“Land of the Navajo” is an original song by Peter Rowan, the singer, guitarist, and songwriter whose long career has run from a stint with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys through bluegrass, rock, and beyond. The song was first recorded in 1975 by Old and in the Way, the celebrated bluegrass band that included Rowan alongside Jerry Garcia and David Grisman.
The song is unusual in the bluegrass and acoustic repertoire for its subject. Set in the desert Southwest, it tells of an encounter between a white trader and a Native American man, and reflects on the long history of broken promises and dispossession between settlers and Indigenous peoples. In performance Rowan often extended it with a wordless, keening vocal that gave the song a haunting, ceremonial quality.
Rowan recorded his own version for his 1978 self-titled album, and “Land of the Navajo” became one of the signature songs of his career, a piece that set him apart as a writer willing to take the music into unexpected territory.
