Joy Harjo - I Pray For My Enemies album with Mike McCready
Available March 5, 2021
I Pray for My Enemies
Available March 5, 2021
In
her first new recording in a decade, Joy Harjo – the first Native
American named Poet Laureate of the United States – digs deep into the
indigenous red earth and the shared languages of music to sing, speak
and play a stunningly original musical meditation that seeks healing for
a troubled world – I Pray for My Enemies, to be released from Sunyata Records/Sony Orchard Distribution on March 5, 2021.
Collaborating
with producer/engineer Barrett Martin on this unique new album, Harjo
brings a fresh identity to the poetry and songs that have made her a
renowned poet of the Muscogee Creek Nation and one of the most authentic
and compelling voices of these times.
“The concept for I Pray for My Enemies
began” says Harjo, “with an urgent need to deal with discord,
opposition. It could have been on a tribal, national or a personal
level. I no longer remember. The urgency had a heartbeat and in any
gathering of two or more, perhaps the whole planet, our hearts lean to
entrainment – that is, to beat together.”
Latin Grammy-winning
producer, composer and founding father of the historic Seattle music
scene, Barrett Martin brings a new dimension to Harjo’s unique
sound-world – her words and music spoken, sung and explored in a vibrant
mix of classic instrumental sounds. Harjo and Martin describe it as
“funkified spoken word” inspiring “elegant jazz, urban soul, and inner
city, reservation grit.” Harjo sings and speaks her poetry, as well as
playing saxophone and flute, on an album she describes as “very much
of-the-moment.”
Martin holds it all together with drums, upright bass, keyboards and production duties on I Pray for My Enemies.
He assembled an all-star band to explore Harjo’s work, featuring Peter
Buck (R.E.M.) on electric guitar and feedback; Mike McCready (Pearl Jam)
on electric guitar solos; Krist Novoselic (Nirvana) on acoustic guitar;
and Rich Robinson (Black Crowes) on electric guitar solos. Additional
players include renowned Iraqi oud master Rahim Alhaj; trumpeter Dave
Carter and percussionist/backing vocalist Lisette Garcia. Harjo’s
stepdaughters sing harmony vocals, and her husband Owen Sapulpa plays
surdo drum on the album.
Harjo defines songs and poems as distinctly different expressions, and both are featured in the 16 tracks that make up I Pray for My Enemies.
Her words and music, older and newer, get a fresh new identity here.
The album opens, however, with a traditional Muscogee song “Allay Na Lee
No.” “Music travels,” she says, adding, “It travels through history,
ancestors and especially loves ports and waterways.”
Some of
Harjo’s defining poems appear here – “An American Sunrise,” “Fear,”
“Running” and “Remember” – refracting her own experience as a Native
American woman of her culturally defining generation. “Calling the
Spirit Back,” from an early collection of Harjo’s poems, and the new
song “How Love Blows Through the Trees” – written when COVID-19 reached
her home in Tulsa, OK – echo the suffering of a world experiencing a
pandemic.
“Once the World Was Perfect” is based on a version of a
Muscogee Creek creation story, which describes a time similar to now.
She says, “We lost our way in the dark, forgot who we were, then had to
find our way again.”
Vignettes and “licks” of songs and poems also appear on I Pray for My Enemies,
ranging from the epiphany of “We Emerged from Night in Clothes of
Sunrise” to the playful “trickster” piece “Rabbit Invents the
Saxophone.” Both feature Harjo’s soulful sax. “Stomp All Night” delivers
all the primal energy the title suggests, inspired by Muscogee Creek
social dances.
1. Allay Na Lee No
2. An American Sunrise
3. Calling the Spirit Back
4. How Love Blows Through the Trees
5. Earth House
6. Fear
7. Running
8. We Emerged from Night in Clothes of Sunrise
9. Midnight is a Horn Player
10. Once the World Was Perfect
11. Rabbit Invents the Saxophone
12. Remember
13. Why is Beauty?
14. One Day There Will Be Horses
15. Stomp All Night
16. I Pray for My Enemies
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woodyguthriecenter
Join us for an evening “Feeding the Spirit of A Nation” with US Poet Laureate and Tulsa native Joy Harjo to discuss her new album "I Pray For My Enemies" with an exclusive early release. Joy, a third-year Tulsa Artist Fellow, is distinguished as the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States along with being the author of several books of poetry, plays and children's books. Joy is also a third-year fellow at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship.“The concept for I Pray for My Enemies began” says Harjo, “with an urgent need to deal with discord, opposition. It could have been on a tribal, national or a personal level. I no longer remember. The urgency had a heartbeat and in any gathering of two or more, perhaps the whole planet, our hearts lean to entrainment – that is, to beat together.”
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National Women's Hall of Fame
U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo released her first album of new music in a decade, “I Pray for My Enemies” on Friday, March 5. This new album, produced by Barrett Martin includes Mike McCready on electric guitar as well as musical contributions by R.E.M. 's Peter Buck, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, and Rich Robinson from the Black Crowes.
Author of nine books, member of Muscogee Creek Nation, and the first Native American Woman to serve as a U.S. Post Laureate, Joy Harjo digs deep into her indigenous roots and shares music to sing, speak, as well as a stunning musical meditation which seeks healing in a troubled world.