Tom Bee Is A Successful Native American Artist
Michael E. Allen | Columbus, OH | 12/04/2007
(2 out of 5 stars)
"Tom Bee is probably one of the most successful Native American artists around. He is one of the true pioneers for bringing first nations music into the mainstream. His group Xit was originally signed to Motown Records in the early 1970's since then he has gone on to become President of SOAR(Sound of America Record) Distributors one of the largest Native American record labels in North America. Thus being said I don't see anyway Tom Bees career could go unnoticed by the Native American community. However, one thing I don't understand is how this album went on to recieve a grammy nomination for best Native recording in 2004. All I can say is that every year many Native American recordings are released, there is a whole industry based on first nations music and an annual award ceremony to go with it, the Nammys. Mr Bee sounds like a second rate karaoke singer on this cd. The spoken bible passages on this cd are interesting at first but get worn out after a few listenings. As far as I see it there are only two good native gospel songs on this cd "Sacred Warrior" and "Birth" the rest sound like second tier mainstream gospel. If you are however looking for some genuinely true and pure native american gospel recordings three good choices to start with include Bill Millers "Hear Our Prayer", Cheryl Bear "Cheryl Bear", and John Maracle and Broken Walls Ministry. While both Bill and Cheryl are awesome artists not all of their recordings fall into the Praise/Worship category so as far as Christian Music is concerened I would have to say that Broken Walls is the greatest resource [...]."
Track Listings (15) - Disc #1