Sunday, November 23, 2008

Meet an American Indian: Stevie Salas

Back in January, I blogged about a badass guitarist named Stevie Salas (with a FREE MP3 to boot). Salas, as I mentioned then, is a Mescalero Apache... and proud of it.

In the video interview embedded below, Salas talks about his racial identity.

He also tells the story of how a Mr. George Clinton launched his rock ’n’ roll career in 1985.

And quite an impressive career Salas has had, touring with the likes of Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger and Terence Trent D’Arby... recording with Bootsy Collins, Ronnie Wood and Ronald Shannon Jackson...

Lately, Salas has served as musical director for “American Idol” stars on tour – first Chris Daughtry, then Jordan Sparks, now David Cook.

As a solo recording artist, Stevie Salas is big in Japan.

Click here to hear his remake of a P-Funk All Stars jam called “Pumpin’ It Up.” This is from Salas’s 2007 compilation album “The Sun and the Earth.”

5 comments:

DeAngelo Starnes said...

This cat was part of an underrated and under the radar piece for Bill Laswell in the early 90s. Hardware with Bootsy and Buddy Miles. Baad baad piece. He was also part of this real heavy free metal joint that Ronald Shannon Jackon put out called Red Warrior. Run, don't walk, to pick that joint up. Speaking of joints, it won't hurt to indulge when you listen to Red Warrior. Triple guitar two electric bass line up. Dense electric shit.

Anonymous said...

UBM, are you familiar with a band called Indigenous? I'm not sure they're something you'd typically be too excited about, but if you're looking to spotlight notable contemporary American Indian musicians I think they make the shortlist. Myspace and Wikipedia can get you up to speed quicker than I can.

They're a little too Stevie-Ray-Vaughn-ish for my taste most of the time, but I saw them on Conan eight or nine years ago performing "Now That You're Gone" and they were fantastic.

Undercover Black Man said...

^ I'm on it, Tarrou. Got a post coming up very soon.

Welcome to my spot, and thanks for commenting.

Undercover Black Man said...

Run, don't walk, to pick that joint up.

You know what, DeAng? I bought this when you mentioned it in a comment some months back. Now I don't know where I put it!

I really gotta get my CDs together one of these days...

MysterLynch said...

Hardware is a damn fine album, but also worth checking out is The Electric Pow Wow. Stevie and a bunch of pals cover Bowie, Stevie Wonder and put together some original tunes in the vein of some of his fav artists.

A very fun record by an outstanding artist.