Mary Youngblood USA Native
First Lady of the Flute
Two-time Grammy® Winner
“Absolutely Enchanting” — Billboard
Native American Mary Youngblood, half Seminole and half Aleut, is the first woman to professionally record the Native American Flute, and the first woman to win not just one, but two Grammy® Awards for “Best Native American Music Album.”
About her second Grammy Award, Silver Wave Records said, “...Mary Youngblood has always had the talent to stand out above the crowd, and with this honor she stakes her claim as the number one star of Native American music.”
Mary's fifth and latest album Dance with the Wind won the 2007 Grammy Award for “Best Native American Music Album.” In an interview after accepting her award, Mary told the media that “Dance With the Wind was created during the 2006 winter storms in Northern California. The storms brought extremely high winds; a tall oak lost a few good sized limbs and the maples took a thrashing. Having an incredible affinity to trees, Mary looked at them in her backyard, and thought it would be hard to be a tree right then. But as she watched them, she noticed how the trees were almost moving with purposeful rhythm, and with something that resembled... JOY. Mary related her own personal stormy times to the dancing trees and realized she could be like they were. She was not going to give in to the elements either; she was going to learn to be more like the trees ...and Dance With the Wind.
Mary Youngblood started piano lessons at age six, violin at eight, classical flute and guitar at ten. As an adult, when Mary received her first wooden Native flute, she was driven to pursue the mastery of this instrument so tied to her own heritage.
Now years later with five unique and accomplished albums under her belt, Mary owns over 250 hand-carved Native American Style flutes in her collection and uses a wide variety of them throughout every one of her albums. Each of her flutes is masterfully crafted from different types of wood, bringing a unique sound and texture to each song.
When Mary performs, it takes only a moment to acknowledge the profound spirituality of the sacred Native American flute and its historical courtship and wooing attributes. Her haunting music is much more than a song... it's liquid poetry, a prayer.
“...a musical and spiritual experience - her vocal and instrumental innovations really engaged the audience as we all literally ‘Danced With The Wind’.” — Virginia S. Hinshaw, University of Calfornia, Davis
print-quality photos
links
audio
- Listen to clips of all her releases
via Silverwave Records
tech
- concert rider
- Mary Youngblood and the Sisters of the Earth: stage plot
- Trio: stage plot
- Duo: stage plot