From Arvel Bird's June 10, 2006 Newsletter . . . written by Kimberly Kelly
Arvel Bird Wins Nammy for Best Instrumental
One Nation Rocks at Awards Show
Nammys Behind the Scenes
Arvel, the guys and I arrived in Hollywood, FL believing that one of our friends, another artist, was bringing a drum we were going to be using. Wednesday was the first rehearsal and sound check at the venue. At about 1:30 pm, it was obvious that the pow wow drum Eagle was supposed to use was not happening, so I had to figure out something . . . and fast! We couldn't very well have a performance featuring the new group without the foundation of the music, the pow wow drum! This was their debut, this was their "coming-out" party, so-to-speak!
So, I started making phone calls to everyone I could think of, yielding no results.
Enter William Osceola. His ex-wife, who works in the museum started the phone campaign. Well, of course that wasn't as simple as one would think. One person was in rehab, one person was estranged from his family, so no one knew how to contact him, others were just not around. But with her never-say-die attitude, Betty located us a drum . . . whew! All we had to do was go pick it up.
A quick text message to Eagle and we were on our way! Eagle, William and I drove to the gentleman's place and I am so irritated with myself that I didn't write it down, but understand my state of mind right about then! The drum was about 10-15 miles away. Eagle offerred the tobacco, I kicked in 2 tickets to the awards shows and broke a couple of traffic laws returning to the venue!
No one looked at the drum. It was what it was and we were just thankful to have it! So we decided to use it for the photo shoot, with Kimberie Hall, the talented and beautiful official photographer for many native events and publications. When Eagle removed the blanket, Arvel knew it looked familiar and realized that everything was going to be just fine. There on the top of the drum was the signature of his dear friend, and drum maker, Keith Little Badger, of Earth Shadow Design (The Drum People).
The drum sounded wonderful, it looks wonderful in pictures and you can see a picture of the drum with Arvel Bird and One Nation soon on their web site. Thank you, Keith!
We say, "Thank you, Arvel and One Nation, for taking Keith Little Badger to the Nammys!"
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