People of Manitou

People of Manitou

This section will feature interviews and bios of well known and less well known artists, writers, and musicians of interest to Native American readers, and will serve as a link to http://peopleofmanitou.blogspot.com which focuses on "Algonquin Indians."

EP

Here is a sample article from that blogbook.

Willie Dunn (Micmac). actor and singer,and an outstanding songwriter. He has been mentioned in many native journals. He is now a film director as well, and directed “These Are My People.”The following is from the Trikont internet site: Willie Dunn is from Canada. One can hear it – his voice, his guitar, his songs – are moving between Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot. But Willie Dunn is also a native Indian, the son of a Red Indian mother (from the MicMac tribe) and a father from Scotland. To many Canadian First Nations, the name "Willie Dunn" is synonymous with contemporary ballads depicting the life and death struggle of First Nation Chiefs who led their people through difficult times in the eighteen hundreds.Willie Dunn already became known in the early 1970s as a folksinger and poet of songs about his Indian heritage. A Mohawk chief gave him the name Roha’tiio, meaning “his voice is beautiful”. Willie Dunn donated proceeds of his album entitled "Willie Dunn" to White Roots of Peace in order for the company to further their efforts in publishing a journal of Amerindian life, the Akwesasne Notes . Also since the seventies, Willie Dunn is working as a director with the National Film Board of Canada. The motion pictures included “Ballad of Crowfoot” and “The Other Side of the Ledger”. These films won numerous international awards. In 1971, he produced Canada’s first music video for his song Ballad of Crowfoot, which alone won seven international awards. Willie has since then recorded several LP's for TRIKONT Our Own Voice in Germany, eg "The Pacific". The past 30 years have been highlighted by tours that have taken him to hundreds of cities and towns throughout Europe and North America. He worked with other native artists from various parts of North America, namely Floyd Westerman (also an TRIKONT artist), Paul Ortega, Buffy St. Marie and Alannis Obomsowin. Willie Dunn, a singer, songwriter, musician, playwright, director, award-winning filmmaker, First Nations ambassador for Canada, and an artist with contradictions which he is never trying to hide. An artist,who developed his voice, as a musician and a native historian, due to his heritage – both MicMac and Scottish. This can be heard in a perfect manner on “SON OF THE SUN”: A song out of his Indian world is always followed by one, which is dedicated to Willie Dunn European roots. Along with his own lyrics he likes to work with English classics like Shakespeare, T.S. Eliott (“Pacific”) or on SON OF THE SUN William Johnson´s “The Planting of the Apple Tree”. The titlesong “Son of the Sun” became a chartbuster in Canada, mainly when it was sung by the duo “Kashtin”. Willie Dunn´s SON OF THE SUN contains new and early songs, recorded in Ottawa, finishing with Live-Recordings from Berlin, Germany.