Amazing Grace

I often say that "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." When I decided to repeat it here, I decided I should find out who said it. And I learned that it was basketball coach John Wooden, who apparently learned and taught many things in his 99-plus years.

I was reminded of this aphorism because I grew up Baptist -- very Baptist -- and therefore know the song "Amazing Grace" quite well, and I know something about its origins and context. But in 12 minutes with NPR journalist Samantha Balaban and historian James Walvin, I learned quite a bit more.

They discuss how Walvin decided to write Amazing Grace: A Cultural History of the Beloved Hymn, and play excerpts from several notable recordings -- including a very surprising one that was his real impetus. I won't spoil this, but I will advise that I listened to this story twice (so far) and was moved to tears both times. The discussion begins with the sonorous tones of the great Paul Robeson and includes Detroit legend Aretha Franklin as a pivotal figure in the history of the hymn.

My search for an image of Robeson led me to
Rutgers University, which remains proud of this 1919
graduate, only the 3rd African American to attend.

At this point, readers might be asking what this has to do with a class in World Music. This song, after all, has just about the deepest possible roots in U.S. culture, and world music is sometimes describes as "local music from out there." 

The story is included here for a few reasons. First, it is an excellent example of the work of using music to explore cultural geography. Second, it reminds us that no single song fully can represent a place. Those who know the United States will recognize that this sheds important light on some aspects of the country but by no means all.

Third and perhaps most importantly, it provides a perfect opportunity to discuss whether. world music encompasses the Gospel, Motown, Jazz, or other music of importance to this country's African diaspora. 

Lagniappe

As the interview makes clear, this hymn has been recorded countless times, so it is not surprising that my personal favorite was not included. I remember being truly astonished the first time I heard the 1997 recording by LeAnn Rimes, who was only 15 years old at the time. She captured Amazing Grace with amazing gravitas.

The Planet Sings on Spotify

The Planet Sings playlist on Spotify is a convenient spot to find the music used in the course. If we use it in the class and it is on Spotify, the intention is for it to be on this list. 

As convenient as the list is, it is not sorted, categorized, or annotated. The purposes and contexts of some selections might not be evident until we get to them in class discussion.

One benefit of such a list is the ability to play and replay certain selections. This can be especially helpful for music that we enjoy but that uses languages we do not speak fluently. I have sometimes noticed something interesting in a song only after hearing it a 50th time.

Luaka Byrne

We will have a lot to say about David Byrne in this course, so this blog post is likely to grow over time. I remember the first time I heard of his band The Talking Heads, from a radio ad that was popular when I was in high school. A booming baritone voice intoned, "Talking Heads has a new album; it's called Fear of Music." We had albums back then; I became a big fan during college, when my friend Karl (who coincidentally, perhaps, is the guy who introduced me to geography) gave me a cassette mix tape he had created and labeled "Talking Heads and Grateful Deads." Karl also took me to my first and only, Dead show, incidentally.

Photo: Jordan Cronenweth / A24
by way of Smithsonian Magazine

All of which is to say that I was immersed in the music of David Byrne and pleased to find out that he and I had lived in the same town (Arbutus, Maryland), albeit many years apart. I watched Stop Making Sense during its first run -- and I'm delighted to see that this groundbreaking concert film has been re-released forty years later.

After Talking Heads, Byrne moved on to what I consider more important work. I used to say that he was instrumental in the foundation of "world music." I just found his 1999 New York Times article entitled Crossing Music's Borders: 'I Hate World Music' -- so I might need to modify that narrative. Might need to. He describes some difficulties with the production and consumption of "world music" in an article that also explains why it is essential and why it is equally difficult to define with any clarity.

His complaint is essential reading for anyone exploring a vast category of music that he helped to make available to us through his label Luaka Bop. I learned a lot about several genres of music in Brazil and Cuba because of his efforts, so I welcome his cautions. (I recommend the article without hesitation, but with a small caveat: it is astonishing that the NYT editors did not catch "Columbian" used for "Colombian" and "it's" used for "its." Egad!)

Despite the gloomy title, the article includes this important passage: 

For example, there are guitar bands in Africa that can be, if you let them, as inspiring and transporting as any kind of rock, pop, soul, funk or disco you grew up with. And what is exciting for me is that they have taken elements of global (Western?) music apart, examined the pieces to see what might be of use and then re-invented and reassembled the parts to their own ends. Thus creating something entirely new. 

Here Byrne offers an encouraging counter-example to the kind of musical "tourism" he warns about throughout the article. The musicians he admires most are not riding the world-music bus; they are driving it. The innovation is not just from American and European musicians sampling and absorbing the work of others, but rather from musicians worldwide creating as equals.

A very fine example of this is the work of his good friend -- and my hero -- Benin-born superstar Angelique Kidjo. I had been enjoying her work for years -- often including her homage to Yemaya in my teaching about syncretism -- before I learned of her friendship with David Byrne.

Her re-imagining of his Once in a Lifetime (another song I often use in my teaching) closes the creative circle. She takes elements of his work and incorporates it into her own. The result is a series of videos like the one above and an entire concert tour, which I was lucky enough to experience in Providence in February 2020 -- my last hurrah before the pandemic sent us into our houses.

The Planet Sings Google Map

I make Google Maps for almost any personal or academic project that involves places -- which means that I have dozens of them for many purposes -- planning a vacation, illustrating a song, keeping track of National Parks I have visited. It is therefore very much "on brand"(as they say) for me to have created a Google Map for this course. At the time of this writing, it has only a few points of interest, but this will surely grow as the course develops.

The Planet Sings Google Map
(very preliminary)

The map includes the birthplaces or other personal landmarks related to musicians who produce what is thought of as worlld music.

The Planet Sings on YouTube

As mentioned in the introductory post, I have a suitcase full of CDs in my office from my early days of teaching cultural geography through music. In recent years, I have made much greater use of YouTube videos, which are in many ways more convenient and reliable than CDs. In many cases, they also offer a richer experience, extra information, or assistance with lyrics and translations.

The YouTube playlist I am developing with this course is meant to provide convenient access for my class sessions, for students wishing to replay content, or for anybody who wishes to hear and see some of what we are doing in the class. Unfortunately, many of the videos also carry ads, some of which deliver a bit of ireitation and few if any of which generate income for the artists. (I know this because I have to watch ads to see some of my own videos, and I've not seen any checks in the mail!)

 

Exploring the World of Radiooooo

 Those of us who teach long-term keep at it because we keep learning -- especially from our students. It was a student, for example who first introduced me to Cesária Évora more than 20 years ago. He rightly surmised that as someone who was starting to teach about the musics of Latin America, I might also appreciate Cape Verdean music. (As I write this, I am about 10 days out from leading a travel course there!) 

And just a couple weeks ago, a student showed me a fun site on her phone at the end of the last day of class.

The site is www.radiooooo.com (type that "o" five times), a screenshot of which I share here to give an idea of the vibe of this site. Click on a decade at the bottom of the screen to get a world map representing that decade; then click on a country to start hearing a sampling of music from that place and time. There is even a speculative map of the world's radios in the year 2070.

This site is a marvelous invitation to explore! 

The Founders of Indian Disco

The BBC program Witness History is a daily 9-minute radio segment that explores modern history through biography by providing interviews with people who were part of important events. 

Pakistani teens become disco superstars is the story of the introduction of disco to India by Nazia and Zoheb Hassan. The segment begins with one of their early hits, Disco Deewanee.

The librarians at BBC have listed a few dozen stories on a page labeled World Music, part of the BBC Sounds page.

Welcome to The Planet Sings

Welcome to The Planet Sings, a blog to accompany an Honors Second-Year Seminar of the same title that I will be offering as a cultural geography course at Bridgewater State University on an occasional basis, beginning in the Fall 2024 semester.

Blogging seems the perfect format to capture many of the audio, video, and narrative resources that will be part of this course, and to share them with a wider public who may be interested in learning more about this planet through their music. 

I began my academic life as an environmental geographer, concerned (as I still am) about the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, particularly in Brazil. During my first visit to Brazil in 1996, the people who helped me with my research also helped me to discover that I could learn a lot about the country through its many forms of music. 

A decade after that first encounter,  I found myself sharing the music of Latin America during visits to college campuses all over Massachusetts as a MaCIE Lecturer throughout 2006 and 2007. I still have a wheeled suitcase I bought for the purpose, as I played short clips from CDs as part of each presentation. Around that time, music became part. of every class I teach. 

This led to my department agreeing that it is time to offer an entire course centered on music as means to exploring global geographies, especially the geography of the Global South. I shared the idea with my librarian spouse -- who has often helped me with titles for classes and projects -- and thus The Planet Sings was born. The title is inspired by The Planet Sings, a global collection of lullabies.