Angelic Native American Singing

By Diane Miller
Music Editor

When I was 13 years old, I heard LeeAnn Brady sing for the first time. I was floored. I knew her as a friend and basketball teammate and from that moment on, my view of her reached a new height. Her vocal influence on me was so powerful that she got me to love a country music song at a time when country music was the last thing that interested me. The song was Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance,” and hearing my friend sing it created sensations in my ears that I had never felt before as she would sing. At just fourteen years of age, she sang like she had no reservations and nothing holding her back.

LeeAnn Brady is a Native American originally from New Town, North Dakota – an Indian Reservation in the western part of the state. She is a sweet and loving individual who takes pride in her heritage and in her spirituality. Her whole family included singers, dancers, and strong athletes. I used to listen to her and her father (our coach) sing in Native chants at Pow Wows and even on the way to out of town basketball tournaments in a van to pass the time.
Just this past summer she released an album “In Jesus’ Name”. It features traditional Native American music with the well-known native drumming allowing the vocalist to set up a rhythm pattern for the melody. The singer uses mostly repeated syllable sounds with a flowing vocal part that is constantly moving up and down in its melodic line. It is distinctively a Native American sound, yet unlike Native male vocalists who have a lot more aggressive tone and sometimes even wailing sound to their singing, Brady’s voice captures an absolute angelic tone that one could listen to for hours.

Along with syllabic singing, there is also English incorporated into each song on the album. With the album title “In Jesus’ Name”, the songs are meant to be Native American church songs, with lyrics that emulate “praise to our heavenly Father.” For those of you that appreciate world music and Native American culture, you can find LeeAnn Brady’s music on iTunes and also on youtube.com under her name. Brady is a true North Dakota Native that anyone can appreciate for her voice, music style, and personality. She is a wonderful representative of not only Native American Heritage, but also of character as she is a positive, family orientated individual.

Questions and comments: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)