Tony Bellamy: Come and Get Your Love

Redbone's lead guitarist Tony Bellamy passed away on Christmas Day at the age of 69.  I'm sitting here listening to one of my favorite songs of all time,  "Come and Get Your Love", with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes. The embedding  has been disabled, but you need to go and listen to this song right now at
YouTube.
The following press release is from the Native American Music Awards, a wonderful site where you can hear that Native American music is alive and well.


REDBONE'S TONY BELLAMY PASSES AT AGE 69


New York, NY – The Native American Music Awards (N.A.M.A.) organization is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Redbone's Anthony Bellamy, who has died on Christmas morning, December 25th, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada with his family by his side. Anthony, or Tony "T-Bone" Bellamy, who attended the 10th Annual Native American Music Awards and was inducted into the N.A.M.A. Hall of Fame with Redbone in 2008, was a Mexican-American Yaqui Indian who became the lead guitarist, pianist and vocalist for the Native American band.. He was a beloved and endearing friend of the "Nammys" since its inception, and will be greatly missed.

Redbone became established as a Native American rock group in the 1970s. They reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1974 with the hit song, "Come and Get Your Love."

Originally formed in 1969 in Los Angeles, California by brothers Patrick Vasquez (bass and vocals) and Lolly Vasquez (guitar and vocals), the name Redbone started as a joking reference to a Cajun term for a mixed-race person ("half-breed"). The band's members were of mixed blood ancestry.  According to Patrick Vasquez aka Pat Vegas, it was Jimi Hendrix who talked the musicians into forming an all-Native American rock group . The band consisted of Patrick Vasquez, Lolly Vasquez, drummer Pete DePoe and Anthony "Tony" Bellamy.

The group signed to Epic Records in 1969, and released their debut album, Redbone, in 1970. The follow-up album, Potlatch, featured the song "Alcatraz," which dealt with the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island. Their first commercially successful singles were, “Maggie,” and "Witch Queen of New Orleans" (1971) which also became a huge hit in the United Kingdom. In 1973, Redbone released the political, "We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee” which reached the #1 chart position in Europe.

By 1974, Redbone had reached the Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 charts with "Come and Get Your Love”. The Pop/Funk/Disco song was certified Gold by the R.I.A.A for selling over one million copies and is still heard today on radio stations and commercials throughout the country. Drummer DePoe was replaced by Arturo Perez on Already Here (1972). Perez was replaced on Wovoka (1974) by Butch Rillera. (Wovoka contained the band's most successful single, "Come and Get Your Love,") In 1998 members of the group appeared as special guest performers at the inaugural Native American Music Awards and returned in 2008 as NAMA Hall of Fame inductees..

Tony Bellamy grew up in a family of dancers and musicians and learned to play the flamenco guitar as part of his musical education. Before joining the band Redbone, Tony Bellamy had performed with Dobie Gray, and a was a member of the San Francisco band, Peter and the Wolves, that evolved into the psychedelic band Moby Grape.

Born as Anthony Avila, Tony Bellamy died at age 69.

N.A.M.A. and its Advisory Board contingency would like extend their condolences to the Bellamy family. N.A.M.A. will forever honor this legendary performer who has been both a leading force in the mainstream music industry and an inspiration to the Native American community.

http://www.myspace.com/tonybellamyformerlyofRedbone

Drop your racist lawsuit!

OK, you're a Canadian railway with more than $2 billion in net income whose rail line runs through 33,000 acres of land coercively taken from Tyenindaga Mohawk land in 1820. When three Tyenindaga Mohawk block your tracks in protest, what do you do? Sue the activists for $105 million in lost income! You can read the whole story at No One Is Illegal. (Double-click the above photo for more details.).

Thanksgiving: time to challenge the stereotypes

Yesterday I was one of the group recipients of an email image (as part of a joke) that another person on the list found offensive but didn't say why. I asked her to spell it out and low and behold!-- it was a stereotype that hadn't even crossed my mind, although there'd been a different aspect of the image with which I was uncomfortable. This just goes to show that self-education and the education of our peers is ongoing and essential.

Thanksgiving brings out the worst of the stereotypes as regards American Indians. Somehow non-Indians can only think of indigenous people as they existed in the past. I'm sure sociologists have a word for it, but I call it the "frozen in time" syndrome. Once the European culture intersected the development path of American Indians, it became impossible to know how the culture would have developed without our presence. Would American Indians have developed a technology which would eventually bring them into conflict with their environment? The themes in Jared Diamond's Collapse suggest that as a possibility. (See a short video at Treehugger.) On the other hand they may have found a way to successfully integrate their spiritual values with their economic and social development . We will never know for sure, but we certainly can know that they would not have remained as they were 400 years ago. Even the image of American Indians astride their horses is an image of the interference of the European culture-- horses are not indigenous to the Americas.

American Indians understand this all too well and have their own struggle for authenticity. I found the picture in this postat Sociological Images.

A few years ago I had the great good fortune to attend the National Day of Mourning, held every year since 1970 in Plymouth, Massachusetts and sponsored by the United American Indians of New England. Young and old, white and black, native and non-native, fat and thin, women and men, limber and lame, pretty and plain, all of us there and everywhere stood on one side of the river and not the other-- and yet we stood together, knowing there was much we did not understand, yet oh so willing. The remarkable time in which we find ourselves now gives us room to explore our differences and our commonality. Let us not allow fear of mistakes keep us from walking this road together.

Texas school suspends 5 yr old for religious beliefs

The Texas ACLU is suing the Needville Independent School District for refusing to allow a five year old Native American boy openly wear his hair in braids, insisting he hide them in his shirt.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, charges that NISD�s actions violate Betenbaugh's and Arocha's rights to raise Adriel according to their family's religion, heritage and identity, as well as Adriel's constitutional and statutory rights to free exercise of religion and free expression. Courts have held that the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution protect students� rights to dress in conformation with their religious beliefs. Texas' Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) provides additional protections.

�"he Constitution protects the right of all people in this country to express their religious beliefs as they see fit," said Daniel Mach, Director of Litigation for the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. "The same law protects Catholic students who wear a rosary, Christian students who wear a cross, or Jewish students who wear a Star of David. Yet the school board has ignored this basic principle by punishing this young child's expression of his faith and heritage."

You can read more at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.