BUFFALO CAFÉ
©1997 Jack W. Gladstone
The title song was conceived while driving through Central Montana’s Judith Basin in the late spring of 1996. This area, also known as Charlie Russell Country, was traditionally southern range of the Blackfeet Indian Nation and arguably one of the richest buffalo producing regions of North America.
Come gather ‘round me young and old
Girls and boys, there’ll be stories told
About the land that taught us to talk
With Mother’s hand we learn to walk
Travel back in time to the last ice age
With the Sun’s creation fully engaged
Spirits and heroes, tricksters and fools
There’s something for everyone
I now anoint this play,
The Buffalo Café
A symphony on waving grass
Was composed by Sun and cast
With characters of wing and fur
Beneath the water, creatures stirred
Our Creator’s voice was the thunder roll
All of creation shared one soul
Spirits and heroes, tricksters and fools
A spark within everyone
Nature’s anointed play,
The Buffalo Café
Mustangs and eagles weaving circles with the Sun
They were and still are part of everyone
I’m looking for the wings to fly
And hooves to touch the earth
Where we’ll be free again
There we can see again
The home that was known at our birth
So, gather ‘round me young and old
Girls and boys, there’ll be stories told
About the land that taught us to talk
With Mother’s hand we’ll learn to walk
We’ll travel back in time to the last ice age
With the Sun’s creation fully engaged
Spirits and heroes, tricksters and fools
There’s something for everyone
I now anoint this play,
The Buffalo Café
Nature’s anointed play...
The Buffalo Café
The Buffalo Café
The Buffalo Café
The Buffalo Café
COLTER’S RUN
©1997 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing/BMI
Western legend has John Colter, in October 1808, outrunning half the Blackfeet nation on his way to a 210 mile journey from the Three Forks of the Missouri River to Manual Lisa’s post at the confluence of the Yellowstone (Elk) and Big Horn Rivers (sans clothing and footwear, I must add). Let’s get real Ladies and Gentleman. 6,000+ years of running after and from buffalo resulted in an extraordinarily fleet breed of human being. In addition, the Blackfeet were fully equestrian at this time. Now, “to set the record straight”, I introduce to you, Adam Old Man’s Son!
My name is Adam Old Man’s Son
I’ve seen four hundred springs
I’m what you’d call an oral historian
By nature do I sing
And now it’s time to set the record straight
About John Colter’s run
The tale that spun forth from his lips
Was stitched with buffalo chips
The story of Sir Colter’s run
It happened quite like this
The penalty for trapping sa-we-ta-pi **
For Colter’s pal was swift
But cold lips speak not of why
Or what in truth or lies,
So ask not why one life was spared
John was freed to advertise
North of the Country of the Plains Cheyenne
Out west of the Bands of the Sioux
We Blackfeet would defend our range
What else could Old Man’s people do?
We knew the trickle would become a flood
If no tales were exchanged
So we chose to turn him loose
Wearing nothing but his birthday suit
He stumbled through our cheering camp
The kids threw sticks and bones
It didn’t seem like he had a higher gear
That he could call his own
Then he saw the knife of Beaver Son
Whose parents had been slain
It’s blade was Hudson tungsten
Then Johnny hit the overdrive lane
North of the Country of the Plains Cheyenne
Out west of the Bands of the Sioux
We Blackfeet would defend our range
What else could Napi’s children do?
Like a slow jackrabbit, Johnny scampered off
To the valley of the Elk River sun
Hot rays braised his bum
Antelopa lika he dida run
Our minds sometimes scramble
fact with fiction from our dreams
Especially when the tummy
Has been deprived of tasty filling things
Our stumbling, blathering barefoot sign
That we hoped would keep out
Became a frontier hero
It’s enough to make 'Old Man' pout!
North of the Country of the Plains Cheyenne
Out west of the Bands of the Sioux
We Blackfeet would defend our range
What else could Napi’s children do?
We knew the trickle would become a flood
If no tales were exchanged
So we chose to turn him loose
Wearing nothing but his birthday suit
North of the Country of the Plains Cheyenne
Out west of the Bands of the Sioux
We Blackfeet were set to defend our range
What else could Napi’s people do?
Our barefoot scheme to advertise
Backfired into HIS STORY
And to tell the honest truth
We never should have turned him loose
You know, we never should'a turned him loose!
**(Blackfeet word for Underwater Person-Beaver)
FACES THE BLIZZARD
©1997 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing/BMI
My song to honor the North American Plains Bison. Upon being caught in the ferocity of a winter storm, Buffalo Chief would lead his people into the wind. By walking into the storm, they would exit the storm long before those herds who wandered aimlessly or fled the storm’s advance. This is a behavioral trait ultimately selected for, and an extremely powerful metaphor for humans as well.
Faces The Blizzard, faces the storm
Was born on the plains when the ice turned to warmth
A Buffalo Person, the Chief of his kind
With the grass he was aligned
A double-horned headdress, a woolly warm robe
Enveloped a ton of muscle and bone
Bound tight with power with pride to defy
The flesh eater tribes
Faces the Blizzard, faces the storm
Was the heart of the circle nature formed
A covenant born
North to the muskeg, East to the shore
South where the grass falls to desert’s floor
West through the mountain backbone you roamed
Your hooves marked your home
Faces The Blizzard, faces the storm
Through your time traveled battles you have honed
The majesty shown
As the bloodstained cross of progress
Lumbered heavy over this land
Nothing could stand, as it had before
But for you my black-hooved brother
Whose flesh through us was reborn
The cloth of creation is scattered and worn
A linear mindset with arrogance squared
Divided our home into property shares
Cattle brought sickness though you were immune
Their gift leads to your doom.
Faces The Blizzard, faces the storm
Through your time traveled battles you have honed
The majesty shown
Faces The Blizzard, faces the storm
You’re still the heart of the circle nature formed
A covenant torn...
IN THE VALLEY OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN
©1997 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing/BMI
and Salhalla Music/BMI
Garryowen – This is the old Irish drinking jig that was adopted by Custer’s 7th cavalry as its regimental fight song. According to legend, the horses would dance in rhythm to its 6/8 cadence. The soundscaped image is that of the 7th coming over the ridge and down into the Valley of the Little Big Horn on the morning of June 25th, 1876. Quite confident they were…
In the Valley of the Little Big Horn – This song was written after extensive research on both U.S. Cavalry and Indian accounts of the battle. (The central character is not unlike those introspective souls who were trapped in the quagmire of U.S./Vietnam policy in the 1960s.) As long as the buffalo survived, the Plains Indian warrior was extremely effective in defending his homeland. Economic considerations, however, outflanked moral and legal ones and treaty after treaty was broken and/or hastily rewritten to accommodate U. S. economic objectives. Such was the case when gold was discovered in the Black Hills in the early 1870s, thereby lighting the fuse that finally exploded in the face of Custer’s 7th Cavalry.
The sun arose far to the east where we had once been born,
The orders had been given to be riding before morn.
Mounted men on cavalry we faced a trail of thorns,
In the Valley of the Little Big Horn.
Reno, Benteen ‘n Custer led our command that day.
To slaughter Sioux and Cheyenne camped beyond the glade.
Who would see survival, who would be forlorn?
In the Valley of the Little Big Horn.
I was a soldier who rode to the tune,
Of a bugler’s “Garryowen” on a June afternoon.
Away from my loved ones, away from my home,
Apart from the woman that I held as my own.
“A leave will be granted to the man without help,
Kills the first savage and brings me his scalp,”
For what is the reason for our presence in this land
Has gold lust or blood thirst taken our command?
It doesn’t really matter now headin’ towards the storm,
In the Valley of the Little Big Horn.
There made three battalions from the Seventh Cavalry.
One with Major Reno, another with Benteen.
But glory followed Custer’s men so with glory we were torn,
From the Valley of the Little Big Horn.
I was a soldier who rode to the tune,
Of a bugler’s “Garryowen” on a June afternoon,
Away from my loved ones, away from my home,
Apart from the woman that I held as my own.
Ford the stream and when in camp kill everyone you see,
"Long will live this day for us, the Seventh Cavalry.”
Fire swept the prairie and dust hid the flames,
When out of the haze rode the Masters of the Plains
Then death they delivered, we invaders from afar,
In the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
The sun arose far to the east where we had once been born,
The orders had been given to be riding before morn.
Mounted men on cavalry we faced a trail of thorns,
In the Valley of the Little Big Horn.
Mounted men on cavalry we faced a trail of thorns...
In the Valley of the Little Big Horn.
LEWIS AND CLARK RAG
©1989 Rampant Rat Music by Greg Keeler
I wish I had written this song. Told from Captain Meriwether Lewis’ viewpoint, this work is the brain child of Greg Keeler, Montana State University English professor and poet extraordinaire. Who said learning history couldn’t be fun? (A production note: All jaws in the control room dropped when the trumpet player, Tommie Anderson, nailed his part on the first take.)
The Louisiana Purchase opened up some doors
to finance those Napoleonic wars
The Deal of the Century, but what will we do with it now?
Oh, the Mississippi drainage ain’t exactly hay,
At least that’s what Thomas Jefferson said one day.
There’s a whole lot of room to trap and chop and plow
And there just might be a Northwest Passage, somewhere up there
But we got to beat the French and British to it
And corner that fur trade, yeah, we gotta do it
So he called me up one fortuitous night
And asked me if I’d try with all of my might.
To put my place in history in the brag,
I said, “You Bet!”, then called on Clark
And together we were ready to make our mark
We’re the Lewis and Clark “Corps of Discovery” Rag.
Well fifteen million bucks seemed fair
For an eight hundred thousand mile square
A tract of land that nearly doubled America’s size
So Tom gave us twenty-five hundred bucks
Pointed up the Missouri and said “Good luck!
That’s where this country’s economic future lies.”
Yes, and politics and money followed us most all the way
At the head of the Missouri we found three rivers
We named ‘em after Madison and Gallatin and Jefferson
We boldly go where no one dares
We fight off mosquitoes and grizzly bears
“We’re really somethin’”, though we don’t mean to brag
We made friends with all kind'a tribes
By offering vermillion and beads for bribes
We’re the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery
We’ll open up the West! Wouldn’t it be loverly?
The Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery Rag!
NAPI BECOMES A WOLF
©1997 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing/BMI
Napa (a.k.a. Old Man) is my Blackfeet people’s inflection of the mythic trickster archetype, found commonly in tribal societies the world over. Part hero, part antihero (so human an animal…) you never know what Napi is gonna do next…
In the long ago time in this homeland of mine
Old Man roamed far and alone
Walking to and through each adventure aligned
With the peaks of the Earth’s backbone
Along the ridgeline he walked with his face in the wind
He follows the trace scent of hooves
He watches wolves down an elk by an evergreen belt
His fascination led to the tale
Of Napi Becomes A Wolf
“As we all grow old, it’s through choice we grow wise
Napi listen close if you can
Through this transformation you may realize
The love that binds our Wolf Clan.”
And then by choice Napi fell under his medicine spell
He woke behind eyes of different sheen
His new ears heard the world as each moment unfurled
The Sacred within every living thing
When Napi Became a Wolf.
Napi’s vision was restored in communion with his family
They hunted in the Sun
He glimpsed the principles key to weaving survival
For both Wolf and Man
Always share and understand...
(Musical Interlude)
By the grace of the days in this long ago land
We can focus on the gifts of the Sun
Wolf Chief was messenger to early man
Both forms sprang from one common sand
Through this Eden we’ve seen folded into our dream
Now mortal, struggling to stand
Take a lesson from one who beneath this same Sun
Was transformed, into a kin of man
When Napi Became a Wolf
When Napi Becomes a Wolf
When Napi Becomes a Wolf
Napi Becomes a Wolf
BUFFALO CAFÉ REPRISE
©1997 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing/BMI
I had almost the whole recording cast of this album to build the final refrains. Add your voice to theirs. We sing, we heal, we grow. Thank you listeners across the face of the earth. You’ve made my trail and this production possible…
Keep the spirit.
You’ve gathered ‘round me young and old
Girls and boys there were stories told
About the land that taught us to talk
With Mother’s hand we learned to walk
We traveled back in time to the last ice age
With the Sun’s creation fully engaged
Spirits and heroes, tricksters and fools
The cast includes everyone
In this unfolding stage
The Buffalo Café
Nature’s anointed play...
The Buffalo Cafe
The Buffalo Cafe
The Buffalo Cafe
The Buffalo Cafe
The Buffalo Cafe
"That's All Folks!"
THE INTERPRETER
©1997 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing/BMI
These mysterious linguistic “matadors of metaphor” were born usually to White fur trader fathers and Indian mothers on the Upper Missouri Region in the 1840s, 50s and 60s. By the age of 9, many of these mixed blood children, through association at their respective fur trading post homes, could converse fluently in 3 – 5 languages and understood the best and the worst that both Indian and White worlds had to offer. In the mid- to late 1800s, this generation of “Interpreter” was often the critical link preventing “all hell from breaking loose” on the Western frontier. Two of my great grandfathers, Jack Wagner and Billy Gladstone were among this select group of people.
Blackened sky, the moon is new, storm clouds tumble out ahead
Darkness spawns suspicion that the dawn might resurrect the dead
The call within won’t be ignored if conscience is servant to a cure
Hell blooms by full moon if you defer.
Cross Blood, Half Breed, Mixed Blood Son, your trail has been turbulent for sure
You comprehend the Child of Peace, depends on the phrasing of your words
Your eyes inquisitive, your voice direct, your motives unquestionably pure
You’re the High Plains Matador of Metaphor
You’re The Interpreter.
American conquistadors are knocking at the gate
John Wayne-like festivities with profit-laced expectations
Soldiers' volleys through sleeping camps, loom if negotiations fail
Or sometimes even if they succeed for there’s liars for hire on this trail
A saber-toothed pendulum swings between the sinister and moral sides of man
If you can’t succeed, nobody can...
You’re the Interpreter.
In a barroom brawl, he’ll knock you out, then buy you a drink when you come to.
He’s learned well we must forgive to live, and we’ll receive from others as we do.
Without him, all hell breaks loose, so keep track if pressure cracks occur
Call the genuine Matador of Metaphor
Call the Interpreter
He’s the High Plains Matador of Metaphor...
He's the Interpreter
Call in the Interpreter
Rock on with the Interpreter
Sober up the Interpreter
Sing out the Interpreter
Call in the Interpreter
THE ROSE OF FT. MACLEOD
©1997 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing/BMI
In the summer of 1980, while on break from the University of Washington, I played my first “professional” job at the Queen’s Hotel Pub in Fort Macleod, Alberta. Hot days, warm evenings and cherished memories. They refer to this as “Wild Rose Country” today. Quite fitting…
I come ridin’ through the prairie grass, the wind has waved the way
To see that lovely maiden girl whose beauty is on display
And I hope that she remembers me and leaves her door ajar
To snuggle as September leaves fall naked as they are
You’re the Rose, you’re The Rose of Fort Macleod
Autumn knows, Autumn shows her colors proud
A dozen men all wanting you are waiting in the crowd
With offerings and promises to The Rose of Fort Macleod
T’wasn’t it a moon ago when I first caught your eye
Playing in an old saloon beneath the summer sky
But the driving rains and winds of change played seasons with the mind
And I could’ve had you to myself but I could not say, "mine"
You’re the Rose, you’re The Rose of Fort Macleod
Autumn knows, Autumn throws her colors proud
A dozen men all wanting you are waiting in the crowd
With offerings and promises to The Rose of Fort Macleod
You’re the Rose, you’re The Rose of Fort Macleod
Autumn knows, Autumn shows her colors proud
A dozen men all wanting you are waiting in the crowd
To offer rings and promises to The Rose of Fort Macleod
They’ll offer rings and promises to The Rose...
Of Fort Macleod
WHEN THE LAND BELONGED TO GOD
©1997 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing/BMI
In 1913, Charlie Russell was commissioned by The Montana Club of Helena to make a consummate statement, on canvas, about the Montana he loved. He embarked upon one of the most difficult tasks of his artistic career with the classic “When the Land Belonged to God.”
There is not one cowboy or Indian in the entire painting, only a magnificent “choir” of buffalo crossing the Missouri River and climbing a ridge crest. The day is young, the dawn is breaking as both steam and dust rise from the herd. Also note: there are two wolves in the foreground. They are closer to us than the buffalo are, in addition to being closer to the buffalo than we are. This “epiphany of spirit’ awaits you at the Montana Historical Society Museum across from the State Capitol in Helena.
Charlie Russell was deeply impacted by a winter spent with the Blood Division of the Blackfeet Nation in 1888-89. It was then he received the Indian name a-wa-kaasii in response to acquiring some white buckskin to repair the seat of his worn jeans. With the repairs made, Charlie bounded around the camp triggering chuckles from observers. This adventuresome young man looked a fair bit like an antelope, henceforth the name “a-wa-kaasii.”
This song is my most cherished work.
The purest gift is not of gold
But in art that awakens the soul.
On the spring eve of sixteen, Charlie Russell departed from his St. Louis home
A young man, whose big dreams had delivered a call to the heart
So by train and stagecoach he made his way through an endless sea
Of grass that blew to the shore of the Big Sky’s unbroken sod
When the Land Belonged to God
A rising choir of buffalo, mountains were sentinels for creatures below
Stirring tones from long ago that survived an eclipse of the soul
As the curtain closed on our noble play, before the stage was struck by cashiers and surveyors
He carefully captured the scenes of the Big Sky’s unbroken sod
When the Land Belonged to God
Where all the wild Kin of man danced in rhythm with the land
Where Grizzly Bear and Gray Wolf were first chiefs
Where episodes of Old Man’s travels helped our people first unravel
The mystery of Sacred Time between the earth and sky
Time respects the careful hand. When chosen colors are dry, the vision forever stands.
The purest gift is not of gold, but in art that awakens the soul.
As we choose our trail up the Great Divide to an unknown stage on the other side
We might realign with the scenes of the Big Sky’s unbroken sod
Where the Land Belongs to God
On the Big Sky’s unbroken sod
Where the Land Belongs to God
WHOOP-UP TRAIL
©1997 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing/BMI
The wilderness plains north of the “Medicine Line” possessed relatively untouched bison herds in the early 1870s. The Ft. Benton “Merchant Princes of the Upper Missouri” (I. G. Baker, the Conrad Brothers, Hamilton, Healy, Power, etc.) devised a plan to wrestle the hides from these herds and from the last Blackfeet stronghold. This was it.
Construct a series of whiskey trading “forts,” get the natives using and dependent on the drug and let them slaughter the buffalo to trade for more whiskey. (The slogan of the I. G. Baker Company was “We’ll sell anything to anybody.”) Since the Royal Canadian Mounted Police hadn’t yet been formed, there was “no law and order up north of the border.” A devious “bonus dividend” of this plan was that, in the drunken orgies that ensued, Blackfeet would kill Blackfeet, thereby reducing the probability of a U.S. Army/Blackfeet Nation showdown. The U.S. Army, under the supervision of General Philip Sheridan, was legally required to halt this drug smuggling across Indian lands. They did not.
In 1874, the RCMP was formed specifically to run the American whiskey dealers out of Western Canada. They did. Ironically, the financial kingpin of the illicit whiskey trade, the I. G. Baker Company of Ft. Benton, Montana, promptly secured the contract to supply the Mounties in their new headquarters in Ft. Macleod. I’m not kidding…
After the Civil War blood bath was over,
anxious eyes refocused on the West
Gold fields were calling, big timber was falling,
many young men’s dreams were addressed
Some forged toward virgin valleys and canyons
Some forced un-pretty plans upon the Plains
To where there were bison, wild herds without end…
They were looking for the Whoop-Up Trail
Were loaded for the Whoop-Up Trail
Steamboats switched cargo in bustlin’ Ft. Benton,
Merchandise upriver to be sold
Big bales of buffalo robes then were taken
down river to St. Louis with the gold
U.S. authorities made law for the Red Man
The whiskey trading scabs were told to move on
to the “no law and order land” north of the line
They went slippin’ down the Whoop-Up Trail
Went boundin’ down the Whoop-Up Trail
“Show me the money” was the song of the Merchant Princes
Darkness descended in their reign
General Sheridan’s “Final Solution”
Was unleashed to subjugate the Plains...
Merchant Princes of Darkness Boy’s Choir:
No law and order up north of the border
No law and order up north of the line
Show me the money, build me a robe mine
Show me the money, go north of the line
We’ll sell anything to any man, gold is in the vault
What happens when the sun goes down, hell, it’s not our fault.
Hell is not our fault!
After the buffalo robe rush was over
reservation refugees were left
Merchants restructured, their green sacks of clover were
funneled into banks and politics
The trickster stumbles off in drunken stupor
Lost is the freedom of ten thousand years
A sober reflection in history’s glass
Lookin’ down the Whoop-Up Trail
We’ve bounded down the Whoop-Up Trail
We're bounding down the Whoop-Up
Children of the Whoop-Up Trail
WITH THE COMING OF THE HORSE
©1997 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing/BMI
Universally, the horse revolutionized every culture that came to adopt its power. Spanish Barbs (Mustangs) who escaped the tyranny of the conquistadors gladly accepted placement with the Plains Indian peoples and co-evolved themselves with the cultures they touched. With the reins of the horse in one hand, and Hudson Bay implements (guns and … see Hudson Bay Blues, Noble Heart CD © 1995) in the other, Blackfeet warriors stopped cold the economic expansion of the U.S. into the Upper Missouri for 25 years (1806 – 1831). It was the early 1830s when they finally allowed “Fur Mart” (the American Fur Company) into our homelands south of the Medicine Line (US/Canadian border).
Locally, the song is dedicated to the Lodge Pole Gallery outside of Browning, Montana, Blackfeet Reservation, which is proud to be recipient and home to descendants of these Spanish Barb Mustangs. (The majestic horses pictured on the back of this CD booklet are part of that herd.) This is just one of many factors contributing to a cultural reawakening in Blackfeet Country today.
Thousands upon thousands of years before the quest
Of Christopher Columbus’s mission to the West
People of the New Land from coast to ocean coast
Were living lives in syncopated rhythm with the host
Now in sober retrospect, Chris wasn’t all that clean
His dreams demanded slaves and gold in service to his queen
Sinister conquistadors followed in his wake
With degrees in rape and plunder, they’d civilize and take
So with the Coming of the Horse and the dawning of the gun
There were two new roads for our tribes to travel on
We were people of the Plains long before we held the reins
When the spirit horse arrived a reckoning began
Beneath the awning of the sky upon the open plain
Like a bulb in fertile ground awaiting warmth and rain
People of the flowing grass envisioned with the wind
That elk and dog become as one, together born again
Weaving amidst the buffalo stampeding from our bows
Our ponies hooves were fleet and sure the meat would be brought home
The power to select, the power to protect
Before us stood the challenge of balance and respect
So with the Coming of the Horse and the dawning of the gun
There were two new roads for our tribes to travel on
We were people of the Plains long before we held the reins
When the spirit horse arrived a reckoning began
Feel the heart embrace the glory days of youth
With wild herds countless as the stars.
Grandfather Spirit sparks vision touched with truth.
Granddaughter’s eyes reflect a fascination longing to be ours.
They ride the wind...
Clouds of thunder rumbled inside the Earth’s backbone
With the tone first set by light strangers to our home
A crazy proclamation, our Mother was now owned
By some far away White Father where the morning sun had shone
With a Hudson’s Bay connection and ponies primed for speed
We penalized this arrogance a quarter century
Nomad warriors of the Earth neutralized the force
That "willed to power" o’er our home, the domain of the horse
So with the Coming of the Horse and the dawning of the gun
There were two new roads for our tribes to travel on
We were people of the Plains long before we held the reins
When the spirit horse arrived a reckoning began
Both Tribe and Spirit Horse survives... Reborn again!
