By Abena Songbird
 
WILD HORSE SANCTUARY, HOT SPRINGS — NAMA Award-winning Cherokee Acoustic artist, Michael Bucher comes from a deeply traditional, spiritual family.

Though born and raised in the ethnically diverse south side of Chicago, Bucher traces his Cherokee ancestors back to the Trail of Tears and earlier. Prior to the forced removal many Cherokees moved to S.E. Missouri and N.E. Arkansas. Mike and his sisters and brother are only the second generation not to be born in S.E. Missouri. He now resides with his wife of 37 years in the great North Woods of northwest Wisconsin.

Music was passed to him as a small child listening to his great-uncle sing.  He would listen to his grandparents stories: things told to them from Cherokee people in Georgia who, after being forced along the Trail of Tears, had no rights left and were declassified as citizens.

"They were taunted, and they protested, no matter what issue," says the 54 year old artist, adding that they were thrown in jail with no legal rights, and no representation.

(Read more in the Winter 2009 issue…)