dedicated to Fleetfoot Youngblood, medicine man. for string orchestra.
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medieval
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thomas wilson
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gloria
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karen peace
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Story behind the song
Musically, I chose to write a relatively simple piece for my first attempt at something for the Native American flute as Jim Pellerite plays it, to get my feet wet, so to speak. I also wanted to keep a tie to the Native American feel, while using more other classical sounds.
The story of Rod Young, to whom this is dedicated:
Rod Young (Fleetfoot Youngblood) was working as a clerk in a liquor store in Divide, CO when I met him. I used to visit him often, as he had a certain good energy and humor about him. One day I told him that one of my "hobbies" was "singing for dying people" (I had been a hospice music volunteer, and despite my joke about it being a hobby, it was one of the most moving experiences of my life.) He said, "You can sing for me -- I'm dying." I laughed because Rod was known for his humor and he looked the picture of health. Then he told me that he really was dying. He had leukemia, and two bone marrow transplants had failed. Though he looked sixty and was young at heart -- doing honor to his Native name -- he was 80. I call him a medicine man, because people would come to the liquor store to visit him. I watched people come in and share their sorrows with him, and go away feeling better. And he never spoke of his own sorrow to them. A friend of his told me that there was a woman who often came to the store. She always bought one nip bottle of some liquor. It turns out that she didn't drink at all, but felt she should buy something. She actually came just to see Rod, like I did. And her house was full of a stash of untouched little bottles of all kinds of liquor.
When the wildfires were raging in the mountains of Colorado in 2002, he came and blessed our land in the traditional Apache way, his voice so strong, I could hardly believe he was so ill. I myself was very ill, and later when I was better, I tried to find out what happened to him, but could not find out. He was a true medicine man, hidden behind a baseball cap and a liquor store counter. We meet guides in the most unlikely of places. He is forever in my heart, truly fleet of foot, escaping all my efforts to find him, as he did not want people to see him ill and weak. In my heart he is always young and strong. I will honor his memory forever.