New England Music Scrapbook
The Natives

Merrie Amsterburg came to Boston from Michigan in the mid-1980s. Not much later, she performed in a local band which went by the colorful name, Miss Understood. By 1988, Amsterburg was singing and playing guitar (Telecaster) in a new band, the Natives, which outfit may be best remembered today for her membership and the membership of guitarist Peter Linton. Amsterburg became the band's main songwriter. By December 1988, Brett Milano was advising the readers of the Boston Globe that the Natives was one band to keep an eye on. He reported one concert when they "mixed some country-blues touches with their hard guitar pop."

Milano's review is notable for its apparent rarity. We sifted through a huge portion of the New England Music Scrapbook's archives looking for information about the Natives and found only two brief contemporary notices. In the second, from January 1993, Steve Morse said the group was "not yet a widely known Boston band." He got that right. Morse reported that the Natives' music was being described as "a kind of cross between Bonnie Raitt and 10,000 Maniacs."

Oddly, for a local band that seems to have gotten little attention around Boston, the Natives had not one but two brushes with major labels and national recognition. In the first, they were signed to Simmons Records, though Gene Simmons of Kiss ultimately never really got this label going.

The second major-label scare involved the Instant imprint of SBK Records, which was distributed by industry giant EMI. Richard Gottehrer signed the Natives and produced some recordings that, as far as we know, have never been released. Amsterburg said that this experience, like the earlier one, was valuable for the way it showed "how things can get lost in the chain of command."

All-too-familiar contractual difficulties followed, and the Natives broke up in 1994. The Instant Records deal actually worked out for Amsterburg in an indirect way. The Natives recorded at Q Division; and when the proprietors thought to start their own label, Amsterburg was among the first artists they hoped to sign. She has gone on to release two excellent albums. Merrie Amsterburg will be the subject of her own New England Music Scrapbook profile. -- Alan Lewis