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 Photo by Linda Greyland |
John Trudell - Biography John Trudell did not set out to be a poet. He took that road primarily through a series of detours, and his poetic and political sensibilities were forged by the remarkable, sometimes horrifying circumstances of his life. Born on February 15, 1946 in Omaha, Nebraska, Trudell grew up on and around the nearby Santee Sioux reservation. (His father was Santee, his mother's tribal roots were in Mexico). Trudell became acquainted with economic hardship at an early age; his mother died when he was six, leaving his father to care for his large family. |
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During the years that followed, Trudell's contempt for the dominant "American way of life" deepened, along with his outrage at poverty and racism. In 1963, Trudell found himself in the military. "I went in for economic reasons and picked the Navy because I wanted to minimize my chances of becoming a rifle-toting target. But the experience did teach me that what was happening to me as an Indian, a prisoner of America, was happening to others all over the world." A resume he put together for a press kit a few years ago contains the following listing: 1967-1969: Jobs, School,
Disillusionment |
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"I was in a holding pattern," he says, until 1969, when he found himself on the front line of an event that brought plight of Native Americans to mass consciousness for the first time. That event was the Indians of All Tribes Occupation of Alcatraz. "From the time I had gone into the military in '63 to the time I went to Alcatraz, I had been away from any indigenous roots and connections. So, I went there, trying to find something, and I found a whole lot of other people like me. And we hadn't surrendered, whatever our frailties were." National and international media flocked to the island to cover the story. Along with the media came attention from the U.S. government, particularly the FBI "It took the non-indigenous community's support to allow us to do what we did," says Trudell, who acted as National Spokesman for the occupation force. "The government called us 'militants,' attempting to discredit us and ostracize us from the overall community. " The occupation eventually ended in 1971, but something more lasting was poised to replace it: the American Indian Movement, A.I.M. Trudell served as National Chairman from 1973-1979; with this high profile position came increasing attention from the U.S. government, more notably the FBI, which has compiled a 17,000-page file bearing his name. The government response to A.I.M. was swift: As Trudell bluntly states, "They waged a war against us. They hunted us down. They killed, jailed, destroyed by any means necessary." |
 Photo by Linda Greyland |
 Photo by Wonder Knack |
In 1979 that war took a terrible personal toll on John Trudell, in the form of an almost unspeakable tragedy that changed his life forever. While incarcerated in the Springfield Federal Prison Hospital in Springfield, Missouri in January of 1978, Trudell had been warned to watch what he was saying, or better yet, "to not say it at all." On February 11, 1979 Trudell led a march to the FBI headquarters in Washington D.C. He delivered an address on the FBIís war against Indians, and burned an American flag that he felt had been desecrated by racist and class injustice. Approximately 12 hours later in the early morning hours, a fire "of suspicious origin" burned down Trudell's home on the Shoshone Paiute reservation in Nevada, killing his wife Tina, their three children, and Tina's mother. The Bureau of Indian Affairs officially declared the fire an "accident" and the FBI declined an investigation. But Trudell flatly states, "It was murder. They were murdered as an act of war." Devastated by this loss of his family, Trudell withdrew from the world; "writing words" became his way "to keep some sanity" and continue to survive. "The writing, the poetry came as a surprise to me. I had done political writing, in the form of speeches, but not anything that I thought of as poetry. But about six months or so after the fire, when I was really down, the lines came. The lines were my bombs, my explosions, my tears, they were my everything. Gradually I started trying them out at my speeches, asking myself 'Is this my own private madness or is this something the people can understand?'" |
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What began as a form of therapy soon turned into much more: the words poured out of Trudell and his works were well received. In 1981, Trudell published a book of poetry, Living in Reality, yet by 1982, he had decided he wanted to combine his poetry with music. "In April or May of '79, I met Jackson Browne at Mt. Taylor in Grants, New Mexico. He allowed me room to roam around in his world. So I was around recording studios and musicians. And I've always liked rock 'n roll anyway. So I began to think about joining the poetry with the oldest indigenous musical forms and the newest musical forms." First came the recording, Tribal Voice, at Jackson's studio putting the poetry with the drum and chants. Later, after Trudell met Jesse Ed Davis, came the rock 'n roll. Jesse Ed Davis, himself a Kiowa from Oklahoma, was something of a musical legend. Getting his start in 1966, he was known for playing with everybody. Jesse had recorded and toured with the likes of Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, John Lennon, Jackson Browne (the memorable guitar solo on Browne's first hit, "Doctor My Eyes," was by Davis), Taj Mahal and countless others. His innate understanding of blues and rock 'n roll turned out to be just what Trudell had been looking for. "When we met in 1985, he told me his name and then he said, 'I can make music for your words.' With Jesse and me, we each came from our collective Indian experience, and had our individual experiences in the non-Indian world. We had both literally been to the last door of hell, opened it, and saw what was inside." |
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The Trudell and Davis union of poetry and music yielded a powerful, instinctive sound that led to a first album in 1986 titled, AKA Grafitti Man. The album, released on Trudell's own Peace Company label in a cassette-only format, gained critical attention even with its limited distribution. In a Rolling Stone interview, Bob Dylan called AKA Grafitti Man "the best album of 1986," and had the album played over the P.A. system during intermissions on his 1987 tour with the Grateful Dead. Trudell and Davis released a second album together, Heart Jump Bouquet, as well as another recording in the Tribal Voice series, titled . . . But This Isn't El Salvador in 1987. Then suddenly in 1988, Jesse Ed Davis died. While shaken, Trudell resolved himself to go on. He began to collaborate with Mark Shark, the Grafitti Band's rhythm guitarist. "When Jesse died, Mark just kind of carried it on from there. So it was a continuation. The musicians changed, but you listen to Mark at times, and you'll hear the Jesse Ed influences in there, very strong." A 1988 tour as the opening act for the popular and highly politicized Australian band, Midnight Oil, gained Trudell and the Grafitti Band some mainstream exposure. In 1991, with Shark, Trudell recorded a third album, Fables and Realities. And in 1992, Trudell and Shark (a.k.a. IKTOMI) produced a third in the Tribal Voice series, titled, Child's Voice: Children of the Earth. Signed to Rykodisc in 1992, Trudell was introduced to an international audience, receiving worldwide distribution for the first time with a re-make of his original AKA Grafitti Man, produced by Jackson Browne. Gaining wide critical acclaim as a poet, Trudell was cast in two movies, one fictional (Thunderheart), and one documentary (Incident At Oglala) - both dealing with Indian clashes with the U.S. government during the 1970s. Trudell released a second album on Rykodisc in 1994, Johnny Damas & Me. Most recently, in 1998, Trudell was cast as the Radio DJ, in Sherman Alexie's award winning Sundance film, Smoke Signals. |
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With his newest project Blue Indians, produced by Jackson Browne, Trudell's powerful fusion of poetry and music comes from the heart and spirit of a "blue Indian." "I see a real future for spoken word with music. Poetry is based on the oldest oral traditions. In music, lyrics are written to what the math of the music allows us to say; poetry is what we need to say. And to me . . . it's a canyon worth of difference. "I'm just a human being trying to make it in a world that is very rapidly losing its understanding of being human." |
| 1. Blue Indians |
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TRIBAL VOICE ...BUT THIS ISN'T EL SALVADOR  (1987 Tribal Voice) 1. BUT THIS ISN'T EL SALVADOR/BUTLER HONORING 2. BORN 18/ALL TRIBES 3. THE NEWSPAPER 4. STAND/ROUND DANCE 5. ISN'T MY LIFE/ELK SONG 6. INSTANT HEART/OLD SPRINGS OWL 7. THICKER THAN BLOOD FOR BILLIE JOE/CHIEFS SONG 8. BEAUTY IN A FADE/49 WAIT FOR ME 9. 1 SIDE OF THE FACE/1855 WAR DANCE 10. WHAT HAPPENS/SARCEE SONG 11. AT SOME POINT/UMATILLA SONG 12. WOMAN TREAT/WIDE SPOT OWL 13. CO-OPTATION/49 CRAZY HORSE 14. SONG OF THE TREES/WARM SPRINGS HONORING FABLES AND OTHER REALITIES  (1991 Peace Company) 1. FABLES AND OTHER REALITIES 2. BABY DOLL BLUES 3. LAUGHING 4. WHAT HE'D DONE 5. BABY WHAT'S HAPPENING 6. LONG SILKYCARESS 7. THE DREAM 8. TEDDY BEAR TEARS 9. THE NEEDLE 10. SOMEBODY'S KID 11. RAVEN 12. FIRE IN THE VILLAGE 13. FABLES A.K.A. GRAFITTI MAN (1992 Rykodisc Records) 1. ROCKIN' THE RES 2. GRAFITTI MAN 3. RESTLESS SITUATIONS 4. WILDFIRES 5. BABY BOOM CHE 6. BOMBS OVER BAGHDAD 7. RICH MAN'S WAR 8. SOMEBODY'S KID 9. NEVER, NEVER BLUES 10. WHAT HE'D DONE 11. BEAUTY IN A FADE 12. TINA SMILED BLUE INDIANS (1999 Dangerous Discs on Inside Recordings) 1. BLUE INDIANS 2. BAD DOG 3. ALL NITE CAFÉ 4. TOY 5. DEVIL AND ME 6. JOHNNY AND JOE 7. ANGEL OF SIN 8. TERMINAL NEON 9. DIZZY DUCK 10. GRASSFIRE 11. THE ONLY ONE FOR ME 12. YOU WERE |
ORIGINAL
A.K.A. GRAFITTI MAN HEART JUMP BOUQUET  (1987 Peace Company) 1. RESTLESS SITUATION 2. LISTEN CLOSELY 3. SUCH A FINE DAY 4. NEVER, NEVER BLUES 5. HEART CHANTING 6. ROCKIN' THE RES 7. BRINGING BACK THE TIME 8. HEART JUMP BOUQUET 9. POETIC MOTION 10. SWEET THINGS 11. TINA SMILED CHILD'S VOICE: CHILDREN OF THE EARTH  (1992 Peace Company) 1. CHILDREN OF THE EARTH 2. LAST RUSH IN BABYLON 3. SEE THE WOMAN 4. QUESTIONS 5. GOOD THOUGHTS 6. ONE OF THE COLORS 7. MATERIAL JUNKIES 8. SOME PEOPLE SAY 9. ONE JOURNEY 10. CHILD OF THE DREAM 11. PEACE WITH THE EARTH JOHNNY DAMAS & ME (1994 Rykodisc Records) 1. RANT N ROLL 2. SEE THE WOMAN 3. RAPTOR 4. SHADOW OVER SISTERLAND 5. BABY DOLL BLUES 6. THAT LOVE 7. JOHNNY DAMAS & ME 8. ACROSS MY HEART 9. SOMETHING ABOUT YOU 10. AFTER ALL THESE YEARS 11. ALL THERE IS TO IT
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POW WOW HIGHWAY THUNDERHEART DARK BLOOD EXTREME MEASURES |
INCIDENT AT OGLALA CROSSROADS ON DEADLY GROUND SMOKE SIGNALS |
(1986
Peace Company)