Location:
National Willa Cather Center’s Red Cloud Opera House
413 N. Webster Street
Red Cloud, NE 68970
Event Description:
Fronted by Mato Nanji, Indigenous plays a gritty, soulful, and rocking blues sound influenced by the likes of B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Indigenous burst onto the national stage twenty-three years ago and have been at the forefront of American blues music ever since. Indigenous released its debut album, “Things We Do,” in 1998. The next year it won three awards at the Native American Music Awards including Album of the Year and Group of the year. The record also produced the single “Now That You’re Gone,” which peaked at No. 22 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, making Indigenous one of the few American Indian bands to achieve that level of success. Amazon named the band Blues Artist of the Year, and Indigenous was featured on a host of national television programs including Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Indigenous has had two albums that reached No. 3 on the Billboard Top Blues Album charts, and the band’s 2006 release “Chasing the Sun” peaked at No. 2.
While band members have come and gone over the years, Mato continues to lead the band with his signature blues-rock sound. Today the band features Mato’s son Evan Nanji on guitar, Justin Cournoyer on the bass, and Kurt Olson on drums. They are Indigenous.
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Gary and Beverly Meyer, Dennis and Sally Hansen, Marion and Pat Arneson, GTA Insurance Group, and Heritage Bank
Programming at the National Willa Cather’s Red Cloud Opera House is made possible with the support of the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.