American Indian music has long been relegated to the Folk, World and New Age bins at record stores across the country. This is a regrettable irony, since the music is about as American as you can get.

But a revival of the music has been taking shape over the past few years, and record stores and the industry are finally paying attention.

"People are just discovering what's out on their doorsteps right now," said Paul Pike, lead singer and songwriter for the Alaska intertribal band Medicine Dream. "I'm happy it is starting to get recognized. But I wish to heck it was happening a lot longer ago."

The recent announcement of a Best Native American Album category at the 2001 Grammy Awards crystallizes the genre's arrival.

The Grammy development didn't happen overnight: The New York-based Native American Music Association has been lobbying the Recording Academy for the category since the mid-1990s. And Phoenix-based Canyon Records has been releasing high-qualityAmerican Indian albums for the past five decades.

But numbers have had a big influence. The number of American Indian albums released every year has almost tripled since 1994, said Ellen Bello, CEO and president of the Native American Music Association. Tower Records, HMV, Barnes & Nobles and Borders now have American Indian sections, and airplay has increased substantially.

 

Music Not Entirely New

The music's production is by no means a recent phenomenon. Tribes have been performing powwow, peyote and ceremonial songs for hundreds of years. But recorded music by Indians for Indians (and a broader audience) isn't much older than rock 'n' roll itself.

In 1951 Ed Lee Natay recorded Navajo Singer, a collection of Navajo, Hopi, Kiowa, Tewa, Zuni and Pueblo songs, on Canyon Records.

Navajo and Ute flutist R. Carlos Nakai recorded his first of many albums on Canyon in 1982. His 1989 album, Canyon Trilogy, is the first American Indian gold record, with more than 500,000 copies sold.

Activist John Trudell (Santee Sioux) and singer/songwriter Bill Miller (Mohican) are often cited as the first artists to bring the music mixed with rock, folk and country to a wider, non-Indian audience. Trudell has long collaborated with Jackson Browne, and Miller has toured with Pearl Jam and Tori Amos.

But it was Robbie Robertson (Mohawk), legendary guitarist for The Band, who really broke down mainstream doors with his remarkable 1994 album, Music for the Native Americans, a soundtrack for a documentary series on the Turner TV network. Robertson brought together a host of Indian artists including Ulali, Walela, Kashtin, the Silvercloud Singers and Jim Wilson under Capitol Records' expansive tent. The album combines traditional chants and instruments with rock and electronic effects.

"No one knew about his Indian heritage until that recording," Bello said. "He was pivotal in launching the movement. While a lot of artists were doing the same kind of work at the same time, Robertson had more mainstream success."

Robertson pushed the genre even further with 1998's Contact From the Underworld of Redboy, a fantastic mix of rock, Indian sounds, hip-hop and electronics that includes such tracks as "The Code of Handsome Lake" (RealAudio excerpt). While underappreciated in terms of sales, Contact did earn Robertson a Grammy nomination in the world music category.

Of course, dozens of Indian artists have been recording and performing since before Robertson's well-received releases. Joanne Shenandoah (Iroquois), Sharon Burch (Navajo), Robert Miribal (Taos Pueblo), Robert Tree Cody (Maricopa-Dakota) and Litefoot (Cherokee) have been touring and releasing albums for years.

The most recent development in Indian music is an embrace of contemporary European and American styles, such as rock, jazz, blues, techno, even rap.

 

Contemporary Influences Enveloped

Trudell mixes blues and Lou Reed-esque narratives with traditional Indian vocals on his latest, Blue Indians. Clan/destine combine rock, acoustic,
reggae and Indian instruments on their first, eponymous release and the most recent, Deeply Rooted. Medicine Dream weave rock and folk with traditional powwow singing on Mawio'mi, which includes the chant-rock track "If We Were Wolves." And Lunar Drive mix drum & bass, trance and dance beats with Indian chants on Here at Black Mesa, Arizona.

One of the more successful artists today is a rapper, Litefoot. His is a distinctly urban approach, with raps about money, fame, cruisin' and surviving in today's crazy world.

In addition to rapping, the star of the movie "The Indian in the Cupboard" makes appearances on and off the reservation, talking to youths about cultural pride and avoiding drugs and alcohol.

All this mixing of genres has left some traditionalists shaking their heads. Some Indian music is considered sacred, and sampling a chant, combining it with electronic sounds or even playing it on the radio is forbidden.

"It's like playing with dynamite," one artist told Bello. "You have to be real careful."

Most Indian musicians have been. "There is a cause for concern from the traditional perspective," Bello said, "but [artists] know that if traditional elements need to remain private, they will be."

As for the future, most artists are quite optimistic. The Native American Music Association will host its third annual Native American Music Awards on Nov. 11 in Albuquerque, N.M., and hundreds of musicians, fans and industry professionals are expected to attend.

"It's always got room to grow," Medicine Dream's Pike said. "There are so many good artists coming up now. It's like a wheel picking up speed. It's going to go a lot farther, and there's more and more coming."

.