POWWOW: MUSICIANS HAVE DIFFRERENT TAKES ON INDIAN THEME (CONCERT REVIEW)

Native American musicians Bill Miller and Tommy Wildcat took separate paths to Academic Auditorium Friday night but both offered the audience of about 350 something unusual and powerful.

Miller counts rock 'n' rollers Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young among his musical godfathers and is equal parts protest singer, spiritual warrior and Nashville showman. Wildcat sings traditional Native American songs and plays his own compositions on river cane flutes he made himself on the Cherokee reservation in Tahlequah, Okla.

The concert was the kick off to the second annual SEMO Powwow to be held from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. today at the Student Recreation Center at Southeast.

Wildcat taught himself how to make and play the river cane flutes and the results are haunting. He honored his father, who led the stomp dancers concluding Wildcat's part of the show, for teaching him the traditional ways.

He also sang a cappella Cherokee hymns learned from one of his reservation's oldest hymn singers. One was "What God Has Done for Me." Another was prefaced by a Cherokee poem.

Wildcat has made four recordings, but called himself "a rookie" compared to other Native American recording artists.

Miller is no rookie. Though brought up on a Wisconsin reservation, he's a longtime Nashville resident who has opened for the likes of Pearl Jam and Tori Amos.

Backed by another guitarist and a percussionist playing traditional drums, headliner Miller played electrified and electrifying rock 'n' roll with a Native American soul.

The title song of his newest CD, "Ghost Dancing," is about the 400 ghost dancers who were massacred at Wounded Knee a century ago.

With an echo of Richie Havens in his voice, Miller sang some songs that could be anthems for the American Indian Movement and one about the power of forgiveness that was almost poetic.

In an interview prior to his performance, Miller said his music was a way of surviving in a violent, alcoholic home that led him to attempt suicide twice at age 19.

But a warrior is nothing without scars, he said, and this one conjured the spirits of Crazy Horse, Wounded Knee and the Trail of Tears in one of his songs. "I've felt it in the pride of a Cheyenne dancer as he moves to an ancient beat," he sang.

Miller, who also played wooden flutes, brought part of the crowd to its feet with his energetic guitar playing. In "Praises," a chant that can be heard in the movie "Sioux City," he segues into "All Along the Watchtower."

When he sang "the wind began to howl," the chant seamlessly returned as if Dylan had intended it.