Micki Free. Courtesy, Calgary International Blues Festival. Calgary
Micki Free thinks it may be a first.
The veteran blues-rock guitarist has been playing music professionally since the early 1970s when he was a Hendrix-inspired teenage wunderkind in Illinois. He was discovered by Gene Simmons, befriended musical greats such as Carlos Santana, Prince and Billy Gibbons and even won a Grammy. In other words, he has run with what he calls some “pretty big dogs.”
But what he hasn’t done, up until now, is head a lineup of Indigenous musicians at a blues festival. On Friday, he will be part of an all-Indigenous night as part of the Calgary International Blues Festival at Shaw Millennium Park that will also feature Wiikwemkoong First Nation-born Crystal Shawanda, Cowessess First Nation’s Curt Young and Mohawk piano player Murray Porter.
“All through my life, I was never labelled an Indigenous or Native American guitar player,” says Free, in an interview from his home in Arizona. “I only thought of myself as a guitar player. I never tripped out on me being Indigenous. So to put all of us together on one stage — it’s cool with me — but I’ve never had that separation of being a blues-rock musician and an Indigenous blues-rock musician. I think Calgary will be the first. I never really thought about it. I think it’s going to be cool. I like the whole idea of giving (Indigenous musicians) just reward for their contributions and love of their craft. I think it’s a great idea.”
Which is not to say that Free hasn’t celebrated his mixed-blood Comanche and Cherokee heritage before now. Alongside his impressive career as a much sought-after blues-rock guitarist, Free is also accomplished on the Native American flute. He has won Native American Music Awards and began his own label and tour — called Native Music Rocks — that promotes Indigenous musicians. His song Wounded Knee, from his 2010 album American Horse, recalls the 1890 massacre of Lakota Indians by the U.S. army.
But Free’s life-altering entry into the blues is a fairly common story that crosses all cultures. He entered the genre through the same gateway that thousands, if not millions, have in the past: Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix’s spirit can certainly still be heard all over Tattoo Burn Redux, the 2017 remastered release of Free’s 2012 album of scorching blues. Check out the purplish haze of There’s a Hole in the Heart of the Blues, or smoky Hendrix-like drawl of Angels in the Room.
It all began in Europe. Free’s stepfather was in the military so the family spent a decade stationed in Germany, which is where young Micki was one fateful night when his older sister let him tag along to a concert.
“It just happened to be that Jimi Hendrix was headlining the show,” Free says. “I didn’t even know who he was and neither did she, really. He comes out on stage, I’ll never forget, with his big Afro and pink bell-bottoms and said ‘Yeah … this is for the lady in the front row with the pink panties.’ And he started playing Foxy Lady. That was it, bro. I said ‘Oh my God, I have to be a rock star based on the chicks.’ I didn’t even know it was a business until I met Gene Simmons and Diana Ross and they told me it was a business.”
After that, virtually nothing in Free’s musical path could be considered common. Upon his family’s return to the U.S., he formed Illinois rock band Smokehouse as a 17-year-old guitar prodigy. In the ’70s, he was discovered by Simmons, who famously told the young blues-rock guitarist that he was a “rock star.” Eventually, he made his way to L.A., toured with and was managed by Simmons’ one-time flame Diana Ross and eventually switched gears in the early 1980s to play with post-disco L.A. band Shalamar. He was in that band when it scored one of its biggest hits, Dancing in the Sheets from the Footloose soundtrack, and won a Grammy for Don’t Get Stopped in Beverly Hills, the act’s contribution to the soundtrack to 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop. If it seems like a bit of a strange fit, Free thought so too. At first, he was going to turn down the offer from Shalamar’s management before Simmons convinced him otherwise.
“In those days, I was just a pure blues-rock guitar player,” Free says. “I didn’t know who Shalamar was. So Gene Simmons and I, this is the best, got in his Rolls-Royce and went up to Sunset where they used to have Tower Records. We bought a cassette of Shalamar. Gene started playing it in his car and I said ‘Oh man, no way am I joining that band. It’s not what I want to do, Simmons, it’s not what I’m about.’ But at the time, Shalamar was riding very high on a string of hits like The Second Time Around. When I joined the band, Dancing in the Sheets became a huge, platinum-selling album and I really crossed the band over with my androgynous look into the rock and roll side of things. My time in Shalamar was really a beautiful time. Gene told me ‘If you join Shalamar, Micki, it will be like getting into a limousine instead of a taxi cab on your first time out.’ ”
After leaving Shalamar — Free still plays with the band when they do big concerts in the U.S. — the guitarist briefly played with rockers Crown of Thorns before returning to blues-rock with The Micki Free Electric Blues Experience.
He continues to play the blues, but also keeps a foot in the culture and sounds of his Native American ancestry. He credits Kevin Costner’s film Dances with Wolves for awakening something in him back in 1990.
“It opened up this vessel in my head and heart, wondering about who I am and my meaning in life as a human being,” he says. “So I reached out to my sister, who lived in Minnesota at the time, and she hooked me up with a Lakota holy man from Rosebud. We talked and talked and he just said, in short, ‘It’s time for you to come home. It’s time for you to come home and walk the red path.’ Ever since then, I’ve tried to do my best in inspiring our Indigenous people, especially the youth. It made me aware of who I am. ”
Micki Free plays Shaw Millennium Park on Friday, Aug. 2 as part of the Calgary International Blues Festival, which runs until Sunday, Aug. 4. On Friday, Curt Young opens the show at 5:15 p.m. Micki Free plays at 8:30 p.m.