PhilPaine.com

If you’re going to own one plains pow-wow cd, this is the one you should choose. Over the last decade, Young­bird, a pow­er­house Pawnee band from Okla­homa, has loomed large in the pow-wow cir­cuit in both the Unit­ed States and Cana­da, with its South­ern Style songs. But even more ven­er­a­ble are Canada’s North­ern Cree Singers, from Sad­dle Lake, Alber­ta. They’ve been per­form­ing since 1980, and have 23 albums under their belts. North­ern Cree are known for the sheer pow­er of their singing, as well as well-craft­ed song­writ­ing. They’ve long been the favourite among com­pet­i­tive dancers, since they par­tic­u­lar­ly excel at “sec­ond songs”, the ones with vari­able rhythm and sud­den, short stops, which show off a dancer’s moves. Well ground­ed in the North­ern Style, they skill­ful­ly play off the South­ern Style Young­birds in this dyna­mite album record­ed live at the annu­al Ermine Skin Band Pow-Wow, Hobbe­ma, Alber­ta. Out­sand­ing songs include Young­bird’s “Deal With It” and “Baby Dolls II”, and North­ern Cree’s “Free Fly­in’ ” and “Nike Town”.