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Gary Farmer & The Troublemakers

The Sea of Glass Center for the Arts
Tucson, AZ

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Gary Farmer & The Troublemakers

Award-winning actor, director, and Native American Indian activist Gary Farmer, best known for his roles in films like 'Dead Man' with Johnny Depp, 'Pow Wow Highway', 'Smoke Signals', and 'Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai' with Forrest Whitaker, brings his 5-piece blues, roots and jam band to Tucson.

Farmer was born in Ohsweken, Ontario into the Cayuga Nation and Wolf Clan of the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy. After more than 100 appearances in television shows and movies, Farmer retired from the Screen Actors Guild and began focusing on music. Farmer chose to play the blues in homage to his Native heritage. According to Farmer, the Tuscarora Indians joined the Iroquois Confederacy around the same time that slavery was still going on in the U.S., allowing the two cultures to mix while working in the fields. Together, Native American and African music mixed and eventually formed what we know as the blues: The foundation for the modern music of today.

Gary Farmer & The Troublemakers play both originals and covers, especially the music of classic blues artists like John Lee Hooker, Taj Mahal, Etta James and Howlin' Wolf. Farmer picked up the harmonica as a teenager and taught himself to play, jamming with bands across Canada and the U.S. When he was working as a touring actor, he would stop at clubs and sit in with the musicians. "I was on the road all my life as an actor and the harp became my friend," he explained. "The harp has always been my voice." Farmer was also one of the driving forces behind the launch of the Aboriginal Voices Radio Network.

Proceeds benefit teen & young adult rehabilitation programs and Avalon Organic Gardens Internships. For those in financial need, call 520-603-9932 about Avalon Organic Gardens Hands-In-The-Soil work reciprocation program (call 1 week in advance of shows).