Gruff Rhys – known around the world for his work with Super Furry Animals and Neon Neon, as well as his collaborations with Gorillaz, Dangermouse, Sparklehorse and Simian Mobile Disco – has announced his second investigative concert tour of the Americas.
The tour will begin at the Beinecke Library, where John Evans’ map is said to reside in the Lewis & Clark Collection. From there, Rhys will follow in his relative’s footsteps as he investigates Evans’s significance in American history, the true circumstances of his death and the secret location of his burial. Simultaneously he explores how the myths that surround cultural identity are formed and distorted, and how well meaning adventure and beliefs can result in painful colonialism, misadventure and tragedy.
Gruff will seek out the final resting place of his relative John Evans, who left Wales in 1792 on a quest to find a mythical tribe of Welsh speaking Native Americans. Gruff will follow the path of John Evans using film, the written word, photo-story, social media and song to create an investigative road movie and album. The first investigative concert tour was documented in the 2010 feature film Separado!
John Evans – a 22-year old farmhand from the mountains of Snowdonia, Wales – sought a tribe of Welsh-speaking Native Americans still walking the Great Plains, descendants of Prince Madog (widely believed to have discovered America in 1170). During the course of an extraordinary adventure, Evans wrestled the largest river reptiles ever seen in the Mississippi, hunted Bison with the Omaha tribe, defected to the Spanish in St. Louis, discovered imaginary volcanoes in Missouri, annexed North Dakota from the British, and created the map that guided Lewis and Clarke on their legendary expedition. His adventure was cut short when he died broke and out of his mind at 29 in New Orleans. Keep reading at http://www.groundcontroltouring.com/artists/gruff-rhys
