In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s novel Wisdom Corner, a standalone sequel to Winter Counts, offers an impressive depiction of reservation life.
BookPage wrote of the book:
“Weiden’s writing is rich with cultural detail from food to ceremonies to reservation slang. His style is terse but immersive, and readers will find themselves absorbed in wandering the Great Plains and meting out justice with Virgil.”
In his own words, here is David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel Wisdom Corner:
It’s a pleasure to return to Largehearted Boy with a playlist for my new novel, Wisdom Corner. Way back in 2020, I contributed a playlist for my debut, Winter Counts. I’m a huge music fan, and compiling and writing about those songs was tremendously fun.
Wisdom Corner is a standalone sequel to Winter Counts, set again on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. All of the characters in the first book are back, including Virgil Wounded Horse, the protagonist. Virgil is a hired vigilante who takes action when the federal government won’t prosecute criminal cases on the reservation, which is a very real thing. Because of a federal law known as the Major Crimes Act, Native law enforcement officers have no authority to prosecute felony crimes on their own lands and must defer those cases to the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Offices. However, the FBI declines to investigate a substantial number of those cases, which results in the criminal offenders being set free. When this happens, reservation citizens may turn to hired enforcers like Virgil, who will lay down a beating on a bad person for a price. But, in Wisdom Corner, Virgil has stopped his work as a vigilante as he’s troubled by the morality of his profession and is attempting to stay on the Red Road of Indigenous spirituality. However, the murder of a prominent Lakota citizen forces him to return to his old ways as he searches for the killer.
There’s also a subplot involving the Native boarding schools. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as many as 75% of Indigenous children were forced to enroll in these institutions, where they were stripped of their Native identity and often physically and sexually abused. Even though those schools have closed, their impact resonates today in various ways, as the characters in Wisdom Corner discover.
Turning to music, I decided to use a different approach in creating a new playlist. In the playlist for Winter Counts, I listed a song that each character in the book would like, even though the characters’ musical tastes were very different than my own. For this playlist, I’ve focused on spotlighting Native American roots music from the 1960s and ’70s, as well as some current songs by Indigenous musicians. Put another way, I want to highlight a particular type of Native American music. Tunes that are based in country, rock, or soul, not necessarily powwow or traditional; the type of music that I remember my mother playing when I was a child. Being from the World War II generation, she liked big band and swing music, but also classic country like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, and George Jones. As a kid addicted to rock and punk music, I disdained the music she played, and it wasn’t until much later that I realized the genius of those songs. Indeed, I listened to a good deal of Native country and roots music while I was writing the novel, as evidenced from this passage from Wisdom Corner, where Virgil muses about rez music while traveling: “I had a long drive ahead of me, so I turned on the rez radio station and listened to the DJ spin some old country and rock music played by Natives. Buddy Red Bow, the Wingate Valley Boys, Jesse Ed Davis, John Trudell. I was a heavy metal guy, but this was music that calmed my spirit and helped me center myself.” In this playlist, I’m happy to honor those songs, classic and modern.
“Indian Love Song” by Buddy Red Bow
Buddy Red Bow was a legend in Lakota territory until his death in 1993. Not only a great country musician, his songs often contained biting social commentary about the mistreatment of Natives. He was a big hit on reservation radio stations but struggled to get his songs played nationally. Although he only released three albums, his influence in the Lakota world was immense. “Indian Love Song” has a beautiful, wistful melody, and is partly sung in the Lakota language. Also worth seeking out is his song “Black Hills Dreamer.”
“Red Dirt Boogie, Brother” by Jesse Ed Davis
Jesse Ed Davis was one of the greatest Native guitarists, along with Link Wray and Jimi Hendrix, who was proudly Cherokee. Davis played with the band Taj Mahal for years, and then did great session work with Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and others. His guitar solo on Jackson Browne’s “Doctor My Eyes” is considered to be some of his best work, but he also recorded three solo albums. Ululu, recorded in 1972, featured some of the best musicians in the country backing Davis this time. “Red Dirt Boogie, Brother” is a cool song with a strong rhythm and amazing guitar, of course, but it’s also a personal statement by Davis about his Oklahoma and Native heritage and the music that mattered to him.
“In Your Heart” by Stateline
Stateline (not to be confused with another group with the same name) is a Navajo band from the White Cone community on the Navajo reservation. I didn’t know their music until fairly recently, but I’ve quickly become a fan. They capture the plaintive and real sound of the earlier Native country-rock bands from the ‘70s and ‘80s. This song combines strong guitars and vocals along with fantastic pedal steel sounds. There were at least five other songs I could have chosen for this playlist, and I’m hoping to see this band live soon.
“My Blood Runs Through This Land” by Black Belt Eagle Scout
I’ve loved Katherine Paul and Black Belt Eagle Scout for nearly a decade, and this cool song is one of my favorites. Although the song skews more towards the alternative rock side of the spectrum, I think it captures a certain groove perfectly. The lyrics meld the personal and political in a unique and powerful way. Really great Indigenous music from the Northwest that suits the mood of Wisdom Corner well.
“Hunger Strike” by Shane Ghostkeeper
I was tremendously fortunate to work with Shane Ghostkeeper as the narrator for the audiobook for Wisdom Corner. Shane is a tremendously talented guy, being an actor in numerous films, a much-in-demand audiobook narrator, and also a musician with several albums under his belt. Shane and I chatted on the phone before the taping and discussed our mutual love of music. We also kept in close contact during the audiobook taping, and I helped with the pronunciations of the Lakota words in the book. I truly appreciated his professionalism, and I wasn’t surprised to discover that his music is amazing. This song is a wonder—fantastic lyrics and vocals, of course, but also a great melody and kick-ass guitar.
“Big Black X” by X
This song is the only one by a non-Native band, but I simply had to include it. The band X (and their country incarnation, The Knitters) have meant a lot to me over the decades; I included their fantastic song “The Have-Nots” in my earlier playlist and discussed why it’s my favorite song of theirs. Fast forward to the year 2024, when X fans rejoiced as a new studio album was released, titled Smoke and Fiction. I loved the new album, especially the song “Big Black X,” which was a throwback to the smash-and-burn musical style of their first album, Los Angeles. And the lyrics! They’re a look back by a band who’s seen it all and come out the other side, a kaleidoscopic view of the rise and fall of Los Angeles and maybe even punk rock itself. One line in the song immediately grabbed me, as it embodied the mood I was trying to capture in Wisdom Corner: “Old cars and new scars.” That lyric perfectly represents the reservation with our scattered and sacred cars dotting our lawns, and the scars that accumulate too quickly for those living on the rez.
I really, really loved that line, and fortuitously, I attended a John Doe solo show in Denver not long after the release of the album. I was able to chat with him after the show, and he was very cool and nice. I asked if I could get permission to use that lyric as the epigraph for my new novel, and he said he’d pass on my request to his bandmate Exene, who’d written it. I was thrilled, to say the least, when she emailed me and granted permission. The line indeed serves as the novel’s epigraph, and I’m delighted to include the song here.
“V Chill” by Shane Ghostkeeper
I’m returning to Shane Ghostkeeper for his wonderful song “V Chill.” This luminous song, about a baby boy’s first words, reminds me of the Lakota word for children, wakaneja, which means “sacred beings” and reflects our reverence for our little ones. It’s a gorgeous, affecting tune, and one that serves as the perfect end to this playlist.
also at Largehearted Boy:
David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s playlist for his novel Winter Counts
David Heska Wanbli Weiden, an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota nation, is the author of Winter Counts, which won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, the Thriller Award for Best First Novel, and was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel. He received the PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship and is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Ucross, Sewanee, and Tin House. A professor of English and Native American and Indigenous Studies at Stony Brook University, he lives in New York and Colorado with his family.