Up Where We Belong at NMAI

MUSIC:  Exhibition spotlights Native Americans in rock and roll

By Kara Briggs“Up Where We Belong,” a 1982 crossover hit co-written by Cree folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, lends its name to an upcoming exhibition about American Indians in rock and pop music at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

“We’re trying to show where Native musicians were instrumental in crafting the big American music,” said Tim Johnson, one of the museum’s associate directors, “and document instances where Native musicians were right in the center of it.”

The exhibition opens July 1.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Hendrix Items Donated to NMAI and Native Roots of Hendrix and the Blues.

Below:  "Janie Hendrix, President/CEO of Experience Hendrix, delivers a coat that belonged to her stepbrother, Jimi Hendrix, to the National Museum of the American Indian’s Tim Johnson. The iconic coat, along with some of the rock-and-roll legend’s guitars and other items, will be on display as part of Up Where We Belong beginning July 1." (Katherine Fogden, National Museum of the American Indian)