Tami Neilson: Duets and changing dreams

Country musician Tami Neilson tells Anika how she ended up singing a duet with music legend Willie Nelson, and the two discuss life as a working musician and living on the road.A brush with death in early 2023 gave Tami Neilson fresh perspective on her life and career, she tell Anika Moa about her "come to Jesus" moment and they discuss the realities of being a working musician.Watch the video version of the episode hereRealising her indigenous heritage"On my dad's side of the family I have Ojibwe blood and Ojibwe heritage, which is beautiful, really special. But in Canada, as most colonised countries, it's very complicated. Our people were very oppressed and had horrific things happen, as everyone has seen in the news over the last few years. And so my grandmother was raised on Wasauksing nation in Ontario and when she was just young, her mother, who was indigenous, died in childbirth. So her father, who was German, then took her and her sisters to southern Ontario and left the reservation. She spent most of her life trying to hide the fact that she was indigenous, even though she was very clearly, visibly indigenous. It was not something she liked to talk about. She came from a generation where it was illegal for indigenous people to gather in a group of more than three people. So you couldn't sit and have a coffee together in a restaurant.""I always knew my heritage, but did not have the opportunity to really explore it being raised in a very fundamental Christian household. It wasn't really until I left Canada and came to New Zealand and seeing how intertwined everything in New Zealand is with indigenous culture. They couldn't defeat the Maori and so they had to coexist. They had to find a way, even though it was still oppressive. Whereas in Canada we were defeated. It was not ever considered to keep that culture in our government, in daily life. Coming here made me yearn more for knowledge of my indigenous ancestry in Canada."Her life on the road"Growing up in a motorhome touring across the United States and Canada for the better part of a decade, I used to look at kids who grew up in the same house with a picket fence and a dog and had all the same friends their whole life. To me, that's so exotic. Whereas people are like, wow, your life was so incredible, you got to grow up touring with your family and living in this motorhome, in a tour bus. And that seems exotic to the average person, but that was my normal. So for me, normal is exotic."2023's turning point…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details