Gary Jeshel Forrester facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Gary (Jeshel) Forrester
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Forrester in Morrisonville, Illinois 2016
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| Born | 3 July 1946 Decatur, Illinois, U.S. |
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| Genre | Novels, poetry, short stories, memoirs, bluegrass |
| Literary movement | Metamodernism |
| Children | Sam Harding Forrester, Joseph Harding Forrester, Lucy Jeshel McCallum, Georgette Brown (step-daughter), Charlotte Rose Forrester, Haz Forrester |
Gary (Jeshel) Forrester (born 3 July 1946) is a talented musician, writer, and teacher. He lives in Rotoiti Forest, New Zealand. People have called him a "modern Renaissance man" because he is good at so many different things.
Gary is a descendant of Native Americans on his mother's side. He moved to New Zealand in 2006. He has written many books and poems. He has also released several music albums.
He used to teach law at universities in places like the University of Melbourne in Australia and Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. In 2024, at 78 years old, he became one of the oldest people to join the Peace Corps. He served in Georgia, a country in Europe, just like he did in Guyana, South America, in the 1960s.
Gary also worked as a lawyer, helping Native American tribes get their rights back through the United States Congress. He wrote a book about American Indian law. He also wrote many articles about the rights of native peoples, the environment, and other legal topics.
One book said that Gary is hard to describe because he has done so much. He has been a lawyer, a teacher, a singer, a musician, a poet, and a writer.
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Gary Forrester's Music
Gary Forrester writes and performs bluegrass, folk, and Americana music. He used the name "Eddie Rambeaux" for some of his early bluegrass songs. These songs appeared on albums like Dust on the Bible (1987) and Uluru (1988).
Between 2015 and 2018, Gary released his first three solo albums. These were Alma Rose, Jeshel, and The Old Churchyard. They featured 30 new songs he wrote.
In 1988, his song "Uluru" was chosen for two special albums by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The ABC said his music was "the cream of a very rich mix" of Australian country music. They felt his songs helped tell the story of Australia.
Gary's music also appeared on a 1996 album called Give Me a Home Among the Gum Trees. He was alongside famous Australian folk artists like Eric Bogle and Judy Small.
A 1991 review said that Gary's songs were always of a very high quality. His bluegrass band, Rank Strangers, sounded like classic bluegrass groups such as The Stanley Brothers.
Country Beat magazine called Dust on the Bible one of the best bluegrass albums in Australia in 1987. They said Gary was "one of the best songwriters living in Australia."
In 1988, The Rank Strangers won many awards at the Australian Gospel Music Awards. They won Best Group, Best Male Vocalist, and Best Song. Their albums were also finalists in the main Australian Country Music Awards in 1989 and 1990.
In 1990, The Rank Strangers came in second place worldwide in a competition. This competition was held by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) in Nashville, Tennessee.
Gary led The Rank Strangers on tours in Australia and America. They performed with bluegrass legends like Bill Monroe and Alison Krauss. Their American tour included shows in Nashville and Kentucky. They even headlined a big music festival in Louisville, Kentucky.
Bluegrass Unlimited magazine said The Rank Strangers had a special way of playing bluegrass. They were proud that the band made their own kind of music popular in Australia. The magazine called their album Uluru "one of the most intellectually stimulating bluegrass works."
A German music critic noted that Gary wrote many songs after his grandfather passed away in 1987. These songs were not always sad. They were often happy and had religious themes, connecting to his grandfather's memory.
Music critic Jeff Harford reviewed Gary's solo albums from 2015–2017. He said Gary's songs were strong enough to be played alongside songs by famous artists like Bob Dylan. Gary's music was simple, often just him, his guitar, and harmonica.
Mike Alexander gave Gary's 2017 album Jeshel a 5-star review. He said Gary's music was honest and down-to-earth. He compared Gary to early Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.
Another critic, James Belfield, called Jeshel a "stunning double album of country folk." He praised Gary's storytelling skills. He said Gary's songs told outlaw country tales as good as those by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.
NZ Musician magazine said the Jeshel album was "packed with well-written and performed songs." They noted Gary's interesting career in music. They especially liked his songs "Hoka Hey" (about Crazy Horse) and Bob Dylan's "Girl of the North Country."
NZ Musician also described Gary's solo songs as "lovely" and "surprisingly complex." They said his voice was like Johnny Cash or Leonard Cohen. His lyrics were interesting and told many stories.
In 2018, Gary released his third solo album, The Old Churchyard. The Sunday Star-Times gave it 4.5 stars. They said Gary was like old-time songwriters who had something important to say. They compared him to early Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. The review noted that Gary weaves his life experiences into his songs. His words are "timely and universal," touching on themes like love and sadness.
NZ Musician magazine said The Old Churchyard was like Johnny Cash's later work. They noted that Gary's guitar sounded very authentic. The songs tell stories, often sad or weary, but with some dark humor.
In 2018, Gary formed a duo called The Dunning-Kruger Effect with Talei Shirley. They recorded an album of historical folk songs. A reviewer called it "melancholic and elegaic."
In April 2020, during New Zealand's COVID-19 lockdown, Gary recorded a new album. He used only his cell phone at his lakeside cabin. He called this collection of songs "The Covid Phone Album."
Gary Forrester's Books
After his band, The Rank Strangers, stopped playing in the 1990s, Gary started writing novels and poetry. He often focused on music and family in his stories.
His first novel, Houseboating in the Ozarks (2006), tells the story of a trip through the American Midwest. It includes fictional parts about a bluegrass band. The book also explores different spiritual traditions, like those of Aboriginal Australia. One review said the book was an "extended meditation on the difficulty of preserving familial and social memory."
His second novel, The Connoisseur of Love, came out in New Zealand in 2012. This book follows Peter Becker, a man who feels a bit out of place in Wellington, New Zealand. He goes to second-hand shops, rides his bike, plays tennis, and makes music.
FishHead: Wellington's Magazine called The Connoisseur of Love a "comprehensive love song" to Wellington. Another review said the novel was "smartly written" and had a "unique point of view."
Gary's third novel, Begotten, Not Made, is about a wandering musician and his deaf friend. They go on a walking marathon from New York to San Francisco in the 1920s. A part of this novel was published in an anthology with other famous writers.
His fourth novel, More Deaths than One, was published in 2014. It's a journey from New Zealand to America. The main character searches for the meaning of life and the roots of a famous writer. A New Zealand writer said the book was "amazing" and "reads like a classic."
Poems from Gary's 2009 book, The Beautiful Daughters of Men, have appeared in many journals. This book tells the story of two people who move to New Zealand: a woman from Chechnya and a dying man.
In 2011, Gary's memoir, Blaw, Hunter, Blaw Thy Horn, was published. A memoir is a book about a person's own life. This book tells the story of his parents, Harry and Rose, and their lives in Illinois. It talks about his father, Harry Forrester, who was a basketball coach. Harry was famous for playing five Black players on his team in the 1950s. This was a very brave decision at a time when there was a lot of racial segregation.
Gary also wrote short stories. "A Kilgore Trout Moment" (2010) is a funny story about a poet at a baseball writing conference. "Tulips" (2012) was also published in a legal journal.
In 2019, Gary wrote a light-hearted history book about a bookstore in New Zealand called McLeods. It was titled "Dave Thorp as Metaphor." In 2023, his full biography of writer Philip F. Deaver was published.
Helping Native American Tribes
Gary Forrester is a descendant of Cherokee tribal members and Appalachian Melungeons. He learned bluegrass music from two members of the Lakota tribe in the early 1980s. This was while he was working to protect Indian tribal rights in South Dakota.
He lived on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation and helped members of the American Indian Movement. He also helped Lakota clients prepare for interviews for a famous book called In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.
As the Director of the Native American Program for Oregon Legal Services in the mid-1980s, Gary represented several American Indian tribes. He helped the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Klamath Tribes get their treaty rights back. These rights had been taken away for many years. He worked with important people like Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse and Senators Mark Hatfield and Ted Kennedy.
Gary also represented Indian clients in court cases. His 1990 book, Digest of American Indian Law, came from his lectures at the Lewis & Clark Law School. He taught law at several universities and wrote a lot about the rights of native peoples.
Gary was given the honorary Lakota name "Jeshel." This name means both "meadowlark" and "messenger." He received it after a special event at a sundance in South Dakota in 1981. During the ceremony, a meadowlark landed on his shoulder. The medicine man, Frank Fools Crow, then gave him the name "Jeshel."
Gary Forrester's Life Story
Gary Forrester was born in Decatur, Illinois, in 1946. He grew up in central Illinois. But he has spent most of his adult life living in other countries.
His father, Harry Forrester, was a basketball and baseball coach. He was honored for his important work helping African-American athletes in the 1950s. At that time, sports were often separated by race. Harry was brave enough to play Black players, making history.
Gary's mother, Alma Rose Grundy, was a teacher and piano player. Her family included musicians. One of them was Otto Funk, known as "the Walking Fiddler." He played his violin every step of the way from New York to San Francisco in 1929. This was a walk of over 4,000 miles! Gary wrote about this journey in his novel Begotten, Not Made.
After high school, Gary worked to pay for university. He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. This means he believed war was wrong and chose to serve his country in a different way. He joined the Peace Corps and taught math in Guyana, South America.
Gary earned degrees in Mathematics and English Literature. He then became a lawyer. He worked for a judge before moving to Australia. There, he taught at the University of Melbourne. He became friends with an Aboriginal leader named Brian Kamara Willis. This friendship made Gary interested in the rights of native peoples. He then moved to the USA to work on Indian reservations.
After helping the Grand Ronde and Klamath tribes in Oregon, Gary wrote his book on Indian law. He then returned to Australia to form The Rank Strangers band. He also helped Aboriginal clients as a lawyer. He was involved in politics, advising leaders on Aboriginal affairs.
In the 1990s, Gary and his family lived on an organic farm in Australia. They used special farming methods called permaculture. He also worked with a priest to help homeless children. He taught law and wrote newspaper columns.
In 2000, Gary became a professor at the University of Illinois. In 2006, after protesting the war in Iraq, he and his family moved to Wellington, New Zealand. There, he wrote poems and novels.
From 2007 to 2016, he taught at Victoria University of Wellington. He also helped people with legal advice at the Wellington Community Law Centre.
Images for kids
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Forrester with Bill Monroe, Owensboro, Kentucky, 1990
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Forrester with Ralph Stanley on the banks of the Ohio River, Owensboro, Kentucky, 1990
