Entrepreneur markets blues and traditional music

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The sole owner and operator of the newly minted Rez Bluez Productions, Elaine Bomberry, said that 10 years ago she would never have envisioned herself owning her own multimedia production company.

But then, 10 years ago who could have predicted the Aboriginal People's Television Network? In recent memory, popular movies usually still featured Native people in secondary roles to white actors. Smoke Signals and Big Bear were still years away. Canadians had not heard of Susan Aglukark or the popular blues band, Indigenous. From the standpoint of arts and entertainment in Canada, Native people were, for the most part, an invisible people.

But still, 10 years ago, Bomberry and her late mother, Rita, managed to run a successful talent agency called All Nations Talent Group, promoting Indigenous performers in film, video and radio, where they worked with a string of emerging artists. When prompted to name some of the people they worked with, Bomberry listed a veritable who's who of Native celebs.

Today, due at least in some small part to behind-the-scenes wranglers such as Bomberry, Native artists are redefining the pop culture landscape of Canada from all directions. Bomberry calls it an "Aboriginal arts movement."

"It's our stuff, we need to tell our stories," she said in an interview with Birchbark on May 8. "That's what this Aboriginal arts movement is all about. There's so much to inspire our people now."

Nowadays, her new company's main focus is promoting the blues and traditional Native music.

In her home office, photographs and colorful prints by Native artists adorn the walls and shelves. Her work table is cluttered with paper, books, CDs and other necessities of a successful businesswoman.

Bomberry is seated at her computer and behind her is her Juno plaque, which she received for helping create an Aboriginal Music category in 1993.

In the silky voice of a seasoned radio veteran, Elaine Bomberry thought out loud about how she created her own company. "I've taken my hobbies and turned them into a business," she said.

"The Rez Bluez showcase and my radio show, these were my hobbies on top of all the other stuff I was doing through the years."

One of her hobbies, the 'Rez Bluez' showcases, has delivered a string of Native blues bands to predominantly Native audiences for the past nine years. Next year, for the tenth anniversary of these musical events, Bomberry plans to produce a special blues show for television.

Her other hobby, hosting a weekly radio show broadcast on CKRZ in Six Nations for the past eight years, has now morphed into three, one-hour radio documentaries, called the Aboriginal Music Experience, that Bomberry has produced with the Banff Centre for the Arts.

The first one-hour documentary features traditional Native music, and artists such as Joanne Shenandoah and Buffy Ste. Marie talking about how they have struggled to preserve and promote traditional Native music. It's compelling listening.

For Bomberry, that's what it's all about, compelling people to listen to Native people, to our music.

"There's no touring circuit for our musicians yet, but there could be. We have to start utilizing our resources," she said. "If you don't hear the music, how are you ever going to know it's there, or appreciate it?"