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Description
Sorry for the mini-essay, but this track requires some setup.
I live in the state of Minnesota, in the north central United States. While Minnesota is known for its cold winters, pine forest and good fishing, few outsiders realize it was once one third tall grass prairie. Until that ecosystem was converted into row-crop agriculture, huge Buffalo herds ranged here, until hunted to near extinction in the 1870's.
An important part of the region's prairie history are the Metis--the mixed blood offspring of French fur trappers and Native Cree or Ojibwe women. The Metis were great buffalo hunters. They mounted hunting parties of hundreds of men on horseback and whole villages trailing behind on oxcart.
They also made the fiddle their own, blending European fiddle melodies with their own syncopations. There was no word for fiddle in the Cree language and so they called the fiddle the "Medicine Bow." There are still thriving Metis communities in North Dakota, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
This song is about a Metis Buffalo hunter circa 1870, as the last bison are disappearing from the prairie. While the Metis were more than subsistance hunters,it was later market hunters that almost wiped the bison from the face of the earth.
Production notes: this track was performed live in the studio by my band Blue Yodel No. 9: John Whitehead, composer, lead vocal & rhythm guitar; Stew Lelievre, lead guitar; Scott Washburn, resonator guitar; John Haer, upright bass
I live in the state of Minnesota, in the north central United States. While Minnesota is known for its cold winters, pine forest and good fishing, few outsiders realize it was once one third tall grass prairie. Until that ecosystem was converted into row-crop agriculture, huge Buffalo herds ranged here, until hunted to near extinction in the 1870's.
An important part of the region's prairie history are the Metis--the mixed blood offspring of French fur trappers and Native Cree or Ojibwe women. The Metis were great buffalo hunters. They mounted hunting parties of hundreds of men on horseback and whole villages trailing behind on oxcart.
They also made the fiddle their own, blending European fiddle melodies with their own syncopations. There was no word for fiddle in the Cree language and so they called the fiddle the "Medicine Bow." There are still thriving Metis communities in North Dakota, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
This song is about a Metis Buffalo hunter circa 1870, as the last bison are disappearing from the prairie. While the Metis were more than subsistance hunters,it was later market hunters that almost wiped the bison from the face of the earth.
Production notes: this track was performed live in the studio by my band Blue Yodel No. 9: John Whitehead, composer, lead vocal & rhythm guitar; Stew Lelievre, lead guitar; Scott Washburn, resonator guitar; John Haer, upright bass
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Lyrics
Medicine Bow
My daddy was a Quebecquois, my mom a full-blood Cree
My friends all call me Lefty, but my name is Jean Dupree
I come down from Manitoba in the rain and mud and snow
To the plains of Minnesota on the trail of the Buffalo
I was born behind a travois one cold November night
Momma died in childbirth, daddy in a fight
I ride circles round the Yankees, I taught my horse to dance the jig
I make my living with my rifle, I keep a fiddle in my rig.
Play The Drops of Brandy, play the schottishe and the reel
The Girl I Left Behind Me and the Waltz Quadrille
Circle round the campfire and we’ll play ‘em fast and slow
Hear the echo in the prairie wind. The sound of the medicine bow
All day the ox-carts rumble, a thousand in our train
With twice as many walking, like a city on the plain
And the bison roll like thunder like the ground had come alive
I shoot until I lose the count while the women skin the hides
Play The Drops of Brandy, the schottishe and the reel
The Girl I Left Behind Me and the Waltz Quadrille
Circle round the campfire and we’ll play ‘em fast and slow
Hear the echo in the prairie wind. The sound of the medicine bow
But that was long ago… before repeaters and the trains
Now its days you ride before you see a bison on the plains
And on full moon nights the prairie’s white, covered as with snow
With a ghostly light from the bleached-white bones and skulls of the buffalo
Play The Drops of Brandy, the schottishe and the reel
The Girl I Left Behind Me and the Waltz Quadrille
Circle round the campfire and we’ll play ‘em fast and slow
Hear the echo in the prairie wind. The sound of the medicine bow
My daddy was a Quebecquois, my mom a full-blood Cree
My friends all call me Lefty, but my name is Jean Dupree
I come down from Manitoba in the rain and mud and snow
To the plains of Minnesota on the trail of the Buffalo
I was born behind a travois one cold November night
Momma died in childbirth, daddy in a fight
I ride circles round the Yankees, I taught my horse to dance the jig
I make my living with my rifle, I keep a fiddle in my rig.
Play The Drops of Brandy, play the schottishe and the reel
The Girl I Left Behind Me and the Waltz Quadrille
Circle round the campfire and we’ll play ‘em fast and slow
Hear the echo in the prairie wind. The sound of the medicine bow
All day the ox-carts rumble, a thousand in our train
With twice as many walking, like a city on the plain
And the bison roll like thunder like the ground had come alive
I shoot until I lose the count while the women skin the hides
Play The Drops of Brandy, the schottishe and the reel
The Girl I Left Behind Me and the Waltz Quadrille
Circle round the campfire and we’ll play ‘em fast and slow
Hear the echo in the prairie wind. The sound of the medicine bow
But that was long ago… before repeaters and the trains
Now its days you ride before you see a bison on the plains
And on full moon nights the prairie’s white, covered as with snow
With a ghostly light from the bleached-white bones and skulls of the buffalo
Play The Drops of Brandy, the schottishe and the reel
The Girl I Left Behind Me and the Waltz Quadrille
Circle round the campfire and we’ll play ‘em fast and slow
Hear the echo in the prairie wind. The sound of the medicine bow
Feter
Man ... what is this ...this sounds like coming from a classic folk book
astonishing vocal work ..the story lyrics just so ..the band so tight and
a top notch production ...your CD really worth every single coin ..kudos
thnx alot for sharin such gem !!!!