Jim Boyd (1956 – June 22, 2016) was a Native American singer-songwriter, actor, and member of The Jim Boyd Band on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington. Boyd has performed in several groups, including XIT, Greywolf, and Winterhawk. Boyd sang four songs with lyrics by Sherman Alexie on the soundtrack for the 1998 movie Smoke Signals,[1] and also appeared in Alexie's The Business of Fancydancing.
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Boyd was a seven-time Award winner of the Native American Music Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. He has received multiple nominations and awards for his work from the Native American Music Awards over the years. At the Second Annual Native American Music Awards, he took home the award for Best Compilation Recording for the Smoke Signals soundtrack; at the Fifth Annual Awards, he won Record of the Year for his recording, AlterNatives. The next year he took Best Pop/Rock Recording for Live At The Met; at the Seventh Annual Awards he received Record of the Year for Going To The Stick Games; he received Songwriter of the Year at the Eighth Annual Native American Music Awards for Them Old Guitars; he won Best Short Form Music Video for Inchelium at the Ninth Annual Awards; and he received the prestigious Artist of the Year Award at the Tenth Annual Native American Music Awards.
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On November 14, 2014, Jim Boyd was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contributions in the field of Native American music at the15th Annual commemoration held at the Seneca Allegany Casino & Hotel in Salamanca, New York.
REX BEGAYE
From early doodles in the margins of his Tuba City School yearbooks to the master strokes of his paintings in his later life, it was apparent that he was gifted.
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The versatility of his talent showed itself in many ways, from his early careers in the beauty business, quickly segueing into the fashion business, ghost designing for top fashion designers in the 1980s and traveling around the country training professionals and developing new techniques in hair and studio makeup.
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Rex A. Begaye, age 60, was born January 13, 1953 in Tuba City, Arizona. He passed on December 24, 2013 in Sarasota, Florida. His Dineh (Navajo) clans are Hashk’aa Hadzohi (Yucca Fruit), born for Deeshchii’nii (Red streak people), chei are Tsi’naajinii (Black Streak Wood People), and his nalii are Kiyaa’aanii (Towering House).
