.
Greg T. Walker: I probably could but to be honest with you I do not have time. I'm standing here as we speak looking at my bead bin and all my supplies. I've got elk skin rolled up. I've got hair pipe and porcupine quills, glass, brass and everything else. I've got about eight chokers laying here of my own in disrepair and I've been saying every week, "I want to fix those next week.
" I just don't have time. I miss it because I thoroughly enjoy doing it. It's great therapy. If you have a lot going on sometimes and you need a break… it's a creative process. I try never to make two things exactly alike. I really miss doing it. I probably just need to quit saying I don't have the time and make the time. I've made the breastplates, I've made bows and arrows, quivers, shields, lances. Everything I make is usable, functional. You can go shoot the bow and arrow. You can hunt with it. I just don't have the time.
Greg T. Walker