Published: December 2, 2007 6:00 a.m.
Hide photos
Bird sits atop pecking order
Former city musician is genre's best
By Steve Penhollow
The Journal Gazette
Courtesy photo
Former Fort Wayne resident Arvel Bird won Artist of the Year at the Native American Music Awards.
Courtesy photo
Bird calls his next project his “tribal music suite” and a “life-defining piece of work.”
“Nammy” sounds like one of the hundreds of terms that people have for referring to their grandmas.
Why is it that no one calls their grandma “Grandma” anymore?
I’ll tell you why.
Because “Grandma” sounds old.
Better to pluck an exotic moniker from one’s cultural heritage, like Mamo, Noni, Nana or Abuela.
Older folks are treated better in most other countries, and they are referred to in more appealing (meaning more mysterious, lyrical and sexy) ways.
“And yet this column isn’t even about grandmas,” the columnist sheepishly reveals seven lines later.
It is about the Nammy.
The Nammy is, in fact, a major music award.
In lieu of a Grammy, a Nammy is pretty cool.
A Nammy is a Native American Music Award, and the Nammies is the Native American Music Awards ceremony.
Former Fort Wayne resident Arvel Bird won a Nammy in October.
He not only won a Nammy; he won the best Nammy. Artist of the Year.
It did not happen on a vast plain in the shadow of a mountain. It happened at one of the most opulent gambling establishments in the Northeast: the Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls, Canada.
Bird, a multi-instrumentalist and stylistic chameleon who has specialized in tribal music in recent years, said by phone that the win came as a surprise.
“Of the six people nominated, only three showed up,” he said. “And the other two were performing. The people who perform are the most likely to win something, and I wasn’t performing.
“And they stuck me in the back,” Bird said. “So I thought, ‘Well, that’s not good.’ ”
In pure appearance terms, the Nammies look a lot like the Grammies, Bird said.
People dress in formal wear for the most part, but their tuxes are enhanced with tribal accents.
American Indian celebs – actors, comics, artists, authors, thinkers, etc. – add glamour.
After his win, Bird partied in the suite of lifetime achievement award winner Joanne Shenandoah. Then it was back on the road.
Bird, who shares heritage and consanguinity with the Shivwit band of Paiutes in Utah, believes he won because he is the touringist artist out there.
“I have been touring full time for the last three years,” he said. “Out of all the nominees, I had out-toured them all.”
Bird’s home base these days is Nashville, Tenn., but he hasn’t been there since February.
He and his wife recently bought a new diesel motor coach in Chattanooga, Tenn. It boasts more living and working space than their previous conveyance, although all motor coaches – no matter how large – are vulnerable to an accumulation of stuff, Bird said.
And Bird said that all motor coaches – no matter how large – are vulnerable to overcramming by motor coach owners who like to travel with an enormous powwow drum. It’s an occupational hazard. And it’s the next stage in his career.
Bird hopes to put together a tour that involves pairing the powwow drum with full symphonic accompaniment.
He is recording the album of his career with Tom Wassinger, a producer as distinguished and decorated in the Native American music genre as Rick Rubin is in the rock genre.
The album will commit a masterwork to injection-molded clear polycarbonate plastic (aka compact disc) that Bird refers to as his “tribal music suite.”
“This new recording is a life-defining piece of work for me,” he said.
Copyright © 2007 The Journal Gazette. All rights reserved. News service copy is used with permission. The information contained in the report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Journal Gazette or granting news service.