My latest gig, part of the University of Saskatchewan’s FARLS calendar.

“WHAT IS TRADITION? NATIVE NORTH AMERICAN POPULAR MUSIC AS EXPRESSIVE CULTURE”
(click above link to view powerpoint of presentation)

Abstract: From Jim Pepper’s seminal sixties jazz-rock fusion band Everything Is Everything, to groups like Robbie Robertson’s Red Road Ensemble in the nineties and contemporary performers like 2014 JUNO Award winner George Leach, there have been exponentially increasing numbers of Native North American (First Nations and Native American) artists participating in a wide variety of popular music genres. What distinguishes Native North American popular music artists from their non-indigenous contemporaries are the culturally unique cultural elements embedded in their music. This FARLS lecture will explore on two important aspects of Native North American indigenous popular music expression. An identification of the types and significance of indigenous elements found in contemporary popular music performed by a variety of Native North American artists, will be followed by a discussion of how those elements are combined in specific songs as coded expressions of identity and tradition that carry different levels of symbolic meaning and interpretation.