Clarissa and her ukelele – which, by the way, was purchased at Hawaii Music Supply…
Who woulda thought I’d be playing Tlingit songs with the sounds of a ukelele? Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later…!
I learned this song in 1972 from Harry K. Bremner, Sr., who then was in his mid-80’s. He said I had the rights to sing this song because our clan, the T’akDein Taan Black-legged Kittywake had branched down from the Coho Clan on the Alsek River near Yakutat – the Coho who are the owners of this song.
Here I sing with the ukelele accompanying just a shortened version.
The following is a shortened version of a T’akDeinTaan song written by J.K. Smith; my sister Irene Jean Lampe discovered this song on an old recording of clan elders. I play a shortened version (without any of the words):
My very first song I wrote called “Shifting Shanks” – It’s influenced by “spaghetti western” sound, like a combination of “cowboys and indians” – the song is about not being aware of our Western privileges; we have so many freedoms many other countries do not have…we are born with “silver suspenders…”