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| This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen magazine #98 (February / March 2002). The magazine is available on newsstands and by subscription. |
In slightly more than a decade as a full-time professional musician, Joanne Shenandoah has released 11 albums, won numerous awards for her music and her social justice concerns, scored films, co-written a book, traveled to conferences and performances around the world, been the subject of a documentary film on her life, been nominated for the first Grammy ever awarded for Native American music, represented her Native heritage in many circumstances (including a cruise ship stint dedicated to Native music), and written "scores of songs, hundreds and hundreds of songs in all styles, country, pop, low-down gutsy blues, Native music — all kinds of songs that I'm just waiting for the right time to record."
When people ask Shenandoah how she feels about recognition she's gaining, though, she puts it all in perspective. "I'm very grateful. People say, 'Aren't you thrilled about all these awards?' I say I'm thrilled about what I'm doing, what I love," she explained. "When you do what you love, you just shine, you know. You're fulfilling your responsibility on earth."
That's a belief Shenandoah learned growing up as a member of the Wolf Clan of Oneida Nation Iroquois Confederacy in central New York. The elders of her tribe saw something of her future in the young girl. They usually choose a name related to what they see in a child's character. "My name in the Native language means 'She sings,' " Shenandoah said. "And the elders said that my music would be heard all over the world; they said that when I was a child.
"I've been doing music ever since I was a little girl," she continued. "Doing music is just part of our lives as Iroquois people. For example, we have 13 ceremonies a year, and music to go with each of them." It wasn't all Native music for the young Shenandoah, though. "My dad was a jazz guitarist, he even played with Duke Ellington, and my mom was always playing and singing, so it was a whole variety that I grew up with, from Hank Williams to Billie Holiday, and of course the Native music that is just a part of who you are."
She had her own favorites, too. "Some of my major heroes in the industry, I guess you could say, were Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles. I loved Karen Carpenter's voice, always admired her voice. I'd be singing things that people would say — 'Hey, you're not old enough to be singing these songs!' " Shenandoah recalled with the ebullient laughter that recurs often in her conversation. "But I just thought it was a natural thing. I heard Anne Murray say the same thing once — her family grew up in music, and she just thought everybody was like that. So I always sang for whoever needed a song for a wedding, a graduation, any special event in our family — I was always there to sing. It was nice to have the gift," said Shenandoah, whose vocal quality hasbeen compared to the voices of Enya, Judy Collins, and her early hero, Karen Carpenter.
Shenandoah learned most of her musical skill from her family and from working on her own, and when she got to high school she expanded that knowledge. "I mostly studied voice, when I was in high school. But I also worked in the music department so I had access to every instrument, so I'd teach myself to use any instrument I wanted to learn, just pick up the book, pick up the instrument, and go for it," she recalled. "I would even take on assistant duties and teach classes when the instructors had something come up, I'd teach voice, and I'd teach flute. I had a lot of fun with that.
"I was also in many different ensembles, flute, clarinet, horn, you name it. But the way I looked at music was a bit different. It was not from a technical aspect. [For me] music was more emotional, and gave you a sense of sharing the soul, you know? I was in choir, band, whatever there was, I was in it as a way to walk through life," she said.
It took some time for that walk to translate in a professional career in music. Instead, Shenandoah kept up her music on the side while rising to a high-level job as a computer industry executive in Washington, D.C. The pull of the music remained strong, though. An encounter with a musician she had listened to growing up helped her turn her path to that direction. "Back when I was starting out listening to music, there weren't many Native musicians on a national level. There was Tom Bee, Buddy Red Bow, Floyd Westerman, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Peter Ortega," Shenandoah said.
This is an excerpt from an article in Dirty Linen #98 (Feb/Mar. '02). Read the full text in the magazine, available via subscription or on newsstands and in bookstores.
