Pat Vegas of Redbone: Legendary Yaqui, Shoshone and Aztec Musician

"In a time machine I would like to go back to the 70’s when music was real music."

Pat Vegas: Redbone Movement

Redbone is a Native American/Mexican American rock group that was most active in the 1970s. Originally from Coalinga, California, brothers Patrick (bass and vocals) and Candido "Lolly" Vasquez (guitar and vocals) moved to Los Angeles in 1969 to form the group Redbone. The name Redbone itself is a joking reference to a Cajun term for a mixed-race person ("half-breed"), the band's members being of mixed blood ancestry. The band referenced Cajun and New Orleans culture many times in their lyrics and performing style.

Pat and Lolly, who were a mixture of Yaqui, Shoshone and Mexican heritage, had previously performed and recorded under the stage surname Vegas, in part to downplay the Latin American association of their birth surname, Vasquez. According to Pat Vegas, it was Jimi Hendrix - himself part Native American - who talked the musicians into forming an all-Native American rock group, and they signed as the band "Redbone" to Epic Records in 1969. The band then consisted of Pat Vegas, Lolly Vegas, Peter DePoe and Robert Anthony Avila, a Yaqui-Chicano, better known by his stage name Tony Bellamy. Their debut album Redbone was released in 1970.

Redbone played primarily rock music with R&B, Cajun, Jazz, tribal, and Latin roots. Their first commercial success came with the single "Maggie" and two other hit singles followed - "The Witch Queen of New Orleans" and "Come and Get Your Love". In 1973, Redbone released the politically oriented "We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee", recalling the massacre of Lakota Sioux Indians by the Seventh Cavalry in 1890.