Tag: Music
The Concerto Inspired by Tahrir Square
by Jim Benning | 01.25.12 | 6:12 PM ET
Arab American composer Mohammed Fairouz watched the uprising in Tahrir Square on TV a year ago today. As he looked on, with the volume off, he began composing a piece of music. “Tahrir for Clarinet and Orchestra,” now complete, is “the first movement of what will eventually become a concerto in three movements,” according to a fascinating report on PRI’s The World.
You can hear the movement in its entirety below, but the radio segment is well worth a listen, particularly Fairouz discussing the various facets of the uprising he was trying to evoke through the music.
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Yahoo! BuzzInterview with Henry Rollins: Punk Rock World Traveler
by Jim Benning | 11.02.11 | 12:40 PM ET
Jim Benning asks the musician about his new book of photographs and how travel has humbled him
Mariachi El Bronx, Metalachi and the Rise of Mariachi Fusion
by Jim Benning | 07.29.11 | 11:17 AM ET
Is it just me or is mariachi-rock fusion a thing these days?
There’s Metalachi, which, as its name suggests, mixes heavy metal and mariachi. The combo has resulted in some intriguing songs, including an unlikely cover of Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law.”
There’s Tucson-based Calexico, whose mariachi-infused rock is so evocative of the American southwest.
And now there’s Mariachi El Bronx, a side project of the Los Angeles punk band The Bronx. The group’s second mariachi album will be released Aug. 2, and it just earned a rave review from NPR.
Mariachi El Bronx sings in English and plays with more abandon than the typical buttoned-down folkloric mariachi ensemble. But its songs follow the strict conventions of the form to the letter.
When I heard the first Mariachi El Bronx record in 2009, it struck me as a bit of a clever gimmick—you know, dress a punk up in an elaborate charro suit and watch what happens. On II, inside the tales of lost love and other tragedies, there’s plenty of tradition balanced by shots of pure joy and irreverence. And that makes all the difference.
It sounds pretty good to my ear. Here’s a taste:
R.I.P. Facundo Cabral, Argentine Folk Singer
by Jim Benning | 07.11.11 | 1:27 PM ET
Latin America lost one of its great folk singers over the weekend when Facundo Cabral was gunned down while on tour in Guatemala. He was 74.
The singer-songwriter in the nueva trova tradition railed against oppressive dictatorships in South America and wrote novels and non-fiction. He was riding in a car to the airport in Guetamala City when it was ambushed. Officials suspect a nightclub owner also in the car was the intended target of the attack.
From a New York Times story:
Many of Mr. Cabral’s songs mixed expressions of mystical spirituality with a desire for social justice, which gave him a reputation as a protest singer. That proved dangerous after the Argentine military seized power in a coup in March 1976, and he fled to Mexico, where he remained in exile until after the collapse of the Argentine dictatorship in 1982. On his return, in 1984, Mr. Cabral was more popular than ever.
His sold-out concerts were an unusual mixture of music and the spoken word, with songs preceded by long introductions in which he would muse on philosophy and religion and often quote from his favorite poets, including Borges and Walt Whitman, and spiritual masters like Gandhi and Mother Teresa.
Here’s Cabral performing one of his classics:
Listen to This: Aurelio Martinez and ‘Mayahuaba’
by Jim Benning | 06.28.11 | 10:49 AM ET
Aurelio is a Honduran musician and member of the Garifuna community. This song is from his new album, Laru Beya. It makes me happy.
Cross-posted from JimBenning.Net.
Rapping About Travel in Kenya, Mzungu-Style
by Jim Benning | 06.08.11 | 3:03 PM ET
Afar magazine sent filmmaker Jorma Taccone to Kenya, where he co-wrote a travel-related song with a Nairobi rapper named Rabbit and shot a video. Considering its mzungu origins, it’s not half bad.
Expat Pleasures: Jimmy Buffett, Live in Paris
by Eva Holland | 09.29.10 | 12:56 PM ET
Jim Manzi is living in Paris, where a recent Buffett concert has him reflecting on the expat experience:
One of the many great things about living here is the fun of having typically American experiences completely out-of-context. The annual late-September Buffett concert in Paris has become, like the seven-a-sides in Hong Kong, a ritual gathering point for expats for thousands of miles around. This created a hilarious Anglophone bubble in the middle of Paris. About the only French I heard came from Jimmy at the mic (who, having lived here years ago, still seems to have pretty passable French).
A surprising number of his songs reference the city. In fact, he closed the concert with a great acoustic version of He Went to Paris, which is a song that Bob Dylan cited as one of his favorite tunes by one of his favorite songwriters. Though not many of us here are living a Lost Generation literary life, it still felt very bonding.
I can relate. One of my favorite weekends, during the year I lived in England, was spent preparing a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner and tossing a football around the backyard with other North American students—funny, since pigskin and pumpkin pie are no part of my life at home, however “typical” they are supposed to be. As Manzi points out, context is everything when you’re living abroad.
After the Nashville Flood: Grand Ole Opry House Reopens
by Eva Holland | 09.28.10 | 2:15 PM ET
USA Today has video from the restored venue, which opens its doors again tonight for the first time since Nashville’s disastrous spring flooding. The Grand Ole Opry itself stayed on the airwaves—as it has since 1925—broadcasting from other, undamaged locations around the city while its home received a $20 million renovation. Says longtime Opry member Marty Stuart: “It was time for a freshening up, so on the silver side of the flood, it’s like, ‘Thanks, God, for the flood and the insurance check.’”
World Hum columnist Tom Swick made it to one of those relocated Opry broadcasts, at the Ryman Auditorium, this summer. He wrote:
There was still the homey banter and the chummy words from sponsors, the easy mixing of newcomers and old-timers. A student at the New England Conservatory (playing fiddle and singing) followed Jack Greene (singing “Statue of a Fool”). As natural as this assemblage of young and old seemed—conscious preservation of the unbroken circle—it constituted something rarely seen in popular music today.
Four Great Gringo Songs About Mexico
by Jim Benning | 09.17.10 | 2:10 PM ET
We just linked to a list of the 10 “most Mexican” songs of all time, and that got me thinking about my favorite songs about Mexico that aren’t Mexican at all—songs that were, in fact, written and recorded by gringos.
Here are my top four. What are yours?
‘Mexico’ by James Taylor
‘Mexican Radio’ by Wall of Voodoo
The 10 ‘Most Mexican’ Songs of All Time
by Jim Benning | 09.16.10 | 3:05 PM ET
El Universal has offered up a list of the 10 “canciones más mexicanas.” Great stuff from Jose Alfredo Jimenez, Jorge Negrete and others.
Here’s one that made the list, Pedro Infante singing “Cielito Lindo”:
(Via NPR’s Multi-American blog)
David Byrne’s ‘Bicycle Diaries’ Audio Book to Feature Music, Sounds
by Jim Benning | 09.09.10 | 1:34 PM ET
The “Bicycle Diaries” audio book comes out Sept. 28. I’m intrigued. From DavidByrne.com:
The audiobook version of Bicycle Diaries is available as individual chapters in a podcast-style download exclusively via this site. In addition to music and narration by DB, it also features location sounds, creating an atmosphere more akin to a radio show than a simple reading of the book.
We published Cycle Killer, an excerpt from the book, last year.
What We Loved This Week: Rachid Taha, Fall Colors at Alaska’s Denali Park and More
by World Hum | 09.03.10 | 3:49 PM ET
Jim Benning
Algerian musician Rachid Taha. I discovered him recently on a flight—he was a featured artist on Delta’s in-flight audio entertainment system. He has covered the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah.” Here’s a taste of something perhaps slightly less familiar:
Classic Album Covers—With Tacos
by Jim Benning | 09.02.10 | 3:42 PM ET
Brilliant.
Just one example of many:
And the World’s Most Prolific Pop-Music-Producing Nation Is ...
by Eva Holland | 08.17.10 | 5:13 PM ET
Sweden—at least, it is if you adjust for national GDP while measuring any given country’s share of the pop music market. Foreign Policy has a cool explanatory graphic.
Don’t worry, America: Writer Joshua Keating also notes that “the world’s most popular artists, no matter where they’re from, often perform rock, R&B, and hip-hop tunes that are unmistakably American in origin.” USA! USA! (Via @nobauerm)
Video You Must See: ‘Newport (Ymerodraeth State of Mind)’
by Michael Yessis | 07.29.10 | 12:25 PM ET
In this Welsh town, "Chips, cheese, curry makes you feel brand new." Take that New York and Jay-Z.
Paste Picks 50 State Songs for the 21st Century
by Eva Holland | 07.19.10 | 2:01 PM ET
The magazine thought most states could use an update, so they picked a fresh 50, drawing only from songs written since the turn of the century. It’s a diverse list; Paste’s Josh Jackson notes that “[s]ome are marked improvements, while others might not have quite the boosterism state tourism boards long for.” Indeed. (Via @JennaSchnuer)
How High Was the Water, Mama?
by Tom Swick | 07.06.10 | 12:07 PM ET
After the flood, Nashville sings its way out of trouble
Audio Story: Tagish Elvis and Me
by Pam Mandel | 06.23.10 | 8:50 AM ET
In Skagway, Alaska, Pam Mandel finds an unlikely way to salvage a bad trip
From James Brown to the Spice Girls: A Soundtrack for the Road
by Eva Holland | 06.10.10 | 3:13 PM ET
In the Globe and Mail, Peter Cheney looks back on four decades of road trips, and the music that accompanied them. It’s a good read—here’s a taste:
Music always seems best on the road. As a little boy, I strained to hear the Jackson Five over a fading AM station as my dad drove our 1963 Mercury Comet from Calgary to Kingston in the dead of winter. The Comet only had a single, tinny speaker, but the Jackson’s never sounded quite as good as they did that winter day, their voices soaring over the hum of our studded snow tires.
Indeed. We offered our picks for the ultimate travel soundtrack here.
Cuban Folk Singer Silvio Rodrígues Touring U.S.
by Jim Benning | 06.08.10 | 5:02 PM ET
In 1999, two years before we created World Hum, Michael Yessis came back from a month-long trip to Spain and told me about a song he’d heard in a bar in Madrid. Two nights in a row, sometime well after midnight, the bartender played an anthemic folk song on the stereo called “Ojalá,” and as Mike recalled it, each time the song came on, the patrons erupted in singing, with dozens of locals joining in.
He wasn’t sure what the song was about, but he thought I’d like it, and sure enough, when I finally tracked down a copy of it, I did. I’ve been a big fan of its singer-songwriter, Silvio Rodríguez, ever since.
Finally, the Cuban folk singer, now 63, is touring the U.S. He has already played to a sold-out Carnegie Hall—this New York Times piece and this Christopher Baker blog post are well worth a read—and he’s scheduled to play Oakland, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Orlando.
Rodriguez is a controversial figure outside of Cuba. Many Cuban exiles despise him because he has, at times, defended the Revolution. I love him for his music, not his politics. Besides, as the New York Times put it, “Through the decades Mr. Rodríguez has become more poet than propagandist.” He sings about life.
How excited am I about this tour? I’m going to reschedule a flight and eat a hefty penalty fee so I can see him play.
Here’s a video of Rodriguez performing “Ojalá” in Madrid’s Plaza de Toros—you can hear the crowd singing along, line for line, and imagine the scene in that Madrid bar. I’ve since heard the song played by folk singers in cafes and bars from Mexico to Argentina. It’s wildly popular. Its meaning is the subject of great debate.
The version of the song below is available on the album “Mano a Mano”—an excellent live album that also features Spanish trovador Luis Eduardo Aute performing.
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