Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
Lee Tiger — a Grammy-nominated musician and environmentalist who helped forge the Native rock movement in the 1960s and 1970s — died Jan. 5, 2023, after a lengthy illness in Davie, Florida. He was 72.
Tiger, the son of the first chief of the Miccosukee after the tribe split from the Seminole, played with the band, Seven of Us (later known as NRBQ), while living in Los Angeles, before he and his brother Stephen formed Tiger Tiger in the 1960s.
Tiger Tiger broke stereotypes about Native musicians, and the brothers rubbed shoulders with such famed musicians as Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters, the Grateful Dead and Johnny Winter.
The Tiger brothers “were musicians who just happened to be Native Americans,” Lee Tiger told New Times Broward-Palm Beach in 2015.
Their last commercially produced album, “Southern Exposure,” in 2000 received a Grammy nomination, and they received a lifetime achievement award in 2006 from the Native American Music Association.
In the 1970s, the brothers returned to help their father in Florida, where Lee Tiger launched the Miccosukee Indian Arts Festival and helped establish Miccosukee Village in the Everglades as an entertainment and eco-tourist destination.
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Lee continued to focus on marketing and tourism for the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes of Florida, and helped develop the Seminole Tribe’s Swamp Safari.
“He was a beautiful soul who advocated for unity between cultures through respect for one another and envisioned a world where we could all come together through peace, love, and caring for our Mother Earth,” Curtis E. Osceola, the chief of staff for the Miccosukee Tribe, said in a statement Monday, Jan. 9.
“Lee is sorely missed by his family and friends but we will always have his music to remind him of his message of unity, ‘One Earth, One People, Come Together Right Now,’” Osceola said.
Stephen Tiger died from a fall in 2006. Lee is survived by his sons, Eric and Calvin Tiger, and daughter, Summer Tiger, and several grandchildren. A graveside service was set for 10 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10, at Woodlawn Park South in Miami, Florida.
From chickee huts to the Grammys
Born May 12, 1950 to Buffalo and Yolima Tiger, Calvin Lee Tiger grew up with his brother in the Everglades to what he told New Times was a “different world.”
“We didn’t have bathrooms; we didn’t have lights,” he said. “We just had lanterns. But that was all right. Man adapts to what’s around him, and that’s what we had.”
The brothers began making music when they were young.
“We found two plastic guitars that were actually tunable,” Lee Tiger said. “So we tuned them up and we started learning to play off those things. It worked.”
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The boys performed at chickee huts, skating rinks and sock hops in and around the Everglades, to an older crowd that didn’t know rock music and to a younger generation that was eager to learn about it.
They had grown up watching their father, who had a major role in the development of the Miccosukee’s tribal status. In 1958, after the U.S. government failed to meet a deadline to recognize the Miccosukee as a tribe, leaders reached out to neighboring nations for recognition.
Buffalo Tiger and other leaders then traveled to Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro after an invitation that was “brought on by the country’s remembrance of a treaty between the Miccosukee Tribe and Spain dating back to the 1700s,” he wrote in his father’s obituary.
After Cuba recognized the tribe as a sovereign nation, the U.S. government relented and granted federal recognition in 1962, but only if the tribe renounced Cuba’s recognition. Buffalo Tiger was the tribe’s chairman from 1962-1985. He died in 2015 at age 94.
As teenagers in the 1960s, the two brothers formed the group, Sun Country, which later became Tiger Tiger. But after a management deal turned sour, their father brought them back to Miccosukee lands to launch the Miccosukee Indian Arts Festival in 1974.
The festival led to Lee’s lifetime involvement in tribal tourism development and community relations.
“I guess my father had foresight beyond me at the time,” Lee told New Times.
‘Culture and identity’
Lee Tiger served on a variety of public commissions and organizations, state tourism committees, and national tribal organizations that developed multiple business ventures and products. He consulted for universities, institutions, and other officials on Indigenous issues and concerns.
In recent years, he collaborated with local artists such as Houston Cypress to bring attention to Indigenous rights and environmental conservation.
His death brought swift reaction on social media.
“Our hearts are with the family and friends of Lee Tiger as we acknowledge his passing by honoring his legacy of arts, advocacy, international diplomacy, peace and unity, and Indigenous pride,” Cypress, of the Love the Everglades Movement, posted on Facebook.
“We thank Lee Tiger for standing up for the Greater Everglades for so many years and we will remember him fondly.”
Osceola said Lee Tiger was an “advocate and ambassador” for the Miccosukee people.
“Lee carried with him the identity of Miccosukee, to care for the world around you like family and always shared his culture and identity with anyone who was interested,” Osceola said. “Lee was a Miccosukee Patriot and his love of country, culture, and identity is one that we should all aspire to have.”
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