WORT Music Celebrates Native American Heritage Month

WORT Music Playlists

What was that song I heard? Who was the artist, what is the album title, where can I get it? Where can I find the entire playlist for a show?

Click on the Playlists button to bring up a calendar where you can choose any date to find the playlists for that day. If you can’t find the right playlist or the song you’re looking for, your best bet is to call the station the next time that program’s on and ask the host yourself. If that’s not possible we may be able to help you, but please have as much information as possible at hand when you contact us, such as: approximate day and time the music was played, what type or genre of music it was, who hosted the show and any other information you remember about the selection and we’ll do our best to track it down.

Contact Information

Music Director: Sybil Augustine – musicdirector@wortfm.org (for music submissions, charts and tracking, promotional exchanges for music events and following up on volunteer applications or other requests. Please include specifics in your subject line, such as “Hiphop Music Submission” etc, )

Digital Production Director: Aaron Scholz – aaron@wortfm.org (for record donations and sales, promos recording volunteers, etc.)

Music Calendars: Submit your events online here or send by email to calendar@wortfm.org

How do I get my music played on WORT?

We accept submissions in most genres and styles of music, focusing on noncommercial, out-of-the-mainstream, independent releases (check out our playlists and music charts for more information.) It may take up to a few weeks for us to review and process your submission so we appreciate your patience, and feel free to contact us to follow up. Please send your music, indicating any tracks with language that needs to be aired after 10 pm and including a one-sheet description and any biographical and tour information, to WORT Music Director, 118 S. Bedford St, Madison, WI 53703 and/or to musicdirector@wortfm.org.

We do accept digital files on .wav or mp3, but currently we still prefer CDs to digital submissions because it’s the quickest way to get it into the hands of our programmers and onto the airwaves, though we have a growing digital library. Digital submissions should be .wav or other lossless files, or high quality mp3s [128-320 kbps.]

You can follow up or “track” your submissions by email, or call 608-256-2001 on Wednesdays between 1-4 pm CST to ask if we received it, has it been reviewed, has it been added to our library, and what kind of airplay it’s getting—e.g. light, medium, heavy or charting. Thanks and we look forward to hearing your music!

Click above to hear a special edition of On The Horizon with host Helena White as WORT celebrates First Nations and Indigenous peoples with unique programming during Native American Heritage Month. On Sunday, Nov. 13 Helena featured artists such as native, innovative Minneapolis musician Joe Rainey (who recently performed at Arts + Literature Laboratory) playing with a traditional Ojibwe drum, Iron Boy and sharing music from his recent album Niineta, which fuses traditional drum music with electronica, experimental and industrial sounds and beats. You’ll also hear tracks by A Tribe Called Red, Robert Mirabal, Wind Eagle, Tanya Tagaq, Supaman, and The Halluci Nation, who will appear in Madison on December 13 at High Noon Saloon. Stay tuned and follow WORT for your chance to call in and win tickets. This is not Grandfather’s or Grandmother’s Native American music!

On Monday, Nov. 28 from 9am-noon guest host Esty Dinur features even more Indigenous music on Global Revolutions, including an exclusive interview with Joe Rainey.

Residents of these United States celebrate many different traditions and cultures, but we don’t always know much about their origins or history. Thanksgiving and other “American” holidays are often accompanied by music created for these celebrations. We do know it’s a holiday for many, but not all, people to get together with family and enjoy food and the harvest. To show respect for the ancestors of the land our community radio station and its people reside on, it feels inappropriate to play Native American music on a day that signifies the beginning of their systematic destruction. So as is WORT’s tradition, on Thanksgiving during Jeff Spitzer-Resnick’s Hejira time slot we aired this special program hosted by The Folk Anarchist (aka Bob Kaspar) dedicated to humorous and poignant themes of food, family and fun culminating in the satirical story-song Alice’s Restaurant Massacree by Arlo Guthrie.

Interested in learning more? Ponder these thoughts from Marisa Page, who works with First Nations’ supporters and fosters opportunities to engage with the mission of First Nations and invest in Native communities.

“This month, it is indeed a time to celebrate Native cultures. But we also challenge people to do even more.

Sure, warm up with a pumpkin spice latte, but remember that pumpkin is an Indigenous food from North America, or watch First Nations’ documentary GATHER, and remember where our food comes from.

Other ideas: Plan a garden for next spring (read about corns, beans, and squash) or lend a hand in a community garden. Go snowshoeing, play basketball (which has Indigenous roots), or support a Native-led physical fitness nonprofit. Find out which Indigenous peoples occupied the land you currently live on, or explore what it would look like to give land back. Or, you can donate to a Native-led nonprofit that will help ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of the past that put us back centuries.”

–Marisa Page
First Nations Development Officer

[Photos courtesy firstnations.org]

Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here