Blackstone Singers Tribute to Porcupine Singers - 2021

okay i feel like i'm a few seconds behind on here hello can you hear me out there 20 viewers um we yeah i can see can you guys hear hear me give me a thumbs up out there hey my honest watching jen can you hear me that's the screen right now up there oh right there oh there's like four screens right here just no reason this will start now i'd like to greet all all my relatives out there in uh in our native land uh a few weeks ago we've been we started this just to practice and try to get our our voices back into shape and we just missed uh i'm just seeing brent's comment there geez that guy anyhow just kind of lost me off my track brent is saying take off your clothes i can't hear you so anyhow just lost i lost my train of thought there anyhow so we started this a few weeks ago just uh singing and then a couple weeks ago we thought uh hey why don't we uh sing a few old songs because i wanted to sing some of the songs where i first started like on sweetgrass singers so last week we sang some songs there to honor and pay tribute to my big brothers sweetgrass singers then after we were done that's when i announced we were gonna sing we wanted to sing some porcupine songs for porcupine singers were uh one of the first uh groups my cousin ross pascaman told me about like he and he told me that they were from uh south dakota and from what we learned from about powwows was uh in our cree language we call powa botsimo which means the sioux dance so we always recognize that and so if you ever hear in a lot of uh decree groups we a lot of groups we use that that word watsimo in there it's just it's paying honor to where we know where this uh powwow originally came from what it was shown to us our people from the lakota sorry about that be technically corrected dakota but we have nakota up here too and then uh that's also a branch of the soup the potato so uh this first song uh we're gonna sing is uh the porcupine drum song it's on a level level of difficulty it was right up there for us there we took a few days we even had to have a practice a few days ago to try and get that song and hopefully we got it though because uh lakota and uh in cree are very different languages so we had to have to ask brent and hokie there for a lot of the words there for these songs so i'm just uh privileged to uh once once uh whitney put uh put it out there that we were going to do this and had a lot of uh response like looking forward to it it kind of made made me a little nervous there but i i kind of like being nervous when we sing that i always kind of do a little better brings up that energy but anyhow so i was really really honored that uh these men these old singers there spoke spoke spoke their words and shared their teaching some of their teachings with the people out there and it's good for young people to hear these these what what what these guys now in their 70s 80s 60s 50s like what they were told when they started singing and it's good for these young guys out here because myself i never got to meet the old porcupine until way later and i was like just gym and i might have shook hands with some of these guys there and i didn't get to meet melvin finally officially there back in when i was a head drum judge in rapid a few years ago so i'm really grateful that he he carried that that drum name on and so hopefully in following that same suit maybe my sons too will carry on my drum name too so but so the first song we're gonna sing is the porcupine drum song [Music] huh um this one [Music] god hey [Music] hey [Music] [Music] hey hey [Music] [Applause] hey [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] wow [Music] [Applause] uh [Music] uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] oh [Music] [Music] uh see what the comments are yeah that was a really nerve-wracking song it was really really honored to sing that to be shown the words to that song i've always heard that song since i started singing an 8-3 and so one of the things i noticed when when i first bought a porcupine tape i believe is the one where all those those a lot of these iconic songs are on like their old veteran songs and anyhow on that uh on on that one straight song yeah i really noticed i used to listen to it back then i would just study almost everything on there and then hear hear the different voices there and here the certain guys are just coming with with killer bass and here in the house when they take it up take it up another notch there and then just hearing that the old style of cutting like what we call cutting with just a pickup there like when you come in early there like when the lead comes in then you cut them a little early today it's been kind of modernized no one really does that anymore that old way of uh picking up a song like after the lead we we did that for our first few years then some of the guys that came onto the crew asked if we can uh just wait till the end of a start because they had a hard time uh cutting in with us with dion when he when i would lead so anyhow other thing i noticed too from those old tapes porcupine tapes was uh every once in a while you'll hear that uh like when the when the downbeat's coming there in austin boom boom boom boom boom so i always thought that was cool and so when i started going to palace i didn't hear too much just up here in the powwows there like maybe mosquito juniors i would hear them do that and it was pretty it was pretty good to hear that didn't hear too many groups back then do that but now when you look at it there so when we started singing there and then about 90 93 94 95 that's commit sin they uh they made a new contest they separated singing and they separated into three groups and that was uh to original southern and contemporary contemporary being as us uh i guess uh singers there that like to sing words and that are exciting i guess just kidding but anyhow that's they separated it and then and then so i from 2005 i kind of uh after my dad passed away i went to uh straight song singing so i got to sing with high noon who was also one of my heroes and i got to sing with them and they ron and ted would travel with me too off and on and then uh i got to know a lot of the other the straight song singers to me they're all singers but uh i got to know some of them so one thing that they they kind of a lot of these uh they they uh they call that too fancy when you do these triple beads or stuff like that but i would like to tell them well check out this 1974 uh recording of porcupine singers and you'll hear those beats and i don't know how long even before that they were maybe from the 60s even before they were doing that types of beats and also too you would uh hear them making all kind of noises different singers on those recordings there like some will make make like a barking dog sound someone make even monkey sounds and the the crow calls and all kind of sounds but it was just like uh i i took note of that and it was similar to our our ceremonies our sundance up here like when they uh do the crow called the after songs and then that i was told when you do that that you're showing you're showing them that uh that you're thankful for life and uh so the similar thing to when you're singing you're showing that drum you're showing everything that comes here you're you're showing your your gratitude for life so when we heard them doing that and other old recordings too of other groups you'll hear guys making noises and stuff like that after they're done singing before they start singing throughout the song and then that's what inspired us on blackstone to uh to always have guys to let their expressions out and and make noises it got back to me in 1991 at uh bismarck one year and we did pretty good like we had new songs and we had really good energy and uh but it got back to me that i guess on the ballots there they uh they they they were that drum judges were told that if any groups uh make noises a lot of noises you guys got to deduct them so at that time i knew that was directed towards us like as we're we really sang like that all the time but it didn't uh deter us we just said oh we're not singing for money we're singing because we're we're singing for life we're singing we're grateful so that's how i try to continue to teach my sons and my adopted sons my my my brothers here my adopted brothers all the guys that come into this group and we've had a lot of singers over the years too and i'm already always remember them in my prayers in my ceremonies and all the people out there too is what the elders the orphans all the children the people in hospitals all of our native people throughout this land i know throughout these tough times it's tough because we don't get to go to powers anymore this is my livelihood i love when i was 16 and first started at drum i thought it was so amazing and i thought i want to learn how to sing i want to do this for the rest of my life if i could i want to dedicate my life to learning how to be a take care of that drum so now this this man-made sickness there put a stop to a lot of a lot of stuff we do but we still got to believe in our ways we gotta and it's a good thing too i seen i at the ceremonies i went to like last year i noticed there was more people there that you don't normally see there so that's a good thing that people are kind of going back to our ceremonies so what's the next song we're going to sing a straight song one another iconic porcupine song they're all iconic one of our favorites um [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] hey [Music] [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow [Music] huh [Music] [Music] [Applause] wow [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey that's pretty it's pretty fun i'm just grateful grateful i'm grateful you know give a shout out to my uh my wife's nephew jacob there this t-shirt there well this sweatshirt it's actually a sweatshirt and it says tribe life school of rocks on there this medallion too was given to me from my late brother mato duta late kenny kenny merrick jr gave that to me uh just a few months before he had passed on let me check out there's a lot of comments there i don't know what to respond to thank you hi hi hello hello howdy my wife always uh bugs me for having a creax accent anything supposed to say with a shh i'll cease hey there terry my gwent hairy spoon hunter ryan first time i remember trying to read the i usually don't have the the uh patience to look through everyone there plus two i moved this thing around all the way so the next song we're gonna sing was also we i knew this song all the time and i'd always just mumble it there and just make out the words the best i could but since we're doing this i reached out to some of my colas there and i'll just make a shout out to my cola my cola you hello but uh he showed me show me the words on this uh the battle of the little bighorn song is what it's called there it's in a lakota lyrics i don't know how i wish i knew the exact uh information on it like when it was uh chris wrote chris p graham there to see her not what to say so i won't oh yeah okay leo leo baker little battle of the little bighorn that's the one we're gonna sing right now so oh hold on i'll come right back [Music] well i'll show it after the song i just sent a yo-yo to go out and get uh our new hoodies here we got oh he's actually back in here so this one right here where there's one right there oh right here [Music] so we got some new hoodies here yo you've got a maid it's out of his own pocket too he just loves us the reason why we put this at the back there is a treaty okay what does it say 3d6 up here in canada we have different treaties i think there's how many treaties are there 11 treaty 11 areas so in alberta and saskatchewan here like central alberta and saskatchewan there it's uh 3d6 like it's mostly it's uh crees and sodos and uh assiniboine the stonies are the iron nation but that's uh it's it it's just to give awareness to to the treaties we signed it's not saying we're it's better than anyone we're proud of all the nations all over so this next song is for for all of our warriors that passed on needing some feast to bank with all the talking and kind of getting used short pretty soon you guys all know i think i'm done boys [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] uh [Applause] now [Music] bye [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] run [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] uh [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] wait stay there sage what's up have a little break voice hi hi hi hi hope allah every time that song is sung custard dies again right on so uh back in 2012 we went like i said back in 2005 we started singing straight songs a lot of my singers i had like from uh early 2000s to 2005 they all just left to go make their own group say so that was good we remained friends with all of them to this day and some of them came back yo-yo and rock leo but uh so 2012 we went back to a contemporary weird singing anyhow uh uh we traveled around that summer and it was kind of rough at first getting kind of trying to get back in the swing of singing uh word songs because it's different day than straight uh so by the end of uh september came along and we've seen uh the poster earlier back in august we've seen a poster of uh of uh a cheyenne river celebration there in eagle butte so i told the guys hey let's go over there man we have uh we used to have uh friends over there we used to go out there back in the early 90s the charging eagles little thunder families so uh sure enough we went went out there and then we ended up doing good so that next year 2013 we got asked to come back and host then again 2014 we went just to go check it out again and then again we we did real good there and then we got asked to host again in 2050 so 2015 we hosted both all four times uh jerry dearly was one of the announcers so uh by 2015 he kind of kind of let us uh let us more in on the let us know of the the duties of being a host drum so he like he'd call upon us there for certain songs and uh by saturday when when families were coming up there to uh to the committee and asking for songs and they wanted us to sing the song so that's when jerry would not come and tell me he said uh this family here is having an honor honor song for so and so there and that uh and then like example there there was a girl there and i think a princess from sao paulo and said that uh they're having a uh honors song they want to honor song for their daughter they're the princess there and they're going to have a special and they want you to use her indian name in there so we did that about three times on saturday then another couple times on sunday too we had to we had and but luckily i had some straight songs that i never showed the guys yet but i was going to start working on them and putting in words in there because sometimes i'll make them straight and then put words sometimes they'll just i'll just mumble gibberish there and make word make songs like that then i had in the career lyrics sometimes i'll make the cree lyrics right there too it's just always never the same but anyhow so i showed the guys hey let's put put those words in that they want in there and then we had one of our buddies there john eagleshield from standing rock and so he was showing us some lakota words too and so so anyhow there's this one john wasn't at the drum but uh it was in the afternoon and then that's when uh so jerry gets out there in front of the drum and he starts talking saying then he turns around and he looks at looks at us there and bends over towards the drum and he says this family wants you guys to uh uh make a song for for their daughter here and then he says her indian name at that time he said her name is chochangli and then and he said it about three times and we kind of followed him like repeating what he said after we had it about three or four more times after that then he turned around and he started talking and doing the introductions for that special and he gave us about a good half hour half hour or more to uh get that song ready so i showed the guys a tune started showing that tune the straight part we learned it there and it was a simple tune a good tune so uh after that uh john by then john came back to the drum and then so i told him he uh we told him what was happening so i told him and her name is uh and then so i asked the guys what's that what's that girl's name again and all the guys just looking at each other like no one could remember what that name was and then we're just kind of all thinking then john asked what does it mean we can't remember that either and we're just singing and meanwhile jerry's right in front of the drum talking they're talking on on the mic there and we were just thinking we didn't want to go and bug him and say hey jerry how's that name go again so we're just really trying to remember remember that name and so finally uh we're just trying to think about it there and then finally i kind of go to columbia wasn't it uh oh yeah i remember it had that in there so that's when i said wasn't it and that's and then i said it again then i told rocky and yo-yo and said they agreed yeah i'm pretty sure that's how it goes then my son sage who does the lead singing for us there he's sitting beside now she goes that's not how it goes he said it's changly juanita and also because we didn't know and where i think we all looked at him really that's how it is yeah i don't know man i don't think that's how it goes yeah that's how it goes mom says it at home all the time so anyhow that's what oh then john got there so we started telling him that is there a word in lakota that's called chikangli juanita and then he's going ah no i never heard that and then so i said my version of how i tried to remember that i said chocolate and he goes oh yeah yeah so all of a sudden we all look at sage chakangli eh so to this day we always a lot of times we tell other guys like marlin and them too so they'll always call saves chuck angley so that he he earned himself an indian name that day too chuck angley there he is my boy which is [Music] so uh hokie showed us this song i don't know how old the song is but it's uh then i did find it on uh where the porcupine singers were ronnie and melvin and then were singing it i think in arizona or new mexico so i heard him heard the version of it there so i had asked hokie last week i said is there is there any songs that your dad might want to hear so and he sent two songs and that was that first drum song and now this song street song so a lot of these songs too what i was showing my guys like some of the other songs we're gonna sing you'll hear the tune in there in like since the 90s the 2000s you'll hear some songs from other groups that use part of those tunes to make their own songs so some of you might recognize some of the hooks on this song but it's a porcupine song [Music] uh yo good luck [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] um [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Laughter] foreign you all just kind of get blank after a song sometimes when you really focus but it's really good really good energy singing those songs we had to practice on monday to go over some of them songs to make sure just made us more as we've seen more people we're we're looking forward to the to the broadcast and then especially when they got the old guys into it there to speak and uh yeah i'm an old guy too anyhow but anyhow uh once they uh once these guys got got in there to speak it just kind of really blew up and was good i was really happy to hear that but at the same time i was just oh my gosh now we gotta not be messing up messing these songs up but so we had that practice on on monday it was really really fun it was really good felt so good to sing those songs songs i only dreamt of singing we sang a couple of them like that second song we sang we heard hokie and them sing it so that's where we started singing it too because whenever we sing that song it just you can just feel that energy a lot of them old songs they're they're some of them are man-made but they're also still sent from something out of this world and that they help us what's uh what's brent saying wrong we'll be singing another uh we learned three uh lakota songs word songs so this is gonna be our third one third one and they told me the meanings for him there but i just know it's about my friend uh my friend we need you i think that's what it means it's another war song battle battle battle song so yeah i can't read fast enough yeah it's always so good even though even though i sang for about 87 2007 over 30 years i did finally get to meet melvin a few years ago like officially and talk to him a bit i wish i could have visited him more it's just said i was pretty busy and when i wasn't busy at uh rapid i would go sit on the stage and just trying to recover from walking around on the cement all day so hey daryl right on they're all zip here yeah so but just doing this there it helps it helps from not being at a power it kind of it really helps that just to feel that energy the good energy i won't get into the energies that powers there we're just there to try and make it positive but just like what they talked about what uh jim talked about last night too and said uh before money got involved it was it was innocent it was was good back then and back then they used a lot of groups in the 60s 70s a lot of them used our bass drums and uh because traditional drums when they say traditional that means a hide hide drums the way they're originally meant for natives to use that high drum you had there's rules that came along with that eh so a lot of guys kind of want to step out of bounds there and so using a bass drum allowed them to do that but i always just always just try to be respectful because i was just learning when we started out and i'm still learning i'm very grateful like i said now i finally know some words to some songs that i always wished i knew when i back in when i started but now i finally got to know hey fred how's it going man okay we're gonna see oh [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] bye [Music] [Music] foreign [Applause] hey [Applause] [Music] uh right hello hello everybody nancy uh my name is rocky mourin and uh i'm from enoch you know cree nation uh treaty six territory so i just wanted to share two uh um it's an honor to to be able to sing sing these songs to learn them to sing them to share them as a way of uh paying tribute to the porcupine singers and uh i tuned in yesterday and listened to uh jim and hokie bonnie you know they had a lot of good words good stories i really enjoyed listening to that um listening to kind of how it was uh long ago i guess the olden days and how powwows were then and traveling and how he spoke about uh respect about the drum respect about about yourself um respect as a singer and it's pretty consistent with what i would have heard too from a lot of old-time singers in our area you know presenting yourself in a good way not only uh your your behavior your conduct but even the way you dress too you know that was pretty uh that was really good to hear um also you know they talked about ceremony and how um how that was a part of uh i guess powers back in the day you know it was a part of it um you know giveaways uh naming ceremonies those kinds of things and today we still see still see some of that also the story about uh about the four four elders that got up to takara pow and how they talked about money coming into the pow and how it was going to change things so i think that was pretty um pretty good to hear it's a good reminder i think as to how how we uh as singers continue continue this thing really for for life for uh prosperity good health family singing for our communities and supporting one another so i'm really grateful to hear hear those words um as well as the um the other singers the original singers that talked earlier today this evening as well it was really nice to hear their insight as well their stories and um i guess as uh as a younger younger singer i always looked up to the older singers and listening to their stories listening to uh i guess really just their insight their perspective on singing in the drum and what it means and to be able to help i guess help carry carry that those teachings in a good way so i just wanted to um you know acknowledge acknowledge the group again acknowledge the singers their families for their uh their good words as well as their encouragement and uh the prayers that they offer for us all as well so i thank you all for for joining joining us this evening okay [Music] yay [Applause] hey [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey hey [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] bye [Music] [Applause] uh how are you doing yes we'll see some words about slappy what you're saying to the people i know you guys see that latest one there he messages in boxes i notice you're always placing it all these hands from all these handling contests what type of rack route that you're using that's on my mind so the next song is uh hokie sang it last night when it does oh porcupine songs last night so we're going to sing it because it's uh also one of my favorite songs of all time over the years i would back when we still even when the cds came out i still my one truck i had still had a tape a tape deck in there anyhow so like on the way to pause sometimes sometimes i'd need to kind of pump myself up so i had certain tapes i had like a one of them was a porcupine tape another one was a badlands tape sweet grass tape red nation tape so certain songs from that i'll listen i'll listen to the whole recordings but as i'm getting closer to the powwows and i'll play i'll play certain songs and that will be i call it my dolomite my dolomite inspiring tape and this was back in like about 15 17 years ago i used to listen to these so this songs we're going to sing is one of my favorite songs of all time so anyhow oh i'm kind of more speechless that's why i sent rocky up here maybe he's standing beside me he came to talk again [Music] so um yeah like i'm really i'm really grateful for my uh my daughter my daughter-in-law and my uh wife's nieces here that come to help us sing and they really they really make it a lot easier when you have backup singers most of our most of our uh years or 30-plus years we didn't maybe just a few six seven of them years maybe we've had backup singers most times we didn't have the privilege of having too many backup singers probably because we're always just a bunch of guys just squeezing into a van and it wasn't really appropriate for a girl to be riding in there with a bunch of stink guys so i i'm really thankful for my daughter and my daughter-in-law and my nieces here to come and help us out today and uh they really make it a lot easier like cover up a lot of our like past few weeks we'd be singing uh maybe four songs four songs and after that we'll call it well let's get off live i'll see we're kind of slicing out and after that we'll uh after that we'll uh when my buddy says talk about powwow food oh my gosh we talk about food i'll have a subject after every song my wife's getting after me because i was just looking going through instagram there and i'm just looking at all these food sites and all that they're liking pictures of that but anyhow so i'm really grateful so we're gonna sing this one hi hi gals i think they're outside having a smoke hey i'm who's happy seven [Music] [Music] we're just waiting for the other gals to get in here drops [Music] this time even when we're sitting let's go [Music] hey ready [Applause] uh [Applause] [Music] [Music] bye [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow yeah so last week we did six songs we did three of our own songs and three sweetgrass songs so that was our seventh song we are getting a little stronger well the guys aren't me i'm just in there for even my base is wearing out but anyhow so kind of saving the toughest songs for them for the last two so this is our last song coming up and then uh this song's one of the one of the most one of the most famous songs here well that i see people really really enjoying so it's another straight song but it's i imagine everyone will will uh will recognize this song trying to take a break before we go on from bed i'm kind of a jokester around my guys so just kidding so anyhow uh another thing too i was i wanted to mention was like uh it's good if people decide to get their vaccinations and stuff like that that's a person's prerogative

Channel: Blackstone Singers

Views: 7,963

Rating: 4.9490447 out of 5

Keywords: powwow, Blackstone Singers, Porcupine Singers, Social Distance Powwow, Native American, Indigenous

Id: Af2lRn74w6w

Length: 74min 34sec (4474 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021