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Floyd Red Crow Westerman
Biography
Like most Native Americans of his generation, Floyd Westerman was wrenched away from the arms of his family at the age of five and sent off to a government boarding school nearly 100 miles away. These blatant attempts to destroy Indian civilization by breaking up families and making traditions obsolete became one of many subjects Westerman would take on when he developed into an important Native American protest singer and actor.

A Dakota Sioux, Westerman remained at the boarding school for the next 12 years, until he had finished high school. By this time he had learned guitar after watching the older students play and picking up some basic chords from them. Like many players who begin with rock or folk music, he sensed that learning three chords was enough to perform much of the music that was circulating at the time, and he was right. He enjoyed music and he continued playing and singing after graduation. He was influenced by both the folk music of Bob Dylan and fellow Native American Buffy St. Marie, but, like many Native Americans, deeply loved country & western music and had a sincere fondness for one of its most expressive geniuses, Hank Williams. In a tribute to his own family dynasty, Westerman began using the name Red Cloud, which he had inherited from his grandfather and which had important spiritual connotations among the Sioux people.
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