Indigenous Roots

The look of country music is often personified by cowboys, rugged frontiersmen who supposedly "tamed" the "Wild West." So perhaps in cowboy music, one may not expect to find Native Americans. But even some of the biggest names in country music come from indigenous heritage: Hank Williams was part Choctaw; Kitty Wells, Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley, and Loretta Lynn all came from Cherokee descent. Race or native heritage generally did not play a large part in the career of any of these musicians. And it's ironic, though unsurprising, that one of the most famous songs written by a Native American was popularized by a white musician.

Peter LaFarge was descended from the Narragansett Tribe; he was raised by members of the Tewa tribe on the Hopi reservation adjacent to Santa Fe, New Mexico, before being adopted by a white man at the age of 9. Peter was most famous for his song "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" made popular by Johnny Cash. The song tells the true story of a Pima Indian who became a hero as one of five United States Marines who raised the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima, but upon return from the war, Ira Hayes found nothing but despair, unhappiness, and prejudice in civilian life.The song reached number 3 on the Billboard country music chart in 1964 amid the civil rights movement and despite the refusal of many country disc jockeys to play the serious, politically provocative song. Johnny Cash took out a full-page ad in Billboard denouncing country radio for its reluctance. " 'Ballad of Ira Hayes' is strong medicine," he wrote. "So is Rochester -- Harlem -- Birmingham and Vietnam."

Everyone has a voice. Whether they are given a chance to be heard is another question entirely.

Buffy Sainte Marie was born in 1942 on the Piapot Cree Indian Reservation in Saskatchewan, Canada. Generally, Buffy Sainte Marie is categorized as a folk musician, though she did record a country album in 1968 called "I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again." She disappeared suddenly from the mainstream American airwaves during the Lyndon Johnson years. Unknown to her, as part of a blacklist which affected Eartha Kitt, Taj Mahal and a host of other outspoken performers, her name was included on White House stationery as among those whose music "deserved to be suppressed", and radio airplay disappeared. Invited onto television talk shows on the basis of her success with the song, "Until It's Time for You to Go," she was told that Native issues and the peace movement had become unfashionable and to limit her comments to celebrity chat.

The Native American Music Awards, also known as the Nammys, were created in 1998 to recognize musical achievements made by Native artists. NAMA were also instrumental in getting the Grammy Awards to include a Best Native American Music Album Award in 2001.