Bush Lady

August 21, 2018 4:37 PM

Before Alanis Obomsawin made films about First Nations, she was a musician. Her 1988 album Bush Lady was re-released in June.

From The Canadian Encyclopedia:

Following her debut as a singer at a concert at New York City’s Town Hall in 1960, she made appearances on reserves, in schools and prisons, at music festivals and on television. In 1966, she was profiled on the CBC program Telescope for her activism and “near superhuman” efforts to fund — through donations, concerts and lectures — a swimming pool for the Odanak reserve after the local river was deemed too polluted.

She has performed throughout North America and Europe, self-accompanied on a hand-drum or rattle. Her repertoire includes traditional Aboriginal songs, as well as stories in English and French. Her 1984 album Bush Lady is perhaps the best example of her musical style. Accompanied by the hand-drum, and occasionally flute, oboe, violin and cello, Obomsawin sings and tells stories in several languages. In “Mother of Many Children,” a track of intermixed chanting and French spoken word, she begins in English: “From earth, from water, our people grew to love each other in this manner. For in all our languages, there is no he, or she. We are the children of the earth, and of the sea.”

Alanis Obomsawin at Le Guess Who? 2017:
Odana
Bush Lady
Of The Earth & Of The Sea / La Berceuse

Indian Songs, 1984

Her best known documentary remains Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, filmed throughout the Oka Crisis. Previously, previously.

posted by Tha Contender (3 comments total)

Thanks for this. Hadn't heard about the re-release of the album.

She turns 86 next week!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:32 PM on August 21, 2018

She's going to be 86?? Oh my. Her films are very good (I most recently saw Trick or Treaty and Hi-Ho Mistahey about Shannon Koostachin's activist campaign for equal education for indigenous children) but I didn't realize she had been a musician. Thanks for this post.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:02 PM on August 21, 2018

There was a pretty good Canadaland interview with her last year where she talks a bit about her music as well.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:21 AM on August 22, 2018