{"id":9300,"date":"2019-09-26T13:48:11","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T18:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/remembering-buddy-red-bow\/"},"modified":"2019-09-26T13:48:11","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T18:48:11","slug":"remembering-buddy-red-bow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/remembering-buddy-red-bow\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Buddy Red Bow"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Buddy and daughter Stardust Red Bow. Photo courtesy: Stardust Red Bow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Many have memories of Buddy Red Bow\u2019s music. In our living room in Huron, Red Bow\u2019s records shared shelf space alongside our other beloved outlaws: Willie, Waylon, and the boys. My mother, playing and replaying \u201cStanding Alone\u201d on our scrappy Kmart SounDesign stereo, smoked generic cigarettes and instructed me to attend to the heartache in Red Bow\u2019s voice. \u201cListen \u2013 really listen,\u201d she\u2019d gently order, pointing at speakers straining to capacity. \u201cHe gets it. He really gets it.\u201d
\nJust like the eagle \/ we\u2019re flying alone, we\u2019re flying alone . . . .
\nI was prone toward \u201cPistolero.\u201d I liked how the Spanish guitar style and mariachi horns made me feel both wistful and alive. Later in life, friends and I blared \u201cSouth Dakota Lady\u201d as in summer we drove open-windowed on highways 40 and 41 in southwest South Dakota.
\nBut she should not worry, be afraid, for she will not be alone . . .
\nWe liked to think of ourselves as South Dakota ladies.
\nJournalist and publisher Tim Giago (Oglala Lakota) recalls, \u201cThe songs Buddy wrote and sang can be classified as \u2018protest songs.\u2019 They were songs about the buffalo and of its slaughter. He sang about the medicine man Black Elk. The song so many of the young Lakota of his day loved so much was \u2018Run, Indian, Run.\u2019 It went, \u2018Run, Indian, run, run while you can, here comes the white man.\u201d
\nBorn in 1948, Warfield Richards \u201cBuddy\u201d Red Bow grew up near Red Shirt, raised by Maize Two Bulls-Red Bow and Stephen Red Bow. He left high school in Rapid City to pursue acting and went to Vietnam as a Marine. He started a recording company, Tatanka Records, in Denver and recorded three albums, working with producer Dik Darnell. In South Dakota, Red Bow commingled musically with touring country music mega stars. Barb Hamilton, who married Red Bow in an Indian ceremony and is mother to their daughter Stardust Red Bow, recalls many late night jam sessions with big names. \u201cHe would take Stardust and me to concerts, and we\u2019d meet very interesting people, like Waylon Jennings, David Soul, Lou Diamond Phillips,\u201d says Barb Hamilton. \u201cThey were his friends outside of this. He knew Willie Nelson. So many funny stories about Willie! We\u2019d hang around with John Denver. These guys would get together, and play music in the house, up all night as musicians are.\u201d
\nDespite having friends in high places, Red Bow didn\u2019t get widespread airplay outside reservation stations like Pine Ridge\u2019s KILI-FM. He had difficulty securing start-up funds for his record company for traditional and contemporary Native musicians, a frustration he voices in an interview on Giago\u2019s program The First Americans, which aired on KEVN in the mid-1970s. \u201cTo get their music heard and get them to places where people wouldn\u2019t ordinarily take an Indian,\u201d said Red Bow. \u201cLike, I sneak into a lot of living rooms with some of the records I\u2019m putting out, that otherwise wouldn\u2019t let me in\u2026. I was really disappointed because a lot of people who I thought would help me just said, \u2018there\u2019s not a market for that.\u2019\u201d
\nGiago says today, \u201cBuddy was so very discouraged that many of the DJs of the time refused to play his songs on the radio. He used to say, \u2018I am trying to do something good. But I can\u2019t get any traction. If I was out there robbing and stealing, I would be on the front of all the newspapers.\u201d
\nStardust\u2019s memories of her father are of his style and generosity. \u201cHe had such a distinct way of dressing,\u201d says Stardust. \u201cThe cowboy boots, the blue jeans, the shiny Western shirts. He was an entertainer and he was gregarious. I think he was always aware if he went out in public he had an image. I think he saw his role as someone who could make people laugh and make people happy, so he loved telling stories, loved entertaining. I think it brought him as much joy as it did others.\u201d
\nHamilton left Buddy when Stardust was a year old. \u201cThe musician lifestyle, and all the people, was very exciting, but I needed more stability to raise her,\u201d says Hamilton. \u201cBut if anything it made us closer, and him closer to Stardust. We wound up very good friends for the rest of his life. And my mother adored Buddy \u2013 he\u2019d bring a dozen red roses for her, he\u2019d pack the house with people, sing romantic ballads on his guitar. She was a romantic like me. My father, he worked for Xerox, thought he was a bad influence,\u201d Hamilton laughs.
\nHamilton says Red Bow always took a stand for what he believed in and agrees his honesty may have set back his commercial success. \u201cI think it\u2019s really hard for people who speak the truth to get their representation. He had a passion to get the message out to everybody he could. And it\u2019s just my own insight, but I think he was afraid, not of failure, but of success. Because any time he\u2019d make it too high, he\u2019d do something to self-sabotage.\u201d
\nRed Bow died in 1993 at age 44. In 1998, he was inducted into the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame, and in 2012 was honored at Oglala Lakota College at an American Indian Higher Education Consortium student conference that featured admiring remarks and a performance from Marty Stuart.
\n\u201cBuddy\u2019s music had a universal appeal. His influence was felt everywhere, and his music transcended such societal differences as class, race, education, and culture. His music reflected his spirituality and love of nature and concern for the environment.\u201d says Hamilton.
\nHis spirit lives on in many ways. Red Bow had several children. Stardust, who attended Princeton and 14 years ago earned her master\u2019s degree in social work from Walla Walla University, is the local recovery coordinator for the VA Black Hills Health Care System, where she has worked for seven years. She is also the program manager for VA BHHCS\u2019s Intensive Community Health program. She notes her experiences with her father were primarily positive but nonetheless inform her work today. \u201cThe times we were together, he was sober, and we had a better relationship because of it. As a Vietnam combat veteran, today my dad would have been considered fully disabled because of the PTSD. He had night terrors and I do believe it contributed to his alcoholism. His PTSD went untreated. He never set foot in a VA, as far as I know.\u201d Stardust says Red Bow was proud of his service, but also believed in exercising caution with military intervention and personally didn\u2019t want to be considered a disabled veteran. \u201cHe saw himself as a musician, an entertainer, an actor, father, son, and those roles were far more important to him.\u201d
\nStardust Red Bow. Stardust says the VA is doing an excellent job today looking at the whole person and focusing on principles of recovery. \u201cI think now there are some other ways that we\u2019re able to help veterans than what we did when the men and women were coming back from Vietnam. We look at the person\u2019s spirituality, culture, relationships, family, what they do to nurse themselves. I think that\u2019s what my dad would have wanted for himself in getting care, so I\u2019m happy I\u2019m with an agency that\u2019s moving in that direction.\u201d
\nThrough the VA, Stardust is organizing a Veterans Recovery Concert, free to Veterans, Service Members and their support persons, November 11, at 6pm, at Western Dakota Tech Event Center with the rock band Tantric. The concert will take place in an alcohol-free environment with lighting controlled and VA staff on hand to provide support. \u201cMusic played such an important role in everything my dad did. Whenever he was going through anything, positive or incredibly negative, he turned to music as his outlet. A lot of veterans love music and would love to go to concerts, but being in the crowd, the noises, and all of it can be too much for where they\u2019re at in their recovery,\u201d says Stardust. \u201cAnd part of recovery is building relationships. The concert gives people an opportunity to strengthen their relationships.\u201d
\nWhile she\u2019s accustomed to people sharing their memories of her father and his music, Stardust says she\u2019s always happy to hear people\u2019s appreciation of Red Bow\u2019s songs. \u201cI was at work one day and a veteran stopped me and asked if I was related to Buddy Red Bow. And he shared that he knew him before he went to Vietnam. I like hearing that because I know that\u2019s what my dad wanted. He wanted to get his music out there and he wanted people to enjoy it. That was the ultimate goal.\u201d
\n[Stardust Red Bow contributed to this article in her personal capacity. The views expressed are her own and do not necessarily represent the views of the VA or the United States Government.]
\nTwo preview screenings of Red Bow will be held, including:
\nWednesday, Oct. 2, 7pm
\nSpeaker: Stardust Red Bow
\nSDPB Black Hills Studio, 415 Main St., Rapid City
\nBoth preview screenings are free and open to the public.
\nRed Bow premieres Monday, October 14, at 9 p.m. (8 MT) on SDPB1. Rebroadcasts on October 20 at 2 p.m. (1 MT) and October 27 at 10 p.m. (9 MT) on SDPB1.<\/p>\n

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Buddy and daughter Stardust Red Bow. Photo courtesy: Stardust Red Bow Many have memories of Buddy Red Bow\u2019s music. In our living room in Huron, Red Bow\u2019s records shared shelf space alongside our other beloved outlaws: Willie, Waylon, and the boys. My mother, playing and replaying \u201cStanding Alone\u201d on our <\/p>\n

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