October 4, 2009
ELEVENTH ANNUAL WINNERS ANNOUNCED
By Native American Music Awards
Jan Michael Looking Wolf for Artist of the Year, Joanne Shenandoah & Michael Bucher's Bitter Tears Sacred Ground for Best Compilation, Jana's rendition of A Change Is Gonna Come for Song/Single of the Year, Kevin Locke's Earth Gift for Record of the Year, and American Idol Semi-finalist Charly Lowry for Best Video Among Those Honored
Niagara Falls, NY – On Saturday October 3, 2009 the Eleventh Annual Native American Music Awards (N.A.M.A.) was held at the Seneca Niagara Hotel & Casino in Niagara Falls infront of a packed house that featured consistently outstanding live music performances along with an emotionally charged Hall of Fame induction in honor of the late Ritchie Valenz.
Taking this year's top honors are; Joanne Shenandoah & Michael Bucher's Bitter Tears Sacred Ground for Best Compilation, Jana Mashonee's rendition of Sam Cooke's, A Change Is Gonna Come with Derek Miller for Song/Single of the Year, Jan Michael Looking Wolf for Artist of the Year, Skylar Wolf for Debut Artist of the Year, Will and Lil Jess for Debut Duo/Group of the Year, Kevin Locke's Earth Gift for Record of the Year, and American Idol Semi-finalist Charly Lowry for Best Video for her long form video featuring her song, Movin On.
Hosted with grace, class, style, humor and even professional music talent by actor Gil Birmingham, others on hand at the Awards ceremeony included: Shane Yellowbird who won for Best Country Recording, Atsiaktonkie who won for Best Folk Recording, Flutist of the Year JJ Kent, Wind Spirit Drum whose recording Amazing Grace took Best Gospel Inspirational Recording, Thunder Hawk Singers for Best Historical Recording, Gabriel Ayala for Best Instrumental Recording, Bryan Akipa For Best Male Artist, Eagle & Hawk for Best Rock Recording, Rezhogs for Best Rap Hip Hop Recording, Oshkii Giizhik Singers for Best Traditional Recording, Michael Searching Bear for Best World Music Recording, and Michael Brant DeMaria for the Native Heart Award.
Other nominees in attendance included; Benjamin Grimes, Kelly Montijo Fink, Jackie Tice, Mike Serna, Pappy Johns Band, Jimmy Shendo, Augusta Cecconi Bates, Douglas Blue Feather, Yvonne St Germaine and Donna Kay who all participated in the program.
Capping the evening’s ceremonies were consistently transcendant and flawless performances beginning with drum group Young Gunz, Dallas Washkahat and Fawn Wood, classical guitarist Gabriel Ayala, Eagle & Hawk, soprano opera singer Jennifer M Stevens accompanied by composer Augusta Cecconi-Bates, Joanne Shenandoah and Michael Bucher who performed material from their award-winning recording, Lifetime Achievement Recipient Stevie Salas pumped it up with original Pearl Jam drummer Dave Abbruzesse and bass player TM Stevens of Shocka Zooloo and the late James Brown, and a spectacular rendition of Stevie Ray Vaughn's Pride & Joy by the show's host Gil Birmingham and nominee Jimmy Wolf. Darryl Tonemah gave a rising performance in his trademarked barefeet, Jana's riveting vocals were unmatched, Shane Yellowbird showcased material for his upcoming Grand Ole Opry appearance, and new artist Jace Martin captured the audience with his Ritchie Valens tribute song, We Belong Together.
Tommy Allsup, original guitarist of the Buddy Holly band who flipped a coin with Ritchie Valens for the last seat on their ill-fated plane, bought the audience to tears as Allsup, who became emotional and choked up as he recapped and retold the story of his tour mate Ritchie Valens and his tragic end.
Following the Hall of Fame induction and Ritchie's sister, Irma's acceptance speech, Tommy Allsup, who is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, joined Ritchie's little brother, Mario, and his group, The Backyard Blues Band, who rocked the house and performed a special extended rendition of “La Bamba”.
N.A.M.A. and its Advisory Board contingency would like to congratulate all the winners and nominees and proudly honors these legendary performers and songwriters who have been leading forces in the Native American music community.
The Native American Music Awards & Association, founded in 1998, is the world’s leading membership-based association consisting of music industry professionals directly involved in the recording and distribution of traditional and contemporary Native American Music initiatives. The growing success of the Awards show now features over one hundred and fifty nominees annually, with at least one third of those nominees being new artists. For the past eleven years the Awards has set industry standards for professional Native American musicians who are gaining greater acceptance and exposure from both national and international audiences.
See below for a complete list of winners
ELEVENTH ANNUAL AWARD WINNERS
ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Jan Michael Looking Wolf
The Looking Wolf Project
BEST BLUES RECORDING
Dancing In The Rain
Graywolf Blues Band
BEST COMPILATION RECORDING
Bitter Tears Sacred Ground
Joanne Shenandoah & Michael Bucher
BEST COUNTRY RECORDING
Life Is Calling My Name
Shane Yellowbird
DEBUT ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Skylar Wolf
Devil’s Son
DEBUT DUO / GROUP OF THE YEAR
Will & Lil Jess
Reservation Nights
BEST FEMALE ARTIST
Joy Harjo
Winding Through The Milky Way
BEST FOLK RECORDING
Four Wolves Prophecy
Atsiaktonkie
FLUTIST OF THE YEAR
JJ Kent
Ta Te’ Topa Win
BEST GOSPEL/INSPIRATIONAL RECORDING
Amazing Grace
Lenape Spirits
Wind Spirit Drum
GROUP OF THE YEAR
Brule’
Lakota Piano II
BEST HISTORICAL RECORDING
Native Pride
Thunder Hawk Singers
BEST INSTRUMENTAL RECORDING
Tango!
Gabriel Ayala
BEST MALE ARTIST
Bryan Akipa
Songs From The Black Hills
BEST NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH RECORDING
Peyote Ways
Primeaux & Mike
BEST NEW AGE RECORDING
Deep Within
Tony Redhouse
BEST POP RECORDING
Na Unu Nahai (Shape Shifter)
Apryl Allen
BEST POW WOW RECORDING
Band of Brothers
Midnite Express
BEST PRODUCER
Kelly Parker
Out Of The Blue
BEST RAP / HIP HOP RECORDING
All Day All Night
Rezhogs
RECORD OF THE YEAR
Earth Gift
Kevin Locke
BEST ROCK RECORDING
Sirensong
Eagle & Hawk
SONG/SINGLE OF THE YEAR
A Change Is Gonna Come
Jana Mashonee
SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR
Samantha Crain
The Confiscation: A Musical Novella
BEST SPOKEN WORD RECORDING
The Great Story From The Sacred Book
Rain Song/Terry & Darlene Wildman
BEST TRADITIONAL RECORDING
It Is A New Day
Oshkii Giizhik Singers
BEST VIDEO
Movin On
Charly Lowry & Aaron Locklear
BEST WORLD MUSIC RECORDING
Ceremony
Michael Searching Bear
NATIVE HEART
Michael Brant DeMaria
Siyotanka
LIVING LEGEND
Tommy Allsup
HALL OF FAME
Ritchie Valens
Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights
October 4, 2009
Peabody Coal, and media, fall to new dirty lows
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Today, Vernon Masayesva, Hopi, reveals that the Hopi Tribal Council has been taken over by a pro-Peabody Coal faction. Further, Masayesva reveals that the Hopi Tribal Council hired Tina May as its press officer and the Arizona Republic is publishing one-sided, biased press release coverage by Tina May, former senior editor at the Arizona Republic. Already this week, the Associated Press' dark and biased coverage was revealed in "Lazy journalists are the darlings of the corporations."
AP also published press releases of politicians and corporations, without interviewing the Navajo and Hopi environmental organizations and people living on the land.
Peabody Coal's use of a tribal attorney to carry out its dirty work is the same tactic Peabody used originally to seize Black Mesa for coal mining and bring about Navajo relocation for coal mining, by way of attorney John Boyden, who worked for Peabody and the Hopi Tribe.
The media, along with the politicians and corporations, have blamed and disrespected traditional Navajo and Hopi traditional grassroots people defending the land.
Both the Associated Press and Arizona Republic have relied on slick and easy press release coverage, written by politicians and corporations, and disregarded the comments of the people.
Please read the full statements of Hopis and Navajos at Censored News:
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Today, Vernon Masayesva, Hopi, reveals that the Hopi Tribal Council has been taken over by a pro-Peabody Coal faction. Further, Masayesva reveals that the Hopi Tribal Council hired Tina May as its press officer and the Arizona Republic is publishing one-sided, biased press release coverage by Tina May, former senior editor at the Arizona Republic. Already this week, the Associated Press' dark and biased coverage was revealed in "Lazy journalists are the darlings of the corporations."
AP also published press releases of politicians and corporations, without interviewing the Navajo and Hopi environmental organizations and people living on the land.
Peabody Coal's use of a tribal attorney to carry out its dirty work is the same tactic Peabody used originally to seize Black Mesa for coal mining and bring about Navajo relocation for coal mining, by way of attorney John Boyden, who worked for Peabody and the Hopi Tribe.
The media, along with the politicians and corporations, have blamed and disrespected traditional Navajo and Hopi traditional grassroots people defending the land.
Both the Associated Press and Arizona Republic have relied on slick and easy press release coverage, written by politicians and corporations, and disregarded the comments of the people.
Please read the full statements of Hopis and Navajos at Censored News:
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Masayesva: Pro-Peabody takeover of Hopi Tribal Council
October 2, 2009
To Arizona Republic
From: Vernon Masayesva
Editorial Board:
The Hopi Tribal Council action to ban environmentalists on allegations that they are engaged in shutting down Peabody mining operations on Black Mesa is a manufactured lie. (“Hopi say Conservationists unwelcome on tribal land,” Arizona Republic, September 29, 2009)
To be a Hopi is to be a conservationist, a caretaker and a steward of planet earth. So, by implication, the Council has banned all Hopi people from their land.
Grand Canyon Trust is the only organization coming to Hopi, not to advocate for the shutdown of Peabody, but to install photovoltaic panels on homes that have no electricity. It is likely the project will now be suspended, thanks to our Hopi Tribal Council.
The real story on Hopiland, that is yet to be revealed, is the take-over of the government by pro-Peabody legislators with the support of their legal counsel, Scott Canty, and the ensuing corruption and abuse of power by an illegally constituted Council.
Forty individual Hopis have filed a challenge to the U.S. Office of Surface Mining’s decision to issue a Life-of-Mine permit to Peabody so they can continue the destructive surface mining for an additional 15 years after 2011. They, the Hopi petitioners, are represented by a private lawyer working pro-bono, and not by any of the organizations banned by the Hopi Council.
Of special concern to the Hopi is the continuing drawdown of N-aquifer groundwater and the accidental and deliberate destruction of archaeological sites, burial sites, petroglyphs and other cultural resources.
The Black Mesa area is considered to be archaeologically “site rich." Over 2,500 sites within the 67,000-acre Peabody leasehold have been catalogued by an archaeological field school.’
The Hopi people have no record of how many sites and burial grounds have been deliberately destroyed since the mining started in 1970. This is a tragedy that no media has yet covered.
This is why the vast majority of Hopi people are supporting the petitioners' request that the entire Black Mesa project EIS be redone, this time in full compliance with NEPA and a Presidential Order requiring full citizen participation. Neither OSM nor the Hopi Water and Energy Team have come to villages to explain the mine plan or OSM’s analysis of the impacts of the mine plan since the EIS process started in 1985, contrary to allegations by Scott Canty, General Counsel to the Hopi Council.
The Hopi people are not out to “stop the mining.” This false allegation has been used time and time again to discredit Black Mesa Trust, which has since 1998 been at the forefront of a battle to end the Peabody coal slurry operation, with the support of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club.
Black Mesa Trust is supporting the Hopi petitioners. The opposition includes the Hopi Tribal Council, Peabody, OSM, Salt River Project and the Navajo Nation--all with deep pockets and access to dozens of lawyers.
I hope you will give representatives of Hopi petitioners the opportunity to sit down with you and explain what is really happening concerning the mining and the pro-Peabody Council role in supporting OSM, an agency that is captured by Peabody, and owners of Navajo Generation Station. There are always two sides to a story and so far no one has tried to hear the other side.
Arizona Republic has been carrying news releases by Tina May, public relations officer for the Hopi Tribal Council. She is reporting only one side of the story. We understand she is a former employee of the Arizona Republic.
Thank you,
Vernon Masayesva
P.O. Box 33
Kykotsmovi, AZ 86039
928/255-2356
To Arizona Republic
From: Vernon Masayesva
Editorial Board:
The Hopi Tribal Council action to ban environmentalists on allegations that they are engaged in shutting down Peabody mining operations on Black Mesa is a manufactured lie. (“Hopi say Conservationists unwelcome on tribal land,” Arizona Republic, September 29, 2009)
To be a Hopi is to be a conservationist, a caretaker and a steward of planet earth. So, by implication, the Council has banned all Hopi people from their land.
Grand Canyon Trust is the only organization coming to Hopi, not to advocate for the shutdown of Peabody, but to install photovoltaic panels on homes that have no electricity. It is likely the project will now be suspended, thanks to our Hopi Tribal Council.
The real story on Hopiland, that is yet to be revealed, is the take-over of the government by pro-Peabody legislators with the support of their legal counsel, Scott Canty, and the ensuing corruption and abuse of power by an illegally constituted Council.
Forty individual Hopis have filed a challenge to the U.S. Office of Surface Mining’s decision to issue a Life-of-Mine permit to Peabody so they can continue the destructive surface mining for an additional 15 years after 2011. They, the Hopi petitioners, are represented by a private lawyer working pro-bono, and not by any of the organizations banned by the Hopi Council.
Of special concern to the Hopi is the continuing drawdown of N-aquifer groundwater and the accidental and deliberate destruction of archaeological sites, burial sites, petroglyphs and other cultural resources.
The Black Mesa area is considered to be archaeologically “site rich." Over 2,500 sites within the 67,000-acre Peabody leasehold have been catalogued by an archaeological field school.’
The Hopi people have no record of how many sites and burial grounds have been deliberately destroyed since the mining started in 1970. This is a tragedy that no media has yet covered.
This is why the vast majority of Hopi people are supporting the petitioners' request that the entire Black Mesa project EIS be redone, this time in full compliance with NEPA and a Presidential Order requiring full citizen participation. Neither OSM nor the Hopi Water and Energy Team have come to villages to explain the mine plan or OSM’s analysis of the impacts of the mine plan since the EIS process started in 1985, contrary to allegations by Scott Canty, General Counsel to the Hopi Council.
The Hopi people are not out to “stop the mining.” This false allegation has been used time and time again to discredit Black Mesa Trust, which has since 1998 been at the forefront of a battle to end the Peabody coal slurry operation, with the support of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club.
Black Mesa Trust is supporting the Hopi petitioners. The opposition includes the Hopi Tribal Council, Peabody, OSM, Salt River Project and the Navajo Nation--all with deep pockets and access to dozens of lawyers.
I hope you will give representatives of Hopi petitioners the opportunity to sit down with you and explain what is really happening concerning the mining and the pro-Peabody Council role in supporting OSM, an agency that is captured by Peabody, and owners of Navajo Generation Station. There are always two sides to a story and so far no one has tried to hear the other side.
Arizona Republic has been carrying news releases by Tina May, public relations officer for the Hopi Tribal Council. She is reporting only one side of the story. We understand she is a former employee of the Arizona Republic.
Thank you,
Vernon Masayesva
P.O. Box 33
Kykotsmovi, AZ 86039
928/255-2356
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)