‘Cahokia Winds’ music video filmed in Cairo, near Wolf Lake

Top 10 Billboard American Roots artist Grant Maloy Smith, of Rhode Island, remade a song that Kevin Lucas wrote in 2007, which was a local Kevin Lucas Orchestra favorite at live shows, called “Cahokia Winds.”

Smith and Lucas filmed a music video for the release at Fort Defiance in Cairo, at the point where the Ohio River and Mississippi rivers converge, and also at Inspiration Point near Wolf Lake.

The song and video pays tribute to the Cahokia Native American civilization, formed about 1,000 years ago in the Mississippi River Valley in the Collinsville area.

The civilization mysteriously vanished about 600 years ago.   

Lucas said he wrote the song in 2007 after a visit to Cahokia Mounds in Collinsville. 

“I lived in a mobile home park in Carbondale at the time, and it was a warm spring day and we had 60 mile-per-hour winds outside, with my home rocking back and forth,” Lucas recalled in a news release.

“The song and lyrics flowed into my head and it took me about five minutes to write, as if it was writing itself.  

“To have an artist of the caliber of Grant Maloy Smith remake my song all these years later is such an honor, and it is what makes being a musician such a blessing.  

“And it is an even greater blessing being able to perform with him.”

The Cahokia Mounds Museum Society in Collinsville has contacted Lucas, voicing praise regarding the song and the video, saying:

“This is a wonderful piece of work! We’re so pleased that Cahokia could inspire you and hope you continue to be inspired.”

Lucas and Smith are scheduled to perform the song at Carnegie Hall in New York City this April as part of the Indie Collaborative organization.  

Lucas was supposed to perform at Carnegie hall in 2020, but the event has been postponed for the past two years because of Covid shutdowns in New York City.

“Covid has affected everybody’s lives,” Lucas said. “ I’m not overly disappointed with the delay, because many people have experienced much worse, so it is what it is.  

“But it’s going to be awesome to perform ‘Cahokia Winds’ this April with Grant at one of the most prestigious venues in the world.”

“Cahokia Winds” can be viewed online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo6-RAEmjoM.