After doing “Running Bear” yesterday, I feel like I should make up for it. But sadly, you get outside of the twelve-tone scale, and I’m lost. But I decided to look. All I could think to search for were Cherokee songs. I have a special love for the Cherokee people because they totally disprove the conservative claims about the white power elite accepting other peoples. The Cherokee did everything that could possibly be hoped in terms of living inside the context of the western invaders, and they got nothing but abuse for it. But I’ll leave the politics aside.

I came upon this guy, Barry Winfred Bailey. He has a YouTube channel with a whole lot of songs from native peoples. Sadly, it looks like Bailey has died in the last year. But I found the following video of three traditional Cherokee songs. Clearly, they’ve been adapted to our twelve-tone scale. And you can hear some bluegrass influence. But it makes me wonder: did the music of native peoples influence it? Regardless, I don’t know just how authentic this is, but it is very enjoyable music. They are: “Welcome Song”; “Water Song”; and “Mourning Song.” I think I’m right about that last one because it is mournful, but it could be the “Morning Song.”