Barney Bush
Photo by Guy Le Querrec
“We are worldless eyes that speak like looking glasses moving screened threats of melting pots and manifest destiny and our place in the American dream lingering like the memory that you had hoped to bury.”
~Barney Bush, “Left for Dead”
Shawnee poet and teacher Barney Bush began collaborating with British composer and pianist Tony Hymas in 1988, beginning with a project entitled Oyate (The People), a double CD dedicated to 12 Native American leaders from the second half of the 19th century. Far from being a nostalgic project, Oyate introduced listeners to poets, musicians, and singers from a living Native world, including John Trudell, Jim Pepper, Joanne Shenandoah, Floyd Westerman, and Carlos Nakaï. Oyate initiated a rich and intense collaboration with an array of versatile musicians who continued their explorations at intersection of words and music in two double CDs: Remake of the American Dream in 1992 and Left for Dead, (named after a poem Bush dedicated to imprisoned American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier), in 1994.
Hymas has recorded with musicians as diverse as Sam Rivers, Jeff Beck, the London Symphony Orchestra and British saxophone innovator Evan Parker (also part of the band). Mark Sanders has been a drummer for Dudu Pukwana, Jah Wobble and Bill Laswell and Jean-François Pauvros has worked with people like Arto Lindsay and Ted Milton. Bush’s published literary works include My Horse and a Jukebox (1979), Petroglyphs (1982), and Inherit the Blood (1985). Merle Tendoy and Ed Nevaquaya are very talented traditional singers from Oklahoma and Montana, while Geraldine Barney’s recordings have been more folk-oriented.
The ensemble, Left for Dead, has toured in France, Germany, Holland and Italy, creating a common language, setting and finding bridges to understand the other. Transmission is a goal. No quick world music here – one takes time with it. And one takes time because there is an emergency.
"My poetry is active resistance, and in our breaking up world, music stays one of the few possible connections between all of us. Tony's music is the beautiful horse that carry the message.”.
~Barney Bush
