MARINETTE – Music has magic that soothes, comforts, invigorates and remembers — that’s why it comes as no surprise that for musician and songwriter Wade Fernandez there is almost an ethereal nature to songwriting.
“For anybody who allows creativity to flow, as far as music, it’s a river flowing and you just jump in and enjoy the ride, rather than trying to swim upstream or fight the current,” said Fernandez.
His advice is to “jump in and let it take you.”
Part of his river’s journey will bring him to the local area where he will share his music and Native American history with others as a week-long resident artist through World Fest Marinette/Menominee.
Fernandez will appear at area schools in Marinette and Menominee counties from Feb. 23 - 27, performing and interacting with students of all ages. His visit will culminate with a free community concert Saturday, Feb. 28, at Bayshore Arts Center at UW-Green Bay Marinette Campus.
He brings with him a proud heritage of the Menominee people from his roots at the Menominee Nation Reservation in the Keshena area of Northwestern Wisconsin.
“The Menominee Reservation is part of the original homeland (of my ancestors), which goes back to the Ice Age. There are stories of rivers of ice that were here 12,000 years-plus ago. I take that with me in my music.”
A self-taught musician and international performer, Fernandez developed his style from the world around him. His music can be described as folk, country, blues, jazz and traditional.
His award-winning musical talent is merged with exceptional educational abilities that reach out to people in a warm embrace.
“As the second oldest, I was teaching my younger brother to read. When I was in seventh grade, my teacher told my mom I would make a great teacher. It was a natural thing — I like reading and learning and sharing that passion.”
He now has a degree in music education and is a certified teacher.
At age 11, he picked up his father’s guitar and started singing and playing. Shortly after, made his first stage appearance at a school concert.
Sharing a personal story of which many young musicians can relate, he formed a band with a cousin and some friends. While they mostly played cover songs, he would occasionally break free and jam, adding his own creativity.
By the time he graduated from high school, he was singing, playing and interacting at venues and workshops — all with a dream to someday be a performer. But high school evolved to college, marriage and a new baby — and Fernandez saw his future changing.
“Music didn’t have what it gave me when I first started,” he said.
“I thought there had to be something more to music or I needed to get a real job. I thought about quitting.”
He was approached to be the opening act for a Grammy Award-winning artist and he accepted, even though he had no songs of his own to speak of and no band.
One day, as he played with his son and put him down for a nap, “I let it come out.”
In a relatively short period — three months — he had enough songs to fill a CD.
“I borrowed some money, hired a band and a couple other musicians,” and they recorded the CD. A thousand copies arrived just in time for the concert.
Fernandez said the key was “to allow myself to be the instrument and let the music come through rather than trying to force it to be somebody else’s vision.”
He said he learned “to allow whatever comes through to be OK, to be good enough. It was really quite an experience, because during the three months before the concert, there were things coming to me musically.”
Fernandez credits his late grandmother for sharing her voice to some of his writing experiences. Although she died when he was five, he thought often as a young adult how he would love to learn more about her.
He said his parents told him that “hen she was passing, she sang a song in Menominee and the doctor was crying because it was so beautiful.”
“The song about my grandmother, ‘The Spoken Word and the Hand Drum,’ flowed so easily, it was like — I shouldn’t get in the way and say it’s not good enough. I can do a little work to shine it and sand it if it’s a little rough … but for the most part, I think, the energy is there, and it’s so ‘the right thing,’” Fernandez said.
His songs ranged from folk to country to traditional in that first CD, something that continues to be seen in his work.
“All these things were coming out, sort of like magic and it was allowing them to flow, rather than shutting them down. It was almost like there were these pieces of a puzzle laying around. And I was finally putting them together and I could see more of a complete picture of what to do with the gift of music.”
That first album was titled after his Menominee name “Wicīwen Apīs-Mahwaew,” or Walks with the Black Wolf, in 2000.
Fernandez has since released numerous albums, where he plays guitar and the classic six-hole Menominee ironwood flute, pepīkwan. He often performs with his son, Quintin Fernandez.
Fernandez sees his role as an educator to enlighten people about his culture and about their own unique talents.
“When I go to schools, I really encourage students to be open to their gifts, to share those things and to share their individuality. When I come, I am sharing my Menominee culture, but I’m also sharing other cultures that come through me from all my experiences traveling around the world,” he said.
He spoke of himself and other Indigenous artists who strive to share knowledge of their culture through words and music, “We’re such a minority, but we’re also trying to hang on to our language, our culture and our identity.”
“As Menominee people, we were close to losing our language because of things like the [residential] schools,” Fernandez shared.
But through grassroots efforts, there has been a resurgence in teaching the language to children.
While he is not fluent, Fernandez does knows some words and phrases. He will sing some of his songs that are written in the language of his elders at schools and during his community concert performance at the Bayshore Arts Center on the UW-Green Bay Marinette Campus.
This show will begin at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 28.
The concert is free, but tickets are needed for admission and are available at any of the Stephenson National Bank & Trust locations in Marinette, Menominee, Crivitz, Pembine and Wausaukee; the Main Street Antique Mall in Marinette or the Bayshore Arts Center.
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