Gary Farmer & The Troublemakers

Gary Farmer & The Troublemakers with award-winning guitarist, Derek Miller, of the Six Nations Tribe in Ontario. 

An 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, is also a respected musician.  He’ll be showcasing his 5-piece smokin’ hot blues, roots and jam band for 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.

Joining the band is Farmer’s long-time friend and musical comrade, Derek Miller, bringing his shredding skills to The Troublemakers.  Miller, hailed as “one of the hot shots on the indigenous music scene”, has been playing music for 30 years.  He has won Native American music awards, played with the Double Trouble, which is Stevie Ray Vaughan’s old band, and even sang a duet with Willie Nelson.  Miller has appeared on national television, received two Juno Awards, and has performed at the Closing Ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics with Eva Avila and Nikki Yanofsky.

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.

Gary describes the concept of the band’s music as, “the love of the blues and its departures into rock & roll, jazz, reggae, soul--yeah heart and soul--but writing lyrics that reflect the change we'd like to realize…often just observations in daily life from a different perspective maybe.”

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