Randy Granger: A Place Called Peace
Randy
Granger is a man of the Southwest. He is a journeyman
musician and singer, best-known for his Native American
flute-playing, who has lived most of his life in New
Mexico in the Southwestern United States in the land of
sage and mesquite, hawks and rattlesnakes, deserts and
canyons, the Rio Grande River and stunning sunsets. The
music on his latest album, A Place Called Peace,
reflects that Southwestern lifestyle, his American
Indian heritage and his belief that world peace begins
within each individual.
Granger’s focus on his last four albums has been
instrumental music showcasing his wooden-flute playing,
but on disc and on-stage he always gives his audience a
taste of his vocal abilities. His background includes
tours in rock and jazz bands, acclaim in the nu-folk
movement, and expertise as a guitarist and percussionist
(most recently playing the metal hang drum which allows
melodic notes as well as rhythmic beats).
For more information on Granger, go to
www.randygranger.net (or his myspace or facebook
sites). His CDs can be purchased at his site, at major
online stores such as amazon.com and cdbaby.com, or at a
variety of digital download locations such as iTunes and
Rhapsody.
To
explore his heritage, Granger had his DNA tested and
discovered his ancestry includes American Indian tribes
(Chol, Athabascan, Apache, Comanche and Dogrib) and
Europeans (the Basque region of Spain as well as Germany
– many Germans settled in Texas and New Mexico in the
1800s). To his surprise, his lineage also includes
smaller percentages from India, Mongolia, Afghanistan
and the Americas (the ancient Mayan original
inhabitants).
“There
have always been stories in my family that in the 1800s
we had Apache and Comanche ancestors who fled to the
mountains of Northern Mexico to escape U.S. Army
persecution, and those tribes began living with the
natives already there. Supposedly my
great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side was a ‘seer’
and a member of the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico’s Copper
Canyon where he lived until he found his wife with his
best friend, accidentally killed him and moved to New
Mexico to start a new life,” Granger explains.
The
music on Granger’s A Place Called Peace album
includes much inspiration provided by his native
heritage. “Chaco Moon Meditation” captures Randy’s
experience of exploring the Chaco Canyon ruin site where
a thousand Anasazi people lived more than a thousand
years ago (he plays a reproduction of an ancient Anasazi
flute on the tune).
Granger with hang drum on stage
On
“Ghost Dancers” he uses a double-barreled flute (notes
on one side and a drone sound on the other) and a
buffalo drum to pay tribute to a tribal dance that long
ago was believed to reclaim Indian ancestry, but also
led to many deaths when it was outlawed by the Army.
“Apache Tears” reflects the sadness from when the
remnants of that tribe hid in rugged and desolate
mountains and canyons, sometimes eating their moccasins
and cactus thorns to stay alive. Granger wrote “The Dog
Star” after he performed at the Gila Cliff Dwellings (in
protected rooms that tourists are not allowed in), where
he felt he could smell the ancient fires burning and
sense that tribe’s long-ago activities. On a wall
overlooking the Western sky, they had carved
constellations, and on the drive home Granger looked up
into the night and saw Sirius (the dog star) just as it
had appeared on the wall. “Ancestor’s Ocean Voyage” is
his musical tribute to the natives of Asia who floated
rafts over kelp beds to reach the Americas in ancient
times.
Granger’s Southwestern lifestyle also influences his
music. “Rio Grande Lullaby” is his tribute to the major
river of the area (only a half-mile from where Randy
lives) and also to his ancestors who have lived in the
region for more than a thousand years. “At night I
sometimes feel as if I can hear the native women singing
to their children.” The tune “Double-Barrel Train
Wreck” uses the double-barrel flute as a solo instrument
to capture the sounds of an old locomotive colliding
with a Native flute. Granger explains, “I wanted to
explore some extreme possibilities on this instrument
and push its capabilities to the next level by ending
the song imitating a blues-guitar solo.”
One
song on the album is different because it features
lyrics and comes out of Granger’s folk background. “Za
Zee Za Zu Zing” is the title and the nonsensical chorus,
although it is not difficult to envision an ancient
tribe chanting the refrain while building elaborate
cliff dwellings or pyramids. The album title, A
Place Called Peace, was taken from the lyrics which
describe peace as “a great party...where the people are
happy to be alive.” It features the hang drum (rhymes
with “gong”), which looks like two cooking woks glued
together to form a spaceship-like shape. “The song’s
message is how good it would be to stop wars, but,
essentially for that to happen, we must first find inner
peace.”
Granger
was born during a thunderstorm in the small oil-field
boom-town of Hobbs in southeastern New Mexico, where the
flatness of the plains are visually broken by thorny
mesquite trees side-by-side with oil derricks and
pumpjacks. Granger has been making music all his life.
He began singing when he was just a few years old, often
while driving throughout the Southwest with his father,
a construction contractor. Randy beat on pots and pans
as a child until his parents finally got him a drumset
when he was ten. He went on to win awards for
performing in his school bands and choirs. When he
entered high school he also began playing guitar. Soon
he was performing professionally at private parties (by
himself and in the country-rock band Speed Limit), and
began teaching music.
Granger
went to college on a music scholarship and got his AA
degree, played in the college jazz group, performed in
the community theater pit band, sang with an opera
company, and even delivered singing telegrams for a
florist. He traveled to Los Angeles, explored the
rock’n’roll music scene, and performed at Disneyland
before returning to New Mexico where he moved to Las
Cruces to attend New Mexico State University and get his
BA degree in journalism. He toured extensively and
recorded with his rock bands Two Fields Burning and The
Peat Column (both bands performed almost-exclusively
Granger compositions).
He also
spent some time in the medical field. He moved to
Albuquerque and became a licensed massage therapist
(using music during his sessions), organized blood
drives, served as a “simulated patient” to teach health
care professionals, monitored federal parolees for
substance abuse, and worked for the 19 Pueblos of New
Mexico as a health educator. He continues to donate
performances regularly at clinics, hospitals, therapy
centers, hospice facilities and shelters for the
abused.
But
performing music professionally has always been the
primary focus of Granger’s life. In addition, he has
composed music for many years and has been commissioned
to write pieces for dance companies, other musicians,
radio programs, documentaries, short films and
websites. After Granger disbanded his rock group, he
became a solo performer and recording artist, first in
the folk field and then expanding into the Native
American world-fusion arena. Inspired by Leonard Cohen,
Jeff Buckley, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and Steve
Earle, Granger recorded three albums as a folk singer (Skywatching,
The Rio Grande Set and This Old Man). As
he began concentrating on his native-flute playing, and
added the hang drum to his performances, his recordings
have become more instrumental-oriented with only
occasional singing and guitar playing (Cloudwalker,
The Roswell Incident and Winter Colors).
Granger’s music also appears on the International Native
American and Wood Flute Association compilation CD
Clear Water Reflections alongside R. Carlos Nakai,
Coyote Oldman, Joseph Fire Crow, Kevin Locke and many
others. Granger has performed at major flute festivals
and American Indian music gatherings all over North
America. In addition, Granger is a poet whose works
have been published in magazines and literary journals.
He now lives in Las Cruces, 50 miles from the Mexico
border.
“I get
much of my musical inspiration from spending time in the
wilderness -- seeing a hawk soar, cloud shadows on a
mountain, sunrays filling a canyon, a flowering
prickly-pear cactus. But most importantly it is the
quiet, the stillness, the serenity that soothes my
spirit and fills my soul. Physically and spiritually, I
was created by the Southwest.”
 Editor's
Review:As a lover
of the Southwest, I listen to Native America
flute music most often, and that includes the
work of Randy Granger. Listen, as the land
begins to flow through, depositing the elements
of an ancient ancestral soul, to awaken a core
and vital spirit-love given to all through
Granger's talent and skill. Soothing,
tranquil, uplifting.
One vocal track
lies in the collection's midst, and if you must
have a frame of reference, Za Zee Za Zu Zing
will bring Bill Miller to mind. The
remainder of tracks with titles and melodies
evoking such enchanted and sacred New Mexico
grounds like Chaco Canyon, the great Madre
river, the Rio Grande. Others free the
soulful memories of an ancestral past on tracks
like Ghost Dancers, Apache Tears
and Ancestor's Ocean Voyage.
If you live in
the southwest, there is no better way to enhance
your day. If you are visiting, take a copy
home and take a piece of New Mexico with you.
Top of the list, cream of the crop, Randy
Granger's latest CD, A Place Called Peace,
is indeed that.
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