Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

This article briefly surveys the musical career and current undertakings of Lumbee songwriter and recording artist Willie French Lowery.

Lowery wrote the score for the outdoor drama Strike at the Wind!, which opened in 1976. He returns to Robeson County each year as general manager of the drama. Strike at the Wind! depicts the Henry Berry Lowry era, and Willie French Lowery is a descendant of one of Henry Berry Lowery's brothers.

Lowery now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his wife, Malinda Maynor Lowery (president of the Board of Directors of Carolina Arts Network, which helps fund Strike at the Wind!) , is an assistant professor of history at Harvard University. Lowery recently curated an exhibition for Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology on Native American music. He struggles with Parkinson's Disease, but among his many current projects are writing a one-act play, recording a new album, and beginning work on a memoir.

Related links:

Willie French Lowery's Web site: http://www.willielowery.com/

Tar Heel of the Week (Nov. 11, 1979): “An Indian whose heart is filled with music.”