Joanne Shenandoah

Indigenous vocalist Joanne Shenandoah belonged to the Wolf Clan of the Oneida Nation in the Iroquois Confederacy. Her mother, Clanmother Maisie Shenandoah, and her late father, Onondaga chief and jazz guitarist Clifford Shenandoah, nurtured a household steeped in music and gave her the Oneida name “Tek-ya-wha-wha,” which translates as “she sings.” From childhood she absorbed every tribal song while training on voice, flute, piano, clarinet, guitar, and cello, later channeling that heritage into updated settings for traditional material.

Shenandoah performed at the 1994 Woodstock Festival and supplied both performances and original scores for television programs, among them Northern Exposure and How the West Was Lost. Across Europe and America she collaborated and recorded with pianist/composer Peter Kater as well as Neil Young, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Jackson Browne, and Rita Coolidge. Her work ranged from ancestral chants to modern ballads addressing Indigenous experience, often characterized as an emotional journey or “Indigenous trance.”

She co-founded and served as president of Round Dance Productions, an Indigenous-operated nonprofit devoted to preserving Iroquois culture. The organization pursued creation of a traditional music archive, performing arts center, and recording studio. In 1993 the First Americans in the Arts Foundation named her “Native American of the Year”; the following year she received its “Native Musician of the Year” honor. Her recordings appeared on Canyon Records and Silver Wave Records, presenting a genuine spectrum of Indigenous music whose notable entries include the 1997 album Matriarch: Iroquois Women’s Songs and the 2001 release Eagle Cries. Joanne Shenandoah died on November 22, 2021 at the age of 64.