Peter La Farge

To the uninitiated, he seems like little more than a footnote in the biography of Bob Dylan and the recordings of Johnny Cash, but during the early and middle 1960s, Peter La Farge occupied a special niche in contemporary folk music as the first politically aware Native American to attract serious attention. He was dead before the age of 34, but La Farge managed to make an a vital and unique contribution to the early-1960s folk revival. Peter La Farge was descended from the Nargaset Indian tribe, which had virtually ceased to exist by the end of the 19th century. Along with his sister, he was raised by members of the Tewa tribe on the Hopi reservation adjacent to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He spent much of his childhood on a nearby ranch, and was adopted at around age nine by writer Oliver La Farge, author of the 1930 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Laughing Child, which dealt with the Navajo Indians. Father and adopted son shared a common love for Native American customs and history, and the two later appeared together at an exhibition of the Hopi Eagle dance in New York City. By the time he was 14, La Farge had a radio show of his own in Colorado Springs, and by 16 he was competing as a rodeo rider and working as a singer. It was in the latter capacity that he even managed to hook up with such luminaries as Josh White and Big Bill Broonzy. Later on in life, Cisco Houston became La Farge's mentor, teaching him about the power of songwriting and helping him to reshape his life. La Farge served in the United States Navy during the Korean War, earning five battle stars, but he later came to regard the Korean War as a tragic waste of human lives. He resumed his career in the rodeo and began appearing as an amateur boxer during the mid-1950s. A rodeo accident nearly cost him a...