Blogarhythms

Last week’s random record, despite it’s musical quality, pushed the boundaries of taste due to it’s concept, which was based largely on stereotypes and clichés about Native American culture. This week’s record on the other hand, the 1973 LP Wovoka from Redbone, Los Angeles-based all-Native American (including members from the Apache, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Shoshone, and Yaqui tribes) band lead by brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas, casts a more tasteful eye on Native culture.

Born Pat and Lolly Vasquez, in Fresno, California of shared Native American and Mexican heritage, the Vegas brothers developed a musical aptitude at a young age which helped them break out of the migrant camps they called home and into the bustling Los Angeles music scene. In the years leading up to the formation of Redbone they would record under a multitude of group names and work as sessioners for the likes of Sonny and Cher, Elvis Presley, Dobie Gray, John Lee Hooker, and the Everly Brothers, and played in the house-band for the ’60s television show Shindig alongside Leon Russell. A fortuitous meeting with guitarist Tony Bellamy, a bit of alleged inspiration from their friend Jimi Hendrix, and a drummer trade with Bobby Womack was all the impetus needed to form the first commercially successful all-Native “Rock” band.

Though the band attained some level of chart and sales success over the entire span of their careers the Wovoka album was undoubtedly their crowning achievement, driven largely by the million-selling single “Come and Get Your Love.” An uptempo Soul number with a propulsive bassline, and a catchy combo of ringing guitar licks and slick string accompaniment, the song is a staple of “oldies” radio station playlists and continues to pop up in television commercials with some frequency to this day. As memorable as the song is though I never could have told you it was a Redbone tune prior to my purchasing the album a number of years ago and probably would have assumed a group like The Chi-Lites was responsible for the song.

That sort of Sweet Soul influence is present throughout the album, but their penchant for harder-edged Rock and even Funk sounds, and smooth horn and string arrangements, not to mention tribal chanting and percussion, lends them an air of diversity which calls to mind artists as varied as Blood Sweat & Tears, War, Chicago, Mandrill, Barrabas, Malo, The Persuaders, and Billy Preston. Songs like “Sweet Lady of Love,” the breakbeat track “Someday (A Good Song),” “Day to Day Life” and beatdigger favorite “Clouds in My Sunshine” are all pretty damn soulful though, and don’t sound out of place next to selections from any of the aforementioned acts.

Sonics aside, when the band wasn’t singing about romantic love their lyrics were pretty astute and almost always concerned with the state of society and uplifting their fellow man. Nowhere is this more evident than on the scathing “message to the redman” track “Liquid Truth” which urges listeners to “take another look” at the ills perpetrated against indigenous people by unscrupulous interlopers who only sought to steal their land and their souls.

Such stark reality is a profound contrast to the optimism of the title track, which opens the album with a musical prophecy proclaiming that “all people must dance” and “all people must sing” if we ever hope to attain spiritual redemption.

-El Keter