"Thirty-Six Miles"

a new song from my new solo album plus a fun 360 degree music video to celebrate the day. Here is the story

Jun 14, 2022

Today, we are releasing, “Thirty-Six Miles,” from my new solo album, Nothin’ Lastin’. Thirty-six miles is also the distance between Gallup, New Mexico and the ancient Pueblo of Zuni. Over the next few months we will put-out a handful of singles from the album to introduce you to the music and also share stories behind the songs. Then the whole album will come out in early October.

Back in the day of LP’s, I loved album liner notes almost as much as the music on the albums. The notes made sense of the collection of songs. They often explained why songs were ordered as they were. They also gave credit, a very important thing. And best, they put a human face to the music. My new album is a song cycle and the songs line-out as an exploration, not just a random playlist. “Nothin’ Lastin’,” has a theme and progression. Simply put, the songs are a cry of impermanence and the quest to find solid ground. That seems timely.

Shalako

My first experience at the Zuni Pueblo was an invitation to attend Shalako. Held in early December, this important annual event on the Zuni calendar is comprised of dance, ceremonies, and feasts staged in newly constructed homes around the village to invoke blessings on the homes and a bounteous harvest and generally to express gratitude for life.

A colleague, Richard Hart, had been working with the Zuni for years assisting in court cases and researching historical precedence to rectify broken treaties and local land and water grabs. It was the mid-1980s and during that first visit I was struck by how hospitable and friendly the Zuni were. Nevertheless, Richard cautioned me to be mindful of my status as a guest and to stay in the background at the ceremonies. He told me, “You may think you understand, but you probably don’t.”

Edward Wemytewa viewing George Catlin portrait at Smithsonian Art Museum, 2005, HC photographer

Corn Mountain/Pine Mountain

A few years later I met Edward Wemytewa, founder of Idiwanan An Chawe, the first-ever Zuni language theater company. He and Dudley Cocke, leader of Roadside Theater in Virginia, had forged a thirty-year cultural exchange between the Zuni Pueblo and the coal mining country of Virginia. By the time I got involved, these two grassroots theater groups had sponsored several projects. My radio-production partner Taki Telonidis and I were charged with documenting this long-term exchange, producing a few public radio stories along the way. Recordings we made went towards the publication of a book and CD. Entitled Corn Mountain/Pine Mountain, it was the first book ever published both in English and Zuni.

As part of our documentation we toured with the theater groups, performing at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, the Smithsonian Institution in New York’s old custom house and at the National History Museum in Washington, DC. When a Zuni actor had to cancel on the tour back east, I took on his role as a Yeti-like Zuni character called Weweba. I may not have fully understood my role but I’m a great big guy and can look menacing if I need to.

Winter Dance

One time I was invited to an all-night winter dance. It was held in a Zuni home and included songs and the appearance of gigantic Kachina figures. I really didn’t fathom much of what was going on but was swept away by the beauty and intensity of the singing, dancing, the physical comedy. At the beginning, Edward’s mother offered me a chair near her in the front. The place was packed, and there were very few seats. Most people stood for hours as the ceremony and dance unfolded. I felt grateful for a chair. The next day, walking around the village, I noticed kids pointing at me and calling me out with a Zuni word I did not understand. I thought to myself that I was something special, being given a Zuni name. It sounded good and I stood tall as I heard it.

That evening I told Edward that the kids in the village had given me a Zuni name. Edward asked what my new special name was, and I repeated it as best I could. Edward’s face spread into a big smile, and he said, “Oh yeah, your new Zuni name means ‘old lady.’ All the seats at the Winter Dance are exclusively reserved for old people and now you will always be thought of as the old lady who took one of the reserved seats.”

Over several years of work with the Zuni, Taki and I built lasting friendships that continue today. Though we have long-term relationships at Zuni, I should have remembered the advice I was given those many years before I first came to attend Shalako.

I wrote this melancholy song about the chasm that separates Zuni tradition from the overriding power of modern America. In a mere thirty-six miles two very different cultural realities coincide, intermingle, and sometimes battle. The song is also personal, the story of finding an exquisite beauty in a culture that has been profoundly generous to me, yet I never can be part of it.

A Remembrance

Many things were on my mind as I wrote this song. It is the first cut on the album and is dedicated to the memory of Nathan Wemytewa, Edward’s son. Nathan died, too young, on the highway between Gallup and Zuni, caught up in alcohol and violence. When writing the song I also thought about another friend, Vincent Craig, who we were staying with in White River, Arizona when he got word that his sister, Tiny, had been killed on the train tracks in Gallup. It is yet another story of violence and alcohol.

I wrote this song over a banjo riff. Greg Istock added piano and bass. I sang the parts and added the percussion. Dave Tate mixed the song and James Anderson mastered it. Louisa Bennion helped edit the story. The 360 degree video on YouTube was produced by Carol Dalrymple on a lonely road in Skull Valley, Utah. If you can adjust the resolution to make the image sharper it is fun to explore the surroundings as I sing the song.

Here are the words. Each song on the album ends with a petition or little prayer: