Transcript of Dennis Yerry

Dennis Yerry: When I was working on The West for Ken Burns, they played for me a wax cylinder recording of Chief Joseph singing an honoring song. And I just thought that that was just so fabulous. And we did that song, we recorded it for Sony Classical. And now I play it, I sing it, wherever I go. And I love that song. And I’ve heard songs that I didn’t even realize were so important, the Delaware or the Lenape stick dance, for example, is a song that we sing in the long house, the Iroquois long houses. During the social dances they sing that song last to honor the Delaware people. And that song has a huge significance to them. And I just love these songs.

I also met a guy from South Dakota who was doing The West with us and he heard me play the flute, and he said that he had a song that he wanted to give to me to learn on the flute. And he gave me a tape of it and I learned that song. And he said that he sang that song back at home and elders were coming up to him and saying, “You know we haven’t heard that song in 50 years. We love that song." Because it has a direct relationship between languages, with languages. And I feel like music, world music and world languages are the same thing. Music to me is a language, whether you’re playing jazz and you grow up speaking it and everything, it becomes native to you, or intrinsic into you.