1 00:00:07,350 --> 00:00:11,310 Welcome to Big Ears Conversations About Music, a 2 00:00:11,310 --> 00:00:14,070 podcast brought to you by Big Ears Festival. 3 00:00:14,710 --> 00:00:17,990 Each episode brings the listener into dialogue with performers, 4 00:00:17,990 --> 00:00:21,550 composers and artistic visionaries shaping the sounds 5 00:00:21,550 --> 00:00:24,470 of today. These are the stories, sounds, 6 00:00:24,470 --> 00:00:28,190 and ideas animating our global music ecosystem. 7 00:00:28,790 --> 00:00:31,630 I'm Sarah Gilletti. We're glad you're here. 8 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:43,800 Today on the podcast, we have a special treat, a live 9 00:00:43,800 --> 00:00:47,840 conversation that took place during Big Years 2025 between 10 00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:53,120 NPR music critic and author and Powers and legendary producer, 11 00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:57,000 historian and author Joe Boyd. Have a listen. 12 00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:07,880 I have Joe Boyd here. I should be able to figure out 13 00:01:07,880 --> 00:01:10,280 how to use a mic. You can help me. 14 00:01:11,960 --> 00:01:16,560 Well, first of all, let's just can we all agree? 15 00:01:16,720 --> 00:01:20,200 See, like he, he did it for Dylan and he's doing it for me. 16 00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:27,040 Can we just all agree that having Joe at the festival this 17 00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:32,440 year has been such a mitzvah, such an amazing blessing, as is 18 00:01:32,440 --> 00:01:37,040 one of the what really one of the ruling spirits of the 19 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:40,520 festival this year? The feeling is very mutual. 20 00:01:41,600 --> 00:01:43,480 It's been incredible this festival. 21 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:49,320 It's just everyday, you know, wonders unopened. 22 00:01:49,840 --> 00:01:53,320 It's it is and and old friends, people you've never met before, 23 00:01:53,320 --> 00:01:56,960 people haven't seen for years, but also just the spirit of 24 00:01:56,960 --> 00:01:59,920 people and the audiences. Yeah, the audiences are. 25 00:01:59,920 --> 00:02:04,480 They listen. Yes, you know that never happens 26 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:08,000 I. Mean not always it's it's, but 27 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:13,040 it's great to see so many music lovers and loving so much 28 00:02:13,040 --> 00:02:15,160 different kinds of music. It's so true. 29 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:19,400 You and I were talking the other day and you know, the thing 30 00:02:19,400 --> 00:02:23,440 about trying to design A talk with you, Joe, is that it would 31 00:02:23,440 --> 00:02:25,320 have to be sort of like Christian Markley's. 32 00:02:25,320 --> 00:02:28,520 The clock would have to go on forever for 24 hours, never 33 00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:33,720 stopping. And but we talked about how we 34 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:37,320 will definitely hit on some of the amazing events and 35 00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:40,360 connections that we know from your memoir, White Bicycles. 36 00:02:40,360 --> 00:02:43,240 Anybody out there read that amazing memoir? 37 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:49,520 But we're really here to focus on Joe's new book and what he's 38 00:02:49,520 --> 00:02:52,400 been up to lately, which is called And the roots of Rhythm 39 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:56,040 remain. And I don't know if we have a 40 00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:57,120 copy. I wish we did. 41 00:02:57,120 --> 00:02:59,040 Because it's I got 1 backstage. Wait, I should? 42 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:02,000 Wait. Here we go demo. 43 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:05,440 I just want you to see. Just wave it in the air. 44 00:03:05,440 --> 00:03:07,280 Look at that thing. Come on now. 45 00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:11,200 Any writers in this room, you are now put to shame because 46 00:03:11,680 --> 00:03:13,480 this is serious. Thank you so much. 47 00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:17,960 We we discussed with the publishers the idea of offering 48 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:23,120 Sherpa with the purchase, you know, but that was a bit bit 49 00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:25,680 costly. I, I, I think I told you that my 50 00:03:25,680 --> 00:03:29,840 method of reading was to set it on the dining room table. 51 00:03:30,320 --> 00:03:34,800 My husband can attest to this. And, and, and just read like 52 00:03:34,800 --> 00:03:37,840 sort of like the Talmud every night or something, like read a 53 00:03:37,840 --> 00:03:40,880 little bit of it and that, and it's a wonderful read. 54 00:03:40,880 --> 00:03:42,720 It's amazing read. And my first question for you is 55 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:45,760 kind of a craft question, writer to writer. 56 00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:52,080 How did you decide to write this book at this length with this 57 00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:54,840 structure, rather than say, I mean, honestly, you could have 58 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:56,120 written 8 books. It's it. 59 00:03:56,600 --> 00:04:00,680 This book travels from Graceland, as we heard, and 60 00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:07,160 through Africa, Brazil, Eastern Europe, the Argentina. 61 00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:10,400 Wherever the rhythms travelled, you travel. 62 00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:12,760 How did you decide to on the structure? 63 00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:17,720 Well, the the structure actually was in my head that way from the 64 00:04:17,720 --> 00:04:23,680 beginning. I think the idea was, you know, 65 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:26,800 people asked me after white bicycles, are you going to when 66 00:04:26,800 --> 00:04:28,600 are you going to start the book about the 70s. 67 00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:33,640 I said never, you know, I did not have a fun 70s particularly 68 00:04:33,640 --> 00:04:37,360 and I didn't and nothing in my life paralleled anything that 69 00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:43,840 was going on in the culture. But I have, I'm a voracious, 70 00:04:43,840 --> 00:04:47,480 I've become later in life, not younger, but later in life I've 71 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:51,360 become a voracious reader. And I have shelves and shelves 72 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:55,880 books and very annually organized in alphabetical order 73 00:04:55,880 --> 00:04:59,840 under subjects. And so I have an eye level in my 74 00:04:59,840 --> 00:05:02,480 main hall. I have a one side books about 75 00:05:02,480 --> 00:05:05,160 British music and the other side books about American Music. 76 00:05:05,840 --> 00:05:09,600 And there's so many great books, you know. 77 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:13,960 Here's to books. Nick Tasha's Peter Guralnick, 78 00:05:14,160 --> 00:05:16,000 you know, on and on. Ned Sublett. 79 00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:22,000 And powers, you know, Ned Sublet, you know, but but Ned 80 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:25,040 was an exception because he wrote a very entertaining book 81 00:05:25,040 --> 00:05:27,520 about Cuban music. But the thing that struck me was 82 00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:33,520 we have so much literature about Anglo American music, but not 83 00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:39,480 much new journalism or whatever. Entertaining, not academic books 84 00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:41,960 about music of the rest of the world. 85 00:05:42,440 --> 00:05:47,720 And so that was the jumping off point and I felt that the, you 86 00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:51,120 know, I could have written about rumbetiko and fado and South Sea 87 00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:55,360 Islands, Polynesian music, but I decided to limit it to the hits, 88 00:05:55,920 --> 00:06:00,840 the things that we know in our ears, but we don't know the back 89 00:06:00,840 --> 00:06:03,560 story. Everybody knows Indian music and 90 00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:05,680 a bit of samba and Latin dancing. 91 00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:08,160 They probably had a few lessons at some point. 92 00:06:09,360 --> 00:06:13,880 And reggae, of course, and Eastern European Roma music and 93 00:06:14,200 --> 00:06:17,320 the Mystere de Wobble gear choir and and. 94 00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:20,320 We know it on the surface. But yeah, you know it on the 95 00:06:20,320 --> 00:06:22,320 surface and then. Deeper and you make those 96 00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:25,160 connections. And I had a few little things, 97 00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:28,640 little starts, like, for example, the Mr. Air Choir. 98 00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:37,280 I discovered that within the Soviet sphere, the Soviets hated 99 00:06:37,280 --> 00:06:41,200 them and would never invite them to Russia. 100 00:06:42,280 --> 00:06:44,160 And I thought, oh, there's a story. 101 00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:50,000 And, and then the fact that, you know, everybody thought that 102 00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:54,240 Graceland was this wonderful bringing forth of the African 103 00:06:54,240 --> 00:06:57,880 culture of South Africa in defiance of apartheid. 104 00:06:58,320 --> 00:07:02,920 But actually Zulu music was kind of on the side of the government 105 00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:08,160 and there was conflict between Zulus and the ANC, which nobody 106 00:07:08,160 --> 00:07:11,520 buying their Lady Smith Black 1 Basil Records in the Northern 107 00:07:11,520 --> 00:07:14,440 hemisphere was aware of. That's another subject. 108 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:18,640 So that was like where the stories, where the stories began 109 00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:20,120 and. You and you definitely 110 00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:24,280 interweave memoir your your encounters with this music 111 00:07:24,280 --> 00:07:28,000 throughout the book as well, but you do it so gracefully. 112 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:30,000 It is like a top note or something. 113 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:35,000 You know, it's we get the story, we get the story we didn't know, 114 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,200 and then we also get your story all combined. 115 00:07:38,200 --> 00:07:40,080 So was that what you always intended? 116 00:07:40,120 --> 00:07:45,960 Well, I just always felt like there was some stories where my 117 00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:50,240 experience could, you know, bring, make it more personal, 118 00:07:50,240 --> 00:07:55,440 less academic. I was always on a fight with 119 00:07:55,440 --> 00:08:01,440 myself to make sure that it didn't get too academic, too 120 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:03,720 theoretical, too long winded, whatever. 121 00:08:03,720 --> 00:08:08,280 And so if you it's all anecdotes and personality and when I can 122 00:08:08,280 --> 00:08:11,560 bring myself in, I don't know, I think I think you're. 123 00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:16,320 Pretty fascinating guys. Well, but I will thank you for 124 00:08:16,320 --> 00:08:18,600 all the scholars of the world that you also do credit the 125 00:08:18,600 --> 00:08:21,080 scholars because that doesn't always happen. 126 00:08:21,080 --> 00:08:24,720 So really grateful. And in that, in that regard, we 127 00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:29,280 have to credit my wife Andrea, who did such a magnificent job 128 00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:31,160 with the bibliography in the notes and. 129 00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:34,200 It's fantastic. I would have been, I, I, you 130 00:08:34,200 --> 00:08:41,360 know, I was, you know, when I, when I found a quote that I 131 00:08:41,360 --> 00:08:43,640 wanted to use, I would grab it and put it in. 132 00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:46,200 Then I'd read it and I'd say, well, actually, you know, that 133 00:08:46,200 --> 00:08:48,960 might sound better if I took the last sentence and I put it at 134 00:08:48,960 --> 00:08:52,480 the top of the quote. And then when Andrea went 135 00:08:52,480 --> 00:08:55,200 through and checked it, you know, she said, what are you 136 00:08:55,200 --> 00:08:56,440 talking about? You can't do that. 137 00:08:56,960 --> 00:09:00,680 You know, she went to Cambridge. You know, she, she's like. 138 00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:06,280 And so, you know, we had to change things back and be sure 139 00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:08,200 to credit exactly the way it was. 140 00:09:21,600 --> 00:09:25,120 Well, as we were talking about, this book really lays out a 141 00:09:25,120 --> 00:09:28,880 circulatory system or or maybe several intertwined. 142 00:09:28,880 --> 00:09:32,560 I'm not sure if the best metaphor is like, you know, an 143 00:09:32,560 --> 00:09:35,320 astral one or a or a circulatory one. 144 00:09:35,320 --> 00:09:38,120 But you're, you know, music travels via rhythm across 145 00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:41,920 continents and through time and social change is spurred on by 146 00:09:41,920 --> 00:09:46,480 music, but also effects, as you were saying about the Soviets, 147 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:51,320 like social changes and does this state affect how music can 148 00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:53,120 travel? All this happens in the book. 149 00:09:54,280 --> 00:09:57,920 I wondered at what point in your own life, long before you wrote 150 00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:01,280 this book, you started to come to that real, those 151 00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:04,200 realizations, both. Let's let's ask this question in 152 00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:05,320 two parts. Let's start with the 153 00:10:05,320 --> 00:10:07,560 connections. At what point in your life 154 00:10:07,920 --> 00:10:12,040 'cause I think we can maybe hear a little bit of someone who 155 00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:17,440 you're very associated with to illustrate this, but let's just 156 00:10:17,440 --> 00:10:33,080 play a little bit of Nick Drake. Betty came by on the highway, 157 00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:44,080 said she had a word to say about things today. 158 00:10:49,520 --> 00:10:53,240 And before we play anything else, can I just say that 159 00:10:55,280 --> 00:10:58,200 listening to Nick Drake, I didn't have some great 160 00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:02,960 revelation of connection, but it was mysterious to me. 161 00:11:03,600 --> 00:11:07,840 It was the way Nick played the guitar was unlike the way, I 162 00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:11,760 mean, he was full of influence from Davy Graham, sounded a bit 163 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:17,400 like Bert Jantz sometimes or, or, you know, But there were 164 00:11:17,400 --> 00:11:19,880 things in his music that were mysterious. 165 00:11:20,040 --> 00:11:25,440 And some of that mystery was solved when I discovered his 166 00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:29,800 mother's music, which is such a harmonic key to Nick. 167 00:11:30,760 --> 00:11:34,720 But then, since long since his death, and when I didn't have 168 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:40,280 any opportunity to ask him about it, I became intrigued during 169 00:11:40,280 --> 00:11:45,720 the writing of this book with the story of this artist. 170 00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:20,040 And when I, when I began, I mean, I'd always been aware of 171 00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:25,720 João Gilberto and bossa Nova, but studying him and learning 172 00:12:25,720 --> 00:12:31,640 about his, you know, in research for the book, he's so Nick Drake 173 00:12:31,640 --> 00:12:37,400 like in a way, not only in his personality and the way he 174 00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:39,400 isolated. I mean, he would before he 175 00:12:39,400 --> 00:12:43,120 became famous, he used to walk on stage in, in Rio de Janeiro 176 00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:45,240 and play. And if the audience was chatting 177 00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:47,880 and didn't pay attention, he'd just get up and walk off. 178 00:12:48,680 --> 00:12:54,920 And he was a very solitary guy. He invented bossa Nova during 179 00:12:54,920 --> 00:12:58,480 six months he spent in his sister's tile bathroom in a 180 00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:01,680 provincial town way in the north of Brazil. 181 00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:06,200 And there were just other aspects of the story that made 182 00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:10,120 me think of Nick. But I think in answer to your 183 00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:16,040 original question about where, I don't know, there was this when 184 00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:22,920 I as when I was a kid and I had my brother was an equally 185 00:13:22,920 --> 00:13:24,880 passionate listener to to records. 186 00:13:24,880 --> 00:13:26,600 We used to listen to jazz and Blues. 187 00:13:27,160 --> 00:13:32,160 And Jeff Moldor, the singer who many of you may know was with 188 00:13:32,160 --> 00:13:34,640 us, he was our friend and we used to hang out together when 189 00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:41,880 we were 14151617 and listen to Blues and jazz obsessively and 190 00:13:42,600 --> 00:13:47,000 and we were very Snooty about the folk movement that was 191 00:13:47,120 --> 00:13:50,600 growing up. We didn't like all these white 192 00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:55,000 guys with guitars and we thought that was pretty lame and. 193 00:13:55,400 --> 00:13:57,440 That would have been John Jacob Niles. 194 00:13:57,480 --> 00:13:59,480 People like. That well, but even after, even 195 00:13:59,480 --> 00:14:04,480 though we even Joan Baez at first, when I we there was a A10 196 00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:08,120 inch LP that we somehow came across folk singers around 197 00:14:08,120 --> 00:14:13,680 Harvard Square, which was Joan Baez and Ted Alavisos and Jackie 198 00:14:13,680 --> 00:14:20,880 Washington and somebody else. And but when I got to Harvard, I 199 00:14:20,880 --> 00:14:24,080 discovered that they weren't so bad. 200 00:14:24,160 --> 00:14:28,360 You know, there were some pretty interesting singers and they had 201 00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:32,200 collections and there was this atmosphere around Harvard 202 00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:33,400 Square. People who were playing 203 00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:36,840 Leadbelly songs were also listening to those Bahamian 204 00:14:36,840 --> 00:14:38,960 recordings of John Joseph. Spence. 205 00:14:38,960 --> 00:14:41,560 Yeah, well and John Robertson. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, those those 206 00:14:41,560 --> 00:14:44,800 Cham charters things. And also, I went with Jim 207 00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:49,160 Question and Jeff and I don't know a couple of other people 208 00:14:49,320 --> 00:14:53,600 from the Harvard Square folk scene to Jordan Hall to hear Ali 209 00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:58,120 Akbar Khan. And one of the great little 210 00:14:58,120 --> 00:15:01,120 connections that I found in my research was the discovery that 211 00:15:01,800 --> 00:15:07,040 when Yehudi Menuan arranged the very first concert in the West 212 00:15:07,040 --> 00:15:10,640 for Ravi Shankar, Ravi Shankar was going through terrible 213 00:15:10,640 --> 00:15:15,280 problems at home, and he said, I can't go. 214 00:15:15,480 --> 00:15:19,840 And Yehudi was crushed and he said no, but listen, Ali Akbar 215 00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:25,240 Khan, my my friend who was the son of his guru, he'll do it. 216 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:28,680 He'll be great. And he convinced Yahoodi to for 217 00:15:28,760 --> 00:15:31,640 Ali Akbar to go. And then he came later. 218 00:15:31,920 --> 00:15:38,560 And in Harvard Square we had a joke, which was if Ravi Shankar 219 00:15:38,560 --> 00:15:43,640 can't do it, Ali Akbar Khan. And we thought that was really 220 00:15:43,640 --> 00:15:46,200 clever, but we didn't know. But it was true. 221 00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:47,880 That went over big with the girls, right? 222 00:15:47,880 --> 00:15:53,000 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there were girls there who 223 00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:55,760 like that kind of joke. I don't doubt it. 224 00:15:56,880 --> 00:15:59,880 Well, since you brought up Ravi Shankar, you have a wonderful 225 00:15:59,880 --> 00:16:02,720 chapter in this book that actually has been useful to me 226 00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:05,600 since I'm working on something about The Beatles and thinking 227 00:16:05,600 --> 00:16:12,160 about the the connection of that music with an English rock, 228 00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:16,520 classic rock. And this might be another moment 229 00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:18,400 to play something, Andrea, if you think there's something 230 00:16:18,400 --> 00:16:23,040 appropriate because we were talking before about the drone 231 00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:26,880 wars. And you know, Robbie, I love 232 00:16:26,880 --> 00:16:31,120 that chapter because I think what often happens with 233 00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:36,440 Americans and maybe people who are not that well informed is 234 00:16:36,440 --> 00:16:38,760 that, you know, you look at someone from another culture and 235 00:16:38,760 --> 00:16:42,520 you sort of exoticize them, and you don't realize that they're 236 00:16:42,520 --> 00:16:45,480 as cosmopolitan as any American ever was, right? 237 00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:48,320 Some of them. Some of them, good point. 238 00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:50,720 Some of them. Well, Ravi Shankar was 239 00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:54,240 definitely that he was sort of this international Playboy, but 240 00:16:54,240 --> 00:16:57,160 also just to sophisticate, you know, all of those things. 241 00:16:57,440 --> 00:17:03,560 And and I guess my question about this, I was thinking about 242 00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:06,839 that figure of Ravi and then all the English rock bands furiously 243 00:17:06,839 --> 00:17:10,400 competing to get the raga rock song out there and to like 244 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:13,800 impress these guys, right? And I wonder what? 245 00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:15,839 To impress the Indian. Yeah, yeah. 246 00:17:15,839 --> 00:17:19,000 Was that really happening 'cause I wonder how artistic ego 247 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:22,359 factors in to these different. Currents. 248 00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:26,800 I don't know. I mean, I think it was genuinely 249 00:17:26,800 --> 00:17:32,240 revelatory first for John Coltrane, who came upon this 250 00:17:32,280 --> 00:17:35,160 earlier than the folkies did or the rockers did. 251 00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:42,760 But I think for a lot of Western musicians, the discovery that 252 00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:46,000 the tempered scale, the notes on the piano, the frets on the 253 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:50,920 guitar, the valves on the saxophone, we're not absolute. 254 00:17:51,440 --> 00:17:54,320 That is not the only way to make music. 255 00:17:54,920 --> 00:17:57,800 And that and and there's a quote, one of my favorite quotes 256 00:17:57,800 --> 00:18:02,360 in the book I have is Paul McCartney when he he sat all The 257 00:18:02,360 --> 00:18:06,000 Beatles down to listen to a Ravi Shankar raga from beginning to 258 00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:08,200 end. And when the needle takes the 259 00:18:08,200 --> 00:18:11,560 needle off the off the disc and he turns to the other three and 260 00:18:11,560 --> 00:18:15,800 he says, did anyone else notice that they never changed key? 261 00:18:17,480 --> 00:18:23,280 And and you know, the discovery that drone and an improvisation 262 00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:29,960 on a scale based on the drone is actually quite liberating. 263 00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:34,800 And and Mickey Hart says so and I quote him in the book about 264 00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:39,480 how it created jam bands. You know that for. 265 00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:43,240 Better or worse, Yeah. That is the that is the the. 266 00:18:43,480 --> 00:18:46,080 But now it it, and it fueled the Grateful Dead. 267 00:18:46,080 --> 00:18:50,600 You know, this idea that you could just sit on a cord and to, 268 00:18:50,880 --> 00:18:53,800 you know, to a lot of Western musicians, this was great, you 269 00:18:53,800 --> 00:18:57,120 know, and, but the whole idea. Well, Lancome last night, I 270 00:18:57,120 --> 00:18:59,720 don't know who saw Lancome, but they they have. 271 00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:02,920 That's the whole thing that they do is a drone runs through their 272 00:19:03,080 --> 00:19:08,520 they pull the the out of the bog of Irish music, they pull the 273 00:19:08,520 --> 00:19:09,320 drone. Yeah. 274 00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:13,760 And, and Richard Thompson, I mean, Richard Thompson is a 275 00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:18,720 great guitar player, but he it does not ever play Blues. 276 00:19:19,520 --> 00:19:22,800 There's no Blues. There's Blues techniques and 277 00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:26,080 Blues rhythm, but there's no Blues harmony. 278 00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:30,480 It's all bagpipe, which is drone and melody. 279 00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:34,640 That's the basis of all of his solos, everything he does. 280 00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:39,840 And you know, and we talked about Mike Bloomfield, you know, 281 00:19:39,840 --> 00:19:42,560 in East West. And but then you go into John 282 00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:46,560 McLaughlin and you go and and and in a way, you know the the 283 00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:49,760 record, which is credited for being the soundtrack to the most 284 00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:58,960 conceptions of new children ever in history, way kind of blue. 285 00:19:58,960 --> 00:19:59,960 Yeah. Oh yes. 286 00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:06,320 You know, that is very, you know, modal and drone based, you 287 00:20:06,320 --> 00:20:10,880 know, and this and this new sound entered jazz, it entered 288 00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:15,200 rock, it entered, you know, and even when people shift back to 289 00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:21,040 changing chords, it changed the way that they conceive of of 290 00:20:21,160 --> 00:20:24,160 melody and music. I was fascinated to discover 291 00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:27,840 that Indians rock. Every ROG has a different scale, 292 00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:36,320 and every ROG scale goes up one way and descending. 293 00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,640 It's one note different. And isn't it like they're 294 00:20:39,640 --> 00:20:45,400 associated with different seasons or or yeah, like times 295 00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:46,840 of day, right. It's. 296 00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:49,200 Which is. Which is how the Monterey Pop 297 00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:51,640 Festival came to be. Oh, do tell that story. 298 00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:56,040 Because Robbie, when he started touring America and it became 299 00:20:56,040 --> 00:21:01,360 famous and people were booking him for concerts, he would, they 300 00:21:01,360 --> 00:21:03,000 would always be evening concerts. 301 00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:07,520 And so he can only ever play evening ragas, but there are 302 00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:09,800 morning ragas and afternoon ragas. 303 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:15,880 And so his his manager had this idea, hey, let's do this. 304 00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:21,640 Let's book the fairgrounds in Monterey for an afternoon raga. 305 00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:26,240 And so they booked Ravi into the Monterey fairgrounds for an 306 00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:30,240 afternoon raga. And then one of the promoters 307 00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:33,160 there said, well, since all the hippies are going to come down 308 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:37,560 from San Francisco to see Ravi, let's have a show at night with 309 00:21:37,560 --> 00:21:41,440 some of their bands. And so then the whole thing 310 00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:47,600 just, you know, grew like Topsy and and everybody suddenly 311 00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:50,560 wanted in on it. And the only musician who got 312 00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:55,240 paid for Monterey was Ravi because because he had a 313 00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:59,520 contract to get paid 3000 bucks for this afternoon raga. 314 00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:15,800 Wow. Well, let's journey from from 315 00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:19,760 India to Cuba for a second because you have a great chapter 316 00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:23,440 on Cuba. And I think one of the 317 00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:26,720 fascinating things that happens in this book is that you look at 318 00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:33,160 how politics and mythology and St. level musical dissemination 319 00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:38,160 just among musicians and tourism and so many other factors going 320 00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:41,320 to forming or distorting a musical lineage. 321 00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:45,240 And the case of soul and music in Cuba is definitely one. 322 00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:48,880 And you write that in the 30s, you asked, there was a question 323 00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:53,800 being asked, was Afro Cuban music a source of national pride 324 00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:57,440 or shame? Cultural and political leaders 325 00:22:57,760 --> 00:22:59,880 seemed unsure. And I think this is something 326 00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:05,200 that kind of echoes through a lot of a lot of the stories you 327 00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:07,960 tell. You know, in what ways does the 328 00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:12,400 involvement of the state distort the flow of music or encourage 329 00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:16,280 the flow of music? You know, how how did you like, 330 00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:18,840 how did you witness that? And how is that part of the 331 00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:23,680 stories? Well, I think there's three big 332 00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:29,680 tectonic plates that dominate many of the forces that I 333 00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:37,760 describe in the book, 2 of them, religion and the state, both of 334 00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:45,360 which are generally unnerved if not generally freaked out by the 335 00:23:45,360 --> 00:23:51,360 sensuality of dancing drums. And the fact that there's a 336 00:23:51,360 --> 00:23:54,880 quote in there from, I can't remember, from somebody writing 337 00:23:54,880 --> 00:24:00,800 about post communist Europe, so that your music reaches people 338 00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:07,680 at a part inside them in a place that the state cannot access. 339 00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:08,360 Interesting. Wow. 340 00:24:09,360 --> 00:24:14,800 That it it, you know, when you're listening to music, that 341 00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:20,280 experience cannot be manipulated or changed or prevented by the 342 00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:22,760 state. And the same thing with 343 00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:24,080 religion. I mean, you know, and one of the 344 00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:27,720 stories, that one thing I found fascinating in the story of the 345 00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:31,800 Roma who came into Europe and went everywhere and learned how 346 00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,320 to play the local music better than the locals could. 347 00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:44,520 They were persecuted, jailed, murdered, exiled by religious 348 00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:49,680 and political leaders and by the bourgeoisie because they were 349 00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:55,760 unrespected, not respectable. The poor people love them. 350 00:24:57,280 --> 00:25:00,880 Interesting because particularly in the wake of the Black Death 351 00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:05,320 and the 100 Years War and all the turmoil of middle medieval 352 00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:08,800 Europe, the church said it's all your fault. 353 00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:10,600 You're sinners, you're being punished. 354 00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:13,960 And you know, and the government wanted to exert control over 355 00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:17,040 everything. And the Roma came in and just 356 00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:20,920 played for dances, and everybody just let their hair down and 357 00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:25,160 picked up their skirts and pranced around and danced, you 358 00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:26,960 know, And they love the Roma for that. 359 00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:32,520 One of the points you touched on about Cuba is something that 360 00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:36,520 repeats again and again and again throughout this book or 361 00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:42,600 throughout the story of music in the world, the bourgeoisie 362 00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:45,800 particularly, and government in league with governments very 363 00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:51,000 often. I mean, here's ironic fact 364 00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:56,760 number one in my book. Desi Arnaz, who built his career 365 00:25:56,760 --> 00:26:01,200 playing the conga drum and used Babalu IA as a theme song for 366 00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:06,720 the biggest television show in American history, was the son of 367 00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:13,480 the mayor of Santiago, Cuba, who outlawed the conga drum in 368 00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:19,160 public because he was so freaked out with the way at Carnival 369 00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:24,600 time, white women would join the comparsus, you know, would March 370 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,120 in the street and dance in the street with the conga drums. 371 00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:31,440 And he said this is giving the wrong impression to foreigners 372 00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:33,720 and this is unsettling our youth. 373 00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:39,520 And so they were banned and and the carnivals and that street 374 00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:43,160 music, Afro, Cuban street music was banned from the middle 20s 375 00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:46,040 until up until the late 30s in much of Cuba. 376 00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:49,000 And the thing that changed it, and this is the point that you 377 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:52,080 were getting, I think that I took from what you were your 378 00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:58,160 question is that the thing that changed it was tourists because 379 00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:00,880 they want, hey, we're in Cuba, we want to have a party. 380 00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:06,320 Where's the street party? And and so many times there's 381 00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:10,800 music that is discarded or suppressed in a culture and 382 00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:13,800 outsiders say, wait a minute, that's great. 383 00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,160 We want to hear that. I think really we want to hear 384 00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:19,200 that. Oh, well, if we can make some 385 00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:23,200 money off it, I guess we can, you know, let you let it play. 386 00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:29,520 And time and time again, you know, foreigners have a 387 00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:34,320 different take. And there's a quote from Mikhail 388 00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:38,040 Bakhteen in my book about the only, I mean, which is 389 00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:41,240 contentious. Well, it's contentious. 390 00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:44,640 Well, it's contentious. It's I'm not, I don't defend the 391 00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:47,160 quote absolutely, but it's an interesting point of view, he 392 00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:49,040 says. The only way to really 393 00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:52,200 accurately view a culture is from the outside. 394 00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,560 Oh, interesting. The people inside a culture 395 00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:59,880 can't see their own culture really as clearly as an outsider 396 00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:01,560 can. You know, I think in. 397 00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,080 Dialogue. Maybe it's a dialogue, you know? 398 00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:08,680 And de Tocqueville, you know, I mean, he came through the South 399 00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:10,840 and saw a lot of what's happening now. 400 00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:13,640 I'm making a little leap here for something we wanted to play, 401 00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:17,840 but thinking about this isn't exactly the state, but music and 402 00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:21,600 nationalism. We had a certain Swedish artist 403 00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:24,880 that we wanted to invoke, and I'm dedicating this to my 404 00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:27,520 husband Eric, so he'll get. This, but also can we just 405 00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:37,080 preface it by saying that folk music and traditional music very 406 00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:41,600 often in many corners of the world and in many times and many 407 00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:50,480 moments in history, is viewed as uncool and unhip and unmodern. 408 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:54,520 You know, all of these things, you know, and it gets of it's, 409 00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,760 you know, people who listen to folk music are kind of 410 00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:05,280 considered like a minority and but the influence of folk music 411 00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:09,560 is everywhere and in the most surprising places. 412 00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:18,080 And So what we're going to hear is a Swedish pop musician who, 413 00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:22,400 whatever success he may have, every summer he gets out his 414 00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:27,600 accordion and he tours the lakes and the resorts of northern 415 00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:31,240 Sweden with his band playing traditional music. 416 00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:37,600 And I challenge anyone here not to hear the close connection 417 00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:42,960 between what he plays with this group and his accordion and the 418 00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:44,800 records that have made him a billionaire. 419 00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,360 That is, of course, Benny Anderson from ABBA. 420 00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:11,160 Chikikita. I can hear it. 421 00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:12,480 Chikikita. Yeah. 422 00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:15,120 And, and Benny and Bjorn, as I was telling you, even wrote 423 00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:19,120 about the, the, the story of the emigrants and they're completely 424 00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:22,760 invested in this folk music. Yeah, I mean, you know, and, and 425 00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:26,320 folk music, even when people aren't even conscious of it, 426 00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:29,200 it's there, you know, it seeps, you know, and of course America 427 00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:33,080 is the perfect, you know, example of that because some our 428 00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:36,680 music is basically, you know, Blues and. 429 00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,280 Yeah. Oh, this makes me want to ask 430 00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,960 you the question. OK, we we definitely agree. 431 00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:47,480 We wanted to focus on the global story, but one little bit about 432 00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,160 tiny little digression into a complete unknown. 433 00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:53,440 You know, Joe was at Newport when Dylan went electric, 434 00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:54,800 etcetera. We're not going to focus on 435 00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:56,880 that. But will you tell the story 436 00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:59,920 about the prison gang which we see in the movie? 437 00:30:59,920 --> 00:31:02,240 How many of you have seen? I bet most of you have seen a 438 00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:03,640 complete unknown. Yeah. 439 00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:08,480 So in that film, right before Dylan goes electric, there's a 440 00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:12,880 strange glimpse of an African American prison gang. 441 00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:17,320 Like using axes to do something on stage. 442 00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:21,040 Here's the story. Well, the story is that I was 443 00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:28,120 the production manager at Newport that summer and and so 444 00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:32,720 one of the logistical problems that I had to deal with was that 445 00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:38,240 Saturday night, the night before Dylan, one of the groups that 446 00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:42,720 was scheduled to perform was a group of prisoners from a Texas 447 00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,400 prison farm. Which was like Almomax recorded. 448 00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,040 No, a guy called Bruce Jackson. Oh, Bruce Jackson. 449 00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:50,800 OK, but this was a common part of like. 450 00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:52,800 Folklores. It was like, it was like a Lomax 451 00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:54,440 type. Only Bruce Jackson was a more 452 00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:58,240 modern ethnographer. I think he was a professor at 453 00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:01,720 University of Texas. He went there, recorded and the 454 00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:06,000 record was released on Elektra. And it was a terrific record, 455 00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:12,000 you know, and it's, but you know, these, these recordings 456 00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:13,960 that we all thought were so great. 457 00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:18,080 You know, when when they pop up on my listening rota, my random 458 00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:23,280 listening and you suddenly hear a recording that Alan Lomax made 459 00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:28,280 at Parchman Farm or something, I get kind of stabbed in the 460 00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:30,480 heart. You know, you just think of what 461 00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:34,680 these people must have gone through to get their framed, 462 00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:39,440 chained, beaten, you know, and now they're making beautiful 463 00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:41,120 music. And that's another theme in my 464 00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:44,840 book is the amount of beauty that has been created under the 465 00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:50,040 most brutal and inhuman conditions in the Congo and in 466 00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:53,120 so many places, you know? But anyway, back to Newport. 467 00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,880 So they were scheduled for like right in the middle of the show 468 00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:03,200 on Friday night, Saturday night. And one of the best tracks on 469 00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:07,360 the record was a cross cutting song where you have 4 men around 470 00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:14,640 a tree chomping it down to on the one and the three, the other 471 00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:17,960 two north-south on the two and the four. 472 00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:23,400 And and Pete Seeger was very interested in this and was very, 473 00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:25,400 you know, he was on the board. He was one of the sort of 474 00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:27,080 executive producers of the festival. 475 00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:31,800 And I talked to him about how we're going to present them and 476 00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:35,520 we agreed that the best way to do the only way to do this cross 477 00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:39,480 chopping song was to get a big tree stump and put it in the 478 00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:43,200 middle of the stage. And he said, I'll do that. 479 00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:48,040 I'll just give me the the guys, the the prisoners that had a 480 00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:53,640 guard with a gun and a truck and some chains and a pulley. 481 00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:57,400 And they drove out into the swamps of southern Rhode Island. 482 00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:02,120 And they came back with this huge tree stump that was like 483 00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:06,760 this big weighted ton. And they got it lifted up on 484 00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:08,679 stage. It was sitting off stage. 485 00:34:08,679 --> 00:34:11,840 And when the group came on, we put it in the middle of the 486 00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:16,679 stage and there were a couple of microphones on, booms hanging 487 00:34:16,679 --> 00:34:19,600 down over. And then they started the chant 488 00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:23,360 and the chop and it was great. It was incredible theater. 489 00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,199 And it was, you know, the, the chant, the the song was 490 00:34:26,199 --> 00:34:28,199 fantastic and the singing was great. 491 00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:34,520 And I was standing next to Seger in the wings and we noticed that 492 00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:39,920 the wire from one of the booms of the mic booms had was with 493 00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:45,639 the rhythm was starting to come loose and it was drooping down 494 00:34:45,639 --> 00:34:49,639 and in danger of entering the arc of the chop. 495 00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,719 And so I got the rhythm in my head and I just lunged and 496 00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:57,880 pulled the the the in between strokes. 497 00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:02,200 I pulled the wire out and looped it around the thing And Pete 498 00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:05,240 gave me a, you know, thumbs up. Good, good going kid. 499 00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:10,520 And and so then of course the following night we have the 500 00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:16,640 famous Dylan going electric and the booze and the more and the 501 00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:23,520 cheers and the whatever, and Seeger's quote supposedly from 502 00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:29,160 an interview he did a few weeks later that he will try to chop 503 00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:32,320 the wire to. Of Dylan to. 504 00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:34,800 To an axe. And in fact he didn't say that. 505 00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:40,560 He said if I'd had an axe, I would have chopped the wire to 506 00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:43,520 the speaker. And I've always thought, I mean, 507 00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:45,000 first of all, it was just hyperbole. 508 00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,520 Obviously he was not going to go get an axe and it wouldn't have 509 00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:50,160 done any good because there were lots of wires to lots of 510 00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:54,480 speakers. But but, but I always thought 511 00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:58,920 that the that image, the fact that that image was in his mind 512 00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,200 is because of that moment on Saturday night. 513 00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:03,520 See, there you go. Who knew? 514 00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:05,480 I love that story. That's a basic story. 515 00:36:20,240 --> 00:36:23,400 The book is full of these stories like this, little little 516 00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:25,760 little anecdotes. Like you can open almost every 517 00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:31,120 page and you're some little mind blowing thing surfaces. 518 00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:35,280 For example, I didn't know that Paul McCartney wanted to work 519 00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:38,920 with Fella Africa 70. But he didn't actually what he 520 00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:44,240 wanted when he he went to record his first solo album Band On the 521 00:36:44,240 --> 00:36:50,800 Run in Lagos, right? And he tried to hire members of 522 00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:53,120 Fellas Band. But fellas said no, right? 523 00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:55,200 Fellas said no. Which is like who says no to a 524 00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:56,080 Beatle? Come on. 525 00:36:56,680 --> 00:37:01,520 Well, fella. And was it really because he was 526 00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:04,360 concerned that McCartney would steal his music? 527 00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:06,280 That was his, that was his story. 528 00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,760 I mean, he said he didn't want some white guy coming and 529 00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:12,240 stealing his music. I mean, Fella was, you know, an 530 00:37:12,240 --> 00:37:15,200 incredible figure of great importance politically and 531 00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:17,520 musically, but also a very strange guy. 532 00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:23,800 Another story you tell is we were talking about Desi Arnaz, 533 00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:29,280 but Karma Miranda that her most famous song Excuse my bad 534 00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:31,200 pronunciation. OK, OK. 535 00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:36,080 K Abayana Tem was written by Dori Val Kayme, who's a very 536 00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:39,120 important figure when he was only 19 and like went to her, 537 00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:41,480 went to eat fair water at her kitchen. 538 00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:43,400 Can you talk a little? Bit about that well. 539 00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:45,560 Talk. Tell a little bit about who he 540 00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:46,000 is. So. 541 00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:47,160 Right. Dory Val Kaimi. 542 00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:51,240 Well, well, Carmen Miranda was this actually born in Portugal, 543 00:37:51,240 --> 00:37:53,960 finally moved to Rio when she was a little girl. 544 00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:58,240 She grew up in the kind of red light district of Rio and loved 545 00:37:58,240 --> 00:38:01,040 the music and became, you know, a star. 546 00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:06,280 And a lot of the, you know, it's one of the thing again, it's an 547 00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:09,280 interesting connection, connection to America. 548 00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:14,880 A theme that goes through a lot of cultures is that a certain 549 00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:21,200 region of a country becomes idealized as the cradle of the 550 00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:23,280 culture or particularly the music. 551 00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:26,520 And it's like in Hungary, it's Transylvania. 552 00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:28,600 That's where all the great music comes from. 553 00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:35,080 And, and in Brazil, it's Salvador de Bahia, which is 554 00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,120 true. And in both cases, it's kind of 555 00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:41,680 true that the music comes down the coast from Bahia and Bahia 556 00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:44,720 becomes idealized. There's all these sexy girls up 557 00:38:44,720 --> 00:38:46,840 there and there's all this wonderful culture. 558 00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:50,240 And it was of course, the big slave trading center where all 559 00:38:50,240 --> 00:38:55,120 the Africans were pulled ashore and put in chains and put to 560 00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:58,920 work and work to death. And eventually the music came 561 00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:04,320 down with Africa Afro Brazilians to Rio and that's the birth of 562 00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:08,360 Samba's when this by Ian Music joined the Portuguese culture of 563 00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:15,280 Rio, blah blah blah. And she always liked these songs 564 00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:18,080 that idealized by it was everybody. 565 00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:25,600 Brazil loved these songs and the song that she was going to sing 566 00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:27,480 for. They had a every year they would 567 00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:31,600 have a film of all the top stars, which would then go into 568 00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,720 the movie circuit and everybody wanted to be in it. 569 00:39:34,720 --> 00:39:37,600 And she had to be in it. And the song, they couldn't 570 00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:43,120 agree on the copyright deal. And so this kid had seen her 571 00:39:43,240 --> 00:39:45,720 perform in Salvador. He was from Salvador. 572 00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:48,760 And he thought the songs that she sang, she was great, but the 573 00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:52,000 songs were terrible. And he said, I can do better 574 00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:55,720 than that. And he came down to Rio and he 575 00:39:55,720 --> 00:39:58,440 heard that, you know, she was always had an open house for 576 00:39:58,440 --> 00:39:59,840 songwriters. She was always looking for 577 00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:02,200 songs. Like Mary Lou Williams did that 578 00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,440 for jazz players. Everyone could come over to her 579 00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:06,160 house. And yeah, she always have a pot 580 00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:09,600 of fejuada on the stove and a pot of coffee, and people come 581 00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:11,160 over. And he played this song. 582 00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:14,200 And when she couldn't use the song from her regular songwriter 583 00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,240 because of copyright issues, he didn't want to give up the 584 00:40:17,240 --> 00:40:23,360 publishing smart guy. And so she took this song, which 585 00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:26,520 is, oh, what is it that the Bayana has? 586 00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:28,840 That's what the translation means. 587 00:41:00,240 --> 00:41:03,080 But the the thing that I think is so interesting about this 588 00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:10,320 phenomenon, the Bianna and the romanticization of Chattanooga 589 00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:16,680 Choo Choo, you know, there's so many songs in America in the 590 00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:21,800 post Civil War era which idealize the South. 591 00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:24,520 And they're supposed to be theoretically sung by either 592 00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:29,800 blacked up white people or by African American singers who 593 00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:32,000 sing about the dear old Southland. 594 00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:36,120 Oh my Siswani, how I love you. Hi my and mammy. 595 00:41:36,720 --> 00:41:43,040 All these images seem to me to be ways that the bourgeoisie, 596 00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:49,520 the white bourgeoisie and their songwriters try to, I don't 597 00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:56,600 know, sort of encourage this fantasy that all these African 598 00:41:56,600 --> 00:42:00,920 Americans who fled to Northern cities really were homesick for 599 00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:02,040 the South. Well, it's. 600 00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:06,360 The air clock called it love and theft, you know, And then Bob 601 00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:08,640 Dylan named that record after air class book. 602 00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:16,000 And and and a lot of places use music to sanitize their history. 603 00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:20,360 I wanted to jump to Eastern Europe and which is a different 604 00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:22,360 kind of relationship between music and the state. 605 00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:26,480 It was interesting to read that like Trio Bulgarka for example, 606 00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:29,880 that there was a kind of defiance against the state in 607 00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:32,680 Eastern European music. Is that fair to say or? 608 00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:36,360 Well, I mean, not in those state ensembles, I don't think. 609 00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:37,960 I don't think there was much to find. 610 00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:41,280 So, I mean, there was a the fascinating difference that you 611 00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:48,560 hear in but Mr. de Wobbulgar is that sound which was developed 612 00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:52,000 by Philip Kuttev, this brilliant arranger composer. 613 00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:57,200 And he because he recruited all the singers for the ensemble 614 00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:00,560 from the villages who had learned from their grandmothers. 615 00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:05,160 And they had that open throat sound which is very distinctive 616 00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:10,200 Slavic way of singing. And they went to Russia once in 617 00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:14,080 the early 50s, and the Russians hated them and would never 618 00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,320 invite them back. And the reason why that was the 619 00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:27,560 key to my Chapter 7, you know, is that the Stalin and the rest 620 00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:31,040 of the hierarchy of the Communist Party, it was clear 621 00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,320 that communism, Russian communism was an urban 622 00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:38,880 proletariat phenomenon. The peasants had their own way 623 00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:41,520 of collectivizing the land. They shared work. 624 00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:45,080 They shared land. They didn't need these people 625 00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:48,000 coming and and they rebelled. They fought tooth and nail. 626 00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:52,240 They killed communist people coming to collectivize and the 627 00:43:52,240 --> 00:43:54,720 communists just killed so many of them. 628 00:43:55,160 --> 00:44:00,240 And lots of the lots of official statements that I've got some 629 00:44:00,240 --> 00:44:04,600 quotes from in the book. We have to destroy peasant 630 00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:10,680 culture in order to rebuild it. And this was an objective of the 631 00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:14,240 Russian Communist Party. And the open throat voice, 632 00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:19,880 particularly coming from women was so threatening to them and 633 00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:24,320 throw a hateful moist, the moist of ensemble, which was the big 634 00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:28,280 famous folklore ensemble that toured the world was complete 635 00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:31,200 fake lore. It was nothing real about it. 636 00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:39,040 It was all the music was fake. And so that dictators tend to 637 00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:42,960 hate authenticity. Write that down. 638 00:45:01,240 --> 00:45:05,800 Those are the Bulgarian Women's Choir and famous copyright that 639 00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:10,120 was used in I don't know, it's now been sampled a lot in hip 640 00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:17,000 hop and a lot of other stuff and but there's some images I love 641 00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:21,240 in the book of that. When the peasants were rebelling 642 00:45:21,240 --> 00:45:24,320 against collectivization, they learned that if they put women 643 00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:27,080 at the front, that the soldiers were less apartment to open 644 00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:30,320 fire. And it's, and I, some people 645 00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:35,480 describe the sound of like a whole crowd of women singing 646 00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:40,400 open throat like that with these incredible harmonies marching 647 00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:44,880 towards the Soviet commissars who've come to confiscate all 648 00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:46,920 the horses and the pigs and the cows. 649 00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,400 You got Kate Bush on a plane. We've talked about this. 650 00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:52,360 Kate Bush doesn't fly. I've never gone to see her 651 00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:55,040 because she doesn't fly. Tell us about that story. 652 00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:59,960 You know, I I had heard the Kutab ensemble, the first, the 653 00:45:59,960 --> 00:46:03,720 Bulgarian national state state ensemble, the women's Squire on 654 00:46:03,720 --> 00:46:07,640 a record in 1965, which Elektra released on the non such label. 655 00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:11,360 And it blew my mind. I mean, it was incredible and it 656 00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:13,800 was hugely popular among hippies. 657 00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:17,480 You know, people used to smoke a joint, put on headphones and 658 00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:22,120 listen to the Kutab Ensemble and and then it kind of went out of 659 00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:24,760 fashion and then suddenly came back in with the mystery of 660 00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:27,960 wobblegare thing in the late. That was Evo. 661 00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:30,600 No, no, no, That was That's the choir. 662 00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:31,760 Right. No, but I'm talking about they 663 00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:34,200 was out on 480, right? That came out on 480. 664 00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:35,280 Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. 665 00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:36,240 Ivo. What's Russell? 666 00:46:36,240 --> 00:46:37,840 I thought you mean Ivo. Yeah, right. 667 00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:39,920 Yeah, yeah. No, not they've Ivo, Pop 668 00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:40,520 Russell. Yeah, the other. 669 00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:47,000 So I went to Bulgaria finally in 1986 to this huge festival and I 670 00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:51,120 was heard with the connection between the formal stuff and the 671 00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:55,640 village stuff and put together a kind of Buena Vista type All 672 00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:59,320 Star team called Volcana, which included these three singers, 673 00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:05,160 the trio Bulgarka and one day. And we toured, played London and 674 00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:08,840 New York in a few places and had a record out. 675 00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:12,200 And one day the phone rang in my office and somebody looked at me 676 00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:16,200 funny and said there's somebody in his phone says she's Kate 677 00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:19,200 Bush. And I said because at this time 678 00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:22,400 Kate was huge in England, right? And I picked up the phone. 679 00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:24,000 It was Kate Bush. And. 680 00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:28,400 And she said that she wanted to add some Bulgarian women's 681 00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:31,600 voices to her new record. And she'd heard that I was the 682 00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:36,320 guy to talk to. And I said, yeah, well, I 683 00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:40,480 certainly can put you in touch with the best, but I said if you 684 00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:45,920 but you can't just bring them to London, bring them in like a 685 00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:50,000 group of session singers and ask them to figure out a Bulgarian 686 00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:56,600 sounding backing for your song. It's going to be much more 687 00:47:56,600 --> 00:48:00,560 complicated than that. And I think the best way to do 688 00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:06,520 it would be the next time I go to Sofia, you come with me and 689 00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:09,840 I'll set up a team of translators. 690 00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:12,320 You need a really good translator who knows musical 691 00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:17,400 terms, an ethnographer and a Ranger because they can't figure 692 00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:22,080 out the harmonies that will work with your harmony on their own. 693 00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:27,480 And she said, I don't really like to fly, but OK. 694 00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:33,520 And and the weirdest thing and one thing I'll detail I'll never 695 00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:37,520 forget was we got on the plane, it was a, this was still pre 696 00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:42,200 Berlin Wall. The plane was a Tupelov, you 697 00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:46,920 know, Russian plane, very old and a bit rickety. 698 00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:53,200 And they Balkan Air, the state airline of Bulgaria, had just 699 00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:58,480 like a month before entered the modern age by deciding that they 700 00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:02,040 needed to have smoking and non-smoking sections. 701 00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:06,320 And they had, in their wisdom, decided that the smoking section 702 00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:11,880 would be the right side of the plane and non-smoking would be 703 00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:16,400 the left. And so Kate sat there who didn't 704 00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:18,880 smoke, you know, and just suffered. 705 00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:33,200 People would ask me, as I was trying to finish the book, have 706 00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:36,320 you got something in there about some new artists that it just 707 00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:39,600 appeared, you know, in 2020 or something like that. 708 00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:43,240 I said, no, I don't have anything about new artists 709 00:49:43,240 --> 00:49:44,920 because I have to draw a line somewhere. 710 00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:48,440 Otherwise I just keep writing and writing and writing. 711 00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:53,960 And people ask me how far up to date do you get in your book? 712 00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:59,520 And I say I go back to the mists of time, the Rico, Roman gods. 713 00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:05,840 Not very much of that, to be honest, up to the drum machine. 714 00:50:07,240 --> 00:50:13,240 And there I stop, right? The book is about rhythms that 715 00:50:13,240 --> 00:50:18,640 are created in a space by people interacting with each other, 716 00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:22,800 right? I'm not saying that that's 717 00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:27,040 necessarily always better, but it's different, right? 718 00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:33,320 And, you know, rap and hip hop have been so tied to, I know 719 00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:36,560 that their forms and there been some great projects involving 720 00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:41,600 rappers and people playing spontaneously without a machine. 721 00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:46,760 But I got, you know, my book is big enough as it is. 722 00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:52,280 And so I have to stop somewhere. And so really it's about rhythms 723 00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:59,520 that come from the hands and the heart and the body of people 724 00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:03,240 without any machines. I look forward to your sequel on 725 00:51:03,240 --> 00:51:08,680 turntablism though. Another question. 726 00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:14,920 Yes, the question for those who didn't hear it's about the Cuban 727 00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:18,880 connection to the music of the Congo, which is something that I 728 00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:21,880 I wrote about and and it's in it's amazing. 729 00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:28,040 I mean, it's, it's, you know, because Cuba discovered very 730 00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:33,160 early on in their colonial empire, they first, the first 731 00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:37,640 slaves they brought to work on the cane fields were from 732 00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:39,960 Senegambia, from the northern part of Africa. 733 00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:45,080 And there were rebellions. The slaves sacked Havana in 1524 734 00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:49,720 and they, the king got a report saying, well, that's because 735 00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:53,960 they're Muslims. And the Spanish were paranoid 736 00:51:53,960 --> 00:51:57,520 about Islam because they spent 8 centuries trying to rid the 737 00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:01,640 peninsula of Islam. And so they subcontracted the 738 00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:05,760 slave trade to the Portuguese who had explored all the way 739 00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:07,600 down the coast of Africa to the Congo. 740 00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:11,640 And so many, many, most of the slaves in the early centuries 741 00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:15,000 coming to Cuba were from Congo and Angola. 742 00:52:15,720 --> 00:52:21,920 And so this culture infused over the centuries Cuban music, mixed 743 00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:25,680 with later on with Yoruba and other African cultures. 744 00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:33,120 And when a London record company, HMV Records, had this 745 00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:38,040 bright idea to license a bunch of Cuban masters, press them up 746 00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:42,920 in London and ship them to Africa, they went, particularly 747 00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:45,120 when they arrived in Leopoldville, which is the 748 00:52:45,120 --> 00:52:47,680 capital now Kinshasa, the capital of the Congo. 749 00:52:48,720 --> 00:52:53,840 Congolese listened to these Cuban records and they went, of 750 00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:56,080 course we know this, we know this stuff. 751 00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:57,040 Where is it? What is this? 752 00:52:57,040 --> 00:53:01,040 This is, this is our rhythms. We have the Clave, you know, we 753 00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:03,760 have all this stuff is Congolese. 754 00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:08,800 But the thing was amazing to the Congolese was it was their 755 00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:14,840 rhythms and lots of elements of their music, but it sounded so 756 00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:22,000 modern and so international and so powerful on these records as 757 00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:24,400 translated through Cuban culture. 758 00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:29,080 And so they were inspired by this to use Cuban, what they 759 00:53:29,080 --> 00:53:33,920 called Roomba as the template for Congolese music to take 760 00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:37,920 village melodies and their harmonies and their their scales 761 00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:42,320 and everything and impose them on a Cuban rhythm. 762 00:53:42,800 --> 00:53:47,480 And what they did with that exploded across Africa and 763 00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:49,320 changed the shape of African music. 764 00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:52,560 So many African cultures, particularly ones from the 765 00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:59,240 Francophone colonies, all them is the Baobab orchestra used to 766 00:53:59,240 --> 00:54:01,560 endure. I mean, you know, all across 767 00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:05,120 Africa maybe we could hear just a little bit of independence Cha 768 00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:09,000 Cha, which was the first big trans African hit that came 769 00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:43,600 from. And one of the things that made 770 00:54:44,240 --> 00:54:50,600 that took it, it kept its Cuban base, but it evolved in a very 771 00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:55,680 Congolese way. And there's 22 big things aside 772 00:54:55,680 --> 00:55:00,560 from the addition of their own different cultures, the melodies 773 00:55:00,560 --> 00:55:04,080 of different cultures in Congo, which is huge and has so many 774 00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:05,960 different languages and cultures. 775 00:55:06,320 --> 00:55:10,040 But most of the records were sung in this lingua franca of 776 00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:13,640 the river, the trading language of the Congo River, which is 777 00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:23,520 Lingala. And but the the two things that 778 00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:27,440 really changed the sound that made it distinctively Congolese 779 00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:33,720 where the the some Belgian arrived in the early 50s to help 780 00:55:33,720 --> 00:55:38,080 set up a studio and in his luggage he had two Les Paul 781 00:55:38,240 --> 00:55:41,480 electric guitars. And that changed everything. 782 00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:45,160 The Congolese just loved the Les Paul electric guitars. 783 00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:48,160 And soon everybody needed to have a Les Paul electric guitar. 784 00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:51,440 And the Cubans have never liked the electric guitar. 785 00:55:51,880 --> 00:55:54,360 They never used the electric guitar very rarely. 786 00:55:54,880 --> 00:55:58,280 And and so it gave it a different sound. 787 00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:03,480 And then there was a a guy who came just for a season at a 788 00:56:03,480 --> 00:56:07,480 hotel in Leopoldville called Fudd. 789 00:56:07,480 --> 00:56:13,200 What was it, Katriks Katrice. Now, Anyway, had some weird 790 00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:15,840 Flemish name. And he used to play with Django 791 00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:19,320 Reinhardt. And he played the saxophone and 792 00:56:19,400 --> 00:56:22,760 the the producers brought him in for a couple of sessions with 793 00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:26,040 Congolese musicians as his sax. And they all, they've been 794 00:56:26,040 --> 00:56:29,480 playing the clarinet before this and they heard the sax. 795 00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:31,680 They went, oh, no, that's what now we're talking. 796 00:56:32,080 --> 00:56:36,520 And so suddenly Congolese music had the Cuban bass, electric 797 00:56:36,520 --> 00:56:41,880 guitars and saxophone and that shattered into the future. 798 00:56:42,160 --> 00:56:44,520 And the thing that I say in the book, which is just so 799 00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:50,040 incredible, is of all, I mean, colonialism was brutal and 800 00:56:50,040 --> 00:56:54,280 horrible everywhere it went. But the Belgians and King 801 00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:59,680 Leopold were the worst with the special brutal horrible. 802 00:57:00,720 --> 00:57:03,560 What they did in Congo was just unspeakable. 803 00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:11,160 And in this hell, the most beautiful music was created. 804 00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:14,360 It's unbelievable. Congolese if you just go back 805 00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:19,400 and listen to nothing but Rochero and Franco, Africa, jazz 806 00:57:19,400 --> 00:57:25,520 and TP OK, you could listen for a week and never get bored and 807 00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:27,800 never hear anything but gorgeous stuff. 808 00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:31,080 So true that I think, again, these are words we need to keep 809 00:57:31,080 --> 00:57:36,160 in mind in our current moment. I think we might be out of time 810 00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:38,120 or maybe we can ask one more question. 811 00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:40,960 Anybody else have one? I see you, gentlemen. 812 00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:46,240 Yeah, there's a there's a quote in the book about an African 813 00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:49,880 musician saying Bob Marley showed us how to be both African 814 00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:52,640 and modern. Interesting. 815 00:57:52,960 --> 00:57:55,720 Although you also say that Harry Belafonte is more important 816 00:57:55,720 --> 00:57:58,480 Jamaican, the most important Jamaican or? 817 00:57:58,560 --> 00:58:00,240 The most famous? Most famous? 818 00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:03,240 OK, yeah, it's fascinating, particularly in Africa. 819 00:58:03,840 --> 00:58:08,480 You can get quotes and interviews from musicians 820 00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:13,720 starting in the late 60s, early 70s. 821 00:58:14,480 --> 00:58:20,640 Everyone talks about Jimi Hendrix as like a key influence. 822 00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:27,480 And then by the 80's, the late 70s, everybody's talking about 823 00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:32,480 Marley as a key influence. And I think Marley, you know, 824 00:58:32,480 --> 00:58:37,040 there's two ways that Marley had such an influence, particularly 825 00:58:37,040 --> 00:58:41,800 in Africa on on one level and and all around the world on one 826 00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:46,120 level. They're the clones, you know, 827 00:58:46,120 --> 00:58:49,400 they're these people who, you know, in South Africa. 828 00:58:49,640 --> 00:58:52,760 Lucky Dube, you know, had a band. 829 00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:56,080 He started out as singing in Baklonga, but he decided to 830 00:58:56,080 --> 00:58:59,760 switch to reggae and he had a band who mastered the one drop. 831 00:58:59,760 --> 00:59:03,320 They mastered everything. It just, you might as well, 832 00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:05,600 you're listening to them. You might as well be listening 833 00:59:05,600 --> 00:59:11,080 to something recorded in Kingston in 1971 and the same in 834 00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:14,840 in Cote d'Ivoire. There was a, you know, what's 835 00:59:14,840 --> 00:59:17,720 his name in the artist anyway? There's a big star there who did 836 00:59:17,720 --> 00:59:20,800 exactly the same. And you have the same on the 837 00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:24,200 Apache Native American reservation. 838 00:59:24,200 --> 00:59:29,120 You have bands that replicate this sound from a particular 839 00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:33,280 moment in Jamaican history. You have it in Poland, you have 840 00:59:33,280 --> 00:59:37,600 it in, you know, Indonesia, You have it all over the world, 841 00:59:38,520 --> 00:59:45,080 which to me isn't as interesting as the effect that Marley had in 842 00:59:45,080 --> 00:59:51,360 a more abstract way, You know, to make people proud of their 843 00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:56,680 own culture, not try to learn the one drop, but take what they 844 00:59:56,680 --> 01:00:01,320 have in their own backyard and build it up into something that 845 01:00:01,320 --> 01:00:08,960 is exciting to the youth of the country and empowering to the 846 01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:12,440 culture as it is known, becomes known internationally. 847 01:00:13,080 --> 01:00:19,120 And I think what's his name, you know, the, the Garifuna. 848 01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:22,840 Collectives, you know, of the, the Garifuna people along the 849 01:00:22,840 --> 01:00:27,600 coast of Nicaragua and Guatemala and Belize, you know, who 850 01:00:27,600 --> 01:00:34,680 developed a whole rock industry based on Garifuna rhythms and 851 01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:38,800 Garifuna traditions, which was clearly inspired by what Marley 852 01:00:38,800 --> 01:00:44,880 was doing across the Caribbean. And, and so many, you know, all 853 01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:47,240 over the world. There are there are examples of 854 01:00:47,240 --> 01:00:48,480 that. So I would say they're two 855 01:00:48,480 --> 01:00:53,120 strands of the Marley influence. One is the imitators, which for 856 01:00:53,120 --> 01:00:57,640 me is less interesting than the Inspire inspirations. 857 01:00:57,880 --> 01:01:01,480 Which is really what you trace throughout the book in so many 858 01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:03,520 different ways. Well, in and, and in fact, in so 859 01:01:03,520 --> 01:01:06,920 many ways, yeah, that you've have attempted. 860 01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:09,880 You know, that is what's so interesting about the reggae 861 01:01:10,440 --> 01:01:14,240 clones is that they actually did it. 862 01:01:14,240 --> 01:01:16,480 They actually got it nailed exactly. 863 01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:19,960 And that's what's boring. Yeah, but whereas most cases, 864 01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:23,520 you have so many examples of people picking up on another 865 01:01:23,520 --> 01:01:30,640 culture's music, trying to play it and in failing, coming up 866 01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:34,960 with something new, something. I mean, even as much as British 867 01:01:34,960 --> 01:01:38,640 art students trying to play Mississippi Delta Blues, you 868 01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:42,680 know, completely, they figured out something else, you know, 869 01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:45,680 and, and that's a story of music around the world. 870 01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:48,920 There is no pure music. Everything is mongrel. 871 01:01:53,280 --> 01:01:56,440 Big Ears Conversations about Music is a production of Big 872 01:01:56,440 --> 01:01:59,200 Ears Festival. I'm your host Sarah Gilletti. 873 01:01:59,520 --> 01:02:01,240 The show is produced by Matt Marowitz. 874 01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:05,080 This episode was edited by Trevor Smith with Delilah Ryder. 875 01:02:05,400 --> 01:02:09,040 Ashley Capps is the executive and artistic director of Big 876 01:02:09,040 --> 01:02:11,680 Ears. Special thanks to our guests Ann 877 01:02:11,680 --> 01:02:16,040 Powers and Joe Boyd. Big Years 2026 will take place 878 01:02:16,040 --> 01:02:21,360 March 26th through 29th, 2026 in downtown Knoxville, TN. 879 01:02:21,640 --> 01:02:24,360 For more information and festival updates, visit 880 01:02:24,360 --> 01:02:28,080 bigyearsfestival.org. Thanks for listening.