Arlo's Moment

When playing Dustbowl Ballads by Woodie Guthrie for environmental geography students, I would sometimes ask which students had heard of him. The number who had was small when I began teaching was small and is now near zero. I would begin explaining who. he was by saying he was "Arlo's dad" until I realized that Arlo (who is the age of my dad) is not so well known himself anymore. One exception: a former BSU student has Arlo as a first name because her parents (roughly my age) were such big fans.

But I digress. This is a post about Arlo and his most favorite song, Alice's Restaurant. (sometimes called "Alice's Restaurant and Massacree"). I assumed that he was still well known because anybody who is roughly my age remembers hearing this on hard-rock radio stations every Thanksgiving day. It is not played much on other days because it is 18 minutes long. It is also not played much on hard-rock stations because it is a folk song. 

But like Don McLean's 9-minute ballad American Pie, it is a long-format song that most people in the United States of a certain age can sing almost from memory. Why this is, I don't exactly know, but both songs do speak to an historic moment, and in a way that people are able to appreciate regardless of their political leanings. 

It is played on Thanksgiving Day because it tells the true story (with some embellishments) of young Arlo's arrest for littering on Thanksgiving Day 1965. There is more to the story, of course. Listen carefully to figure out how this became a protest song.

I might not have thought to play this for the Planet Sings class, except for a poignant coincidence. The song is (in part about Arlo's good friend Alice Brock, who died just a couple of days before Thanksgiving this year. His thoughts on her passing are presented at the end of this post. It is from him his production company's page. The photo shows him with Alice and their mutual friend Rick, who was part of the 1965 hijinks. They are shown on the steps of the church building that Alice and her husband were living in at the time, which now serves as the headquarters of the Guthrie Center. 

I cannot help but mention two small connections. First, in 2019 (the year we did not realize how lucky we were for all the things we got to do), he and his daughter Sarah performed at the Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford as part of a 50th-anniversary tour of the 1967 song. Among other things, we learned about the movie version of the song. It is not an excellent movie, but it is pretty interesting, especially since the arresting officer plays himself in the film. After the show, we were lucky enough to say hello to Arlo as he stepped from the stage door to his tour bus, before the crowed had found him there.

Second, it was on our anniversary in May of this year that we found ourselves in Stockbridge at the Main Street Cafe, which is located in the general store that served as a summertime extension of the original restaurant. The restaurant itself is "around the back" in a place now known as Teresa's Café, which seems to have closed during the pandemic. Alice's memory is still honored, however, as shown in this photo I grabbed after a wonderful brunch around the front. 

"You can get anything you want"
RIP Alice Brock

I have confirmed that this a half-mile from the nearest railroad track.

Samba Update

Brazilian singer-songwriter Rogê updates the '60s/'70s golden era of samba on his new album "Curyman II -- the second in a planned trilogy. NPR music journalist Will Hermes provides context and a review in this November 22 contribution to Morning Edition.

Below is the album in question. 

Even the Forest Hums

Vitalii Bard Bardetskyi is a DJ, record-shop owner, music producer, and (randomly) wallpaper expert from Ukraine who is currently living in exile in Bonn, Germany. He came to my attention because of a conversation with Scott Simon, one of my favorite journalists. On Weekend Edition Saturday, they discussed Even the Forest Hums, Bardetskyi's  recent compilation of Ukrainian music, mainly jazz or jazz-adjacent. 

The conversation reveals the importance of music as a part of cultural identity and of cultural identity as a part of political resistance. I recommend listening carefully to this discussion, perhaps listening twice, as I did. This musical project comes as the NATO prepares to be dismantled from within and Putin gains an ally in his war on Ukraine. 

The compilation is current, but the music itself was recorded -- by many artists -- during the previous Russian occupation of Ukraine. Not mentioned in this conversation is the fact that one of Putin's excuses for the reconquest of Ukraine is that there is no such thing as Ukraine. It is just a part of Russia in this view, making Bardetskyi's work deeply and importantly political, even though it has not a single word of political content in its lyrics. 

Lagniappe: How I heard this music

I listened to the album in its entirety during an early-morning drive to a coastal rowing session, and I found it nourishing and sustaining as I limit my intake of news for my own mental health these days. 

I understand this story because of something I learned during a 2004 visit to my charch's partner congregation in Transylvania, which has been occupied by Romania for the last century or so. From  1965 through 1989, this meant it was ruled by the increasingly brutal Nicolae Ceaușescu. 

One of the translators for our visit had been a teenager during that dictatorship. Ilena described lying down in the center of her house to listen to radio broadcasts from the Voice of America on the lowest possible voume, lest they be reported by neighbors. She also said that she spent a couple of days in prison for reading a poem about Transylvania that one of her classmates had written. Ilena was not held longer than that because her father had Communist Party connections, which is similar to the leniency that Bardetskyi had enjoyed. 

But the classmate who had written the poem Ilena read was held for seven years. There had been nothing overtly political about the poem. It merely celebrated the beauty of the land of Transylvania. But it celebrated that in contrast to Romania as a whole, so she was punished severely. An indication of her character is that when she was released, she apologized to Ilena for the two days she had spent in prison years before. 

The incoming president of the United States is using the word "peace" when referring to his plans for Ukraine. But the word has a different meaning when used by such a deeply violent person, and that meaning is "appeasement" of his patron. For me, listening to this album is a genuinely peaceful act of solidarity with Ukraine.

Busking Geography

 

NPR journalist A Martinez interviewed Cary Baker on today's Morning Edition about his recent book Down on the Corner. Beginning with Baker's first childhood encounter with street-corner performers, they discuss his exploration of the street performance as a vital node in the history and geography of music. 

Among other things, they discuss a fascinating sub-genre of busking that has been gaining wide exposure online: situations in which a famous artist crashes a performance of their work by a busker. In the example cited, it has been an 18-million-view boost to both Levi Mitchell and the more famous musician he was emulating. 

The interview ends with the author's thoughts on how to interact with public musicians. My family and I often pause in the way he recomends, and we've had a lot of nice experiences as a result.

Why Music?

When I saw this on social media today, I immediately reposted it with the caption, "And of course, music is also geography."

Geography is sometimes called the Science of Where, and the geographers in my department often use three questions as our guide: 

• Where is it?
• Why is it there?
• So what?

We use these to apply geographic thinking to all manner of things. As we see throughout this blog and the class it accompanies, music is a perfect example. Music always comes from somewhere, and it tells us something about that place. And most music goes somewhere, telling us about the connections among places. As our connections increase, music is part of a rich tapestry of change. 

When I posted the infographic, a former geography student replied right away, referring to her adult son:

I can’t tell you how pleased I am that my son took up band in fifth grade and has stuck with it into college. I am not a musical person. I can’t read music at all. Whenever I see him play with the marching band or orchestra, my heart is full. It’s all those things in the image. It enriches his life and mine.

As I write this, Massachusetts voters are considering an end to the requirement that all high school students pass a particular, very narrow exam in order to graduate. I have been teaching here over the entire life of that requirement, and I have seen the damage that has resulted from the narrowing of the curriculum. 

I hope we are on the verge of a return to a more diverse and inclusive pedagogy that has as much music, art, drama, sewing, cooking, metal shop, and photography as my own education did. And let's start with music!

¡Con Salsa!

 When I arrived in Bridgewater in 1997, I worked late into the night quite often. I had a new job with mostly new classes to prepare, I was a new father with a tiny baby to help care for, and my doctoral dissertation committee at the University of Arizona thought it would be fun to make me re-write an entire book they had initially approved.
My companion on those late nights was sometimes National Public Radio, especially on Saturday night when the local (but globally important) affiliate WBUR played Latin American music ALL NIGHT. 

Specifically, the program Con Salsa aired from midnight to 5 a.m. In those days, listeners could call in to request or dedicate songs, and I remember that more than a few of those requests were from my new home town of Bridgewater.
The show continues to be on the air, as it has been for almost 49 years, though now it runs 10pm Saturday to 3am Sunday. It is still five full hours, curated by José Massó III, a true scholar of the music of Latin America, particularly that of the Caribbean. He describes the show as five chapters of music and commentary, often tied together by a particular theme or by homage being paid to a particular artist. 

One thing I love is that the show begins almost without notice -- whatever is happening at 9:59 ends and then this song plays for seven minutes before Massó says anything at all. 

This is very unusual for public radio, which usually has a lot of chatter at the top of the hour. I have gotten used to this soft opening over the years, and only learned the back story when Massó explained it during the episode of October 5-6, 2024. 

Listen to the story of Con Salsa during a during his appearance on The Common.
The title of the song is simply "Puerto Rico" but the inspiration for the song was a particularly poignant moment in the history of the island. That moment was at the very end of 1972, when the musician Eddie Palmieri was among many Puerto Ricans who were desperately combing the beaches of the island, in search of some sign of life from the Pittsburg Pirates baseball star Roberto Clemente. 

It turns out that he perished in a plane that he had chartered for a humanitarian mission to Nicaragua.

Sergio, Play Yo Piano

Credit to Will.I.Am. for the title of this post. Read on ... 

In the summer of 2006, I was walking through music/book store with my mother when I noticed a whole rack of CDs (this was 2006, after all) entitled Timeless, by a band I had not heard of: Black Eyed Peas. 

I stopped in my tracks and then tried to explain to my mother why this was so exciting. The face on the CD was that of a young Sergio Mendes. Sergio Mendes! 

As I later wrote in a 2013 post on my main blog, this is an artist who perhaps more than any other brought samba to audiences in the United States. He visited New York shortly before I was born, and shortly afterward exiled himself there, eventually moving to Los Angeles, where he died on September 5, 2024.

Back to that 2006 recording. The TimelessI project is one of many of his collaborations, in this case giving Black Eyed Peas a major role in many of the songs that he had made famous decades before. Among the most popular of these is "Mas Que Nada" and it is in this track that rapper Will.I.Am. encourages his friend's instrumental solo with those words. 

So popular had he become in the United States -- and particularly in New York City -- that a 1993 Seinfeld episode has the character Kramer indignantly ranting about his importance, and erroneously assuming he was well-known in Brazil.  

Notable tracks and stories I'll be sharing in class:

Fanfarra Cabua Le Le (1992)

Mas Que Nada 2006

Mas Que Nada 1966 video (see Wikipedia for much more about this song)

Sergio Mendes obituary on NPR (audio)

Sergio Mendes highlights on NPR (including obituary text)

Sergio Mendes, 83, Dies; Brought Brazilian Rhythms to the Pop Charts (NY Times)

Sergio Mendes - Magalenha (Video Original)

Mendes had a cameo in an otherwise very unremarkable movie Be Cool

Nostalgia Blinders

I noticed this statement recently on the page of a relatively recent BSU student who is involved in music.

It brought to mind a sentiment I see far too often in posts by people my own age (those who are Baby Boomers or close to it). That is the notion that no good music is made any more. Citing great musicians of their (our) own era, they will claim that nothing being performed today is as good. Or in fact, any good. 

Today more music is available than ever before, since the music of previous generations is still mostly available in some form, and new music is added daily. Entire new kinds of music are added as well, as are collaborations between generations.

There is no need for cynicism, but it helps to understand how it arises. Music is associated with many of our memories -- especially with good memories of time spent with friends and lovers, especially in our youth. 

There is nothing wrong with these good feelings, but we do ourselves -- and people of different ages around us -- a disservice if we allow ourselves to think that our particular generation has a monopoly on good music.

Student Participation 

In the comments below, I invite students (or others visiting this blog) to share examples of the kind of comment I am referencing above. A day after this post, I saw a typical one, with a bit of a clever twist. 

This appeared on the Facebook page of author Tom Bernstein and had been shared over 1,500 times in the first five days. I bravely clicked on the comments section, and found three interesting kinds of comments. Some objected to the premise, arguing that there is plenty of good music today that the writer was missing. Others expressed agreement -- "you got that right" and so on. And still others simply referenced some of that earlier music, such as that of CSNY. 

Current students are also invited to provide links to evidence for (or against) the claim I make above, regarding the psychological importance of the music we enjoy in our youth.

A Letter To The Earth

What could be more fitting for a class on world music than an album with the title A Letter to the Earth? It is a recent production of Dominican-American jazz drummer and composer Ivanna Cuesta, who is a featured performer at this weekend's Mission Hill Arts Festival.

Yesterday's edition of the GBH program The Culture Show begins with an interview about the festival and her role in it, along with her in-studio performance of the title track. The program itself is wide-ranging, so after learning about the festival and the music, you can learn about the wacky story of the marathon at the 1904 Olympics and about ice cream in Massachusetts today. 

Enjoy!

Shared Centennial

VERSION: August 2, 2024

I am initiating this post is on the centennial of the birth of James Baldwin (August 2, 1924). It will be updated between now and the centennial of Amílcar Cabral's birth (September 12, 1924).

I recently noticed that the two men were born in the same summer. Neither is thought of as a musician, but both were poets, and their contributions are relevant to the way this course approaches world music.

A good starting point for learning about Baldwin is "On the centennial of his birth, James Baldwin remains relevant today" -- a short conversation from today's NPR's Morning Edition. I also recommend his interview with Terry Gross, which she rebroadcast on Fresh Air for the occasion of this centennial. 

Regarding Cabral, to begin I sharing Cabral ka Mori (Cabral is Not Dead), a song that was produced by my friend and BSU colleague Angelo Barbosa to honor this centennial. Many more songs are forthcoming in this project. We will have much more to share about this project. The title itself is a reminder that something that is very poetic in one language might appear less elegant in translation.

I also recommend the Wikipedia article about each of them -- James Baldwin and Amílcar Cabral for some basic facts about them and their work.  

We will have much more to say about why Cape Verde (Cabo Verde) is so important to our region of Southeastern Massachusetts. The Tale of Two Capes museum exhibit by 2023 BSU graduate Carolyn King tells part of the story.

I will be adding resources about both men to this particular post, and will invite students in The Planet Sings to draw their own comparisons. Please check the version date at the top of this post when you return.

Lagniappe 

An example -- Regresso by Amilcar Cabral in English and Portuguese

Escritorio Pequeñito

The Tiny Desk Concerts at National Public Radio emerged from the frustration NPR host Bob Boilen and editor Stephen Thompson experienced at the 2008 South by Southwest festival in Austin.

The noise of the crowds had drowned out the music, leading the pair to create a bare-bones venue in Boilen's office, leading to hundreds of performances there and thousands more in similarly small spaces everywhere, after the Tiny Desk team launched an online contest.

I recommend the Tiny Desk Wikipedia article for more background because this origin story is difficult to find on the NPR web site itself. Then dive into the Tiny Desk page for so much more music!

In its early years, the series was sometimes criticized as too narrow, but a very wide variety of musical genres are now included and encouraged. It being a contest, the series surfaces far more excellent performances than can be declared winners.

On the July 9 edition of All Things Considered, Mary Louise Kelly begins by mentioning the Philharmonix, with its cleverly staged winning entry "What's It All Mean?" Watch this carefully -- it is full of subtle visual humor, with musicians who never break character. 

Kelly then asked Alt Latino host Felix Contreras to discuss some of his Latin music favorites from among this year's entries. Although some might consider Latino music a genre, it is an umbrella term for the many musics of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Spain. 

I recommend listening to their seven-minute conversation, which includes short audio clips from four of this year's contestants and his ideas about why he likes them and what genres they represent, and then watching each performance. Because the contest is based on video entries, I was able to find all four of these performances on YouTube; the musicians have additional music on that platform and elsewhere. Enjoy!

The first performance Contreras mentions is Taza de Café by Cáthia, a Salvadoran American from the Bronx. The song compares a lover to a cup of coffee -- or more specifically, uses the desire for a cup of coffee as a metaphor for her romantic attraction. I was interested in the coffee connection, of course, especially when Contreras mentioned that the performance was recorded in a café. That would have been perfect for the Coffee Maven, but the actual stage is a bodega in Miami -- equally wonderful, but not a café.

The lyrics are fairly simple but Cáthia sings with such gusto that I had some difficulty understanding some parts. I'm grateful for the lyrics and translation she provides on the YouTube page. 

He next mentions Lluvia Pesado (Heavy Rain) by Flaco el Jandro, a song that mentions coffee in a different context. For years I had assumed that cumbia was a style originating in the US-Mexico borderlands, but Contreras tells us that it originates in Colombia and is now very widespread in Latin America. 

The YouTube page includes some background on this artist and some mostly correct lyrics, this time only in Spanish.

After Contreras expresses relief that he was not a judge in this round, Kelly presses him to name a favorite "just between us" and he queues up a ranchera by Puerto Rican Mireya Ramos, who returns to the Tiny Desk with a band called The Poor Choices.

This is a soaring, operatic ballad that blends ranchera with many influences, even country. 

Finally, Contreras offers the song "Guero" ("Blond") by Los Quinceañeros when asked for a song to end the session. It is a fun, irreverent blend of cumbia, punk, and surf -- all dressed in cheesy outfits and staging.

The title apparently refers to the blond, nerdy guy sitting at a tiny desk in the middle of the band. This song is a little bit abstract.

This rounds out what promised to be -- and is -- a selection that illustrates the increasingly great diversity of Latin music.

Lagniappe

It is perhaps a cliché to point out that one advantage of being a teacher is that I never stop learning, and much of what I learn comes directly from students. I have been an avid NPR listener for over 40 years and have learned a lot about music from it. Even so, I was only vaguely aware of the Tiny Desk Concerts until Esha -- a student in my honors colloquium on New Orleans -- brought some music to my attention for that course. She then realized that I did not know much about the series in general and explained to me and another student that has become one of her favorite sources of music, giving us many of her favorite finds as a start. Thank you, Esha!

Musical Wisdom of Ibrahim Maalouf

 For students in my class and other students of cultural geography (which should be everyone), I recommend Jen White's interview with Ibrahim Maalouf on the radio program 1A. Produced by Haili Blassingame and originally broadcast earlier in 2024, the staff of 1A selected it as a highlight for rebroadcast during the holiday-week of Independence Day. 

The title of this episode is French Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf blends sound and defies genre. It is an hour well spent. 

GEOG 298 students, please take notes about what you notice in this discussion/performance. Meanwhile, I will mention a few of the highlights in what I heard.

Around 7m30s, he talks about the variety of understandings that can be found within a single country or tradition. His words here remind me of Chimamanda Adichie's TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story (itself another indispensable font of insights about how to approach learning about people and places)

Throughout the interview, he emphasizes the role of music in building for him what is the most important thing: empathy. This is something both more important and more complicated than sympathy. He is embodying the motto my friends at the Polus Center use to describe their worldview. Despite the importance of the multitude of good and bad human experiences, the remind us that "People are more alike than different."

At about 34m he explains why finds teaching to be an important way to continue as a learner. 

Early in the interview, he describes the legacy of his father, a self-taught musician who invented a trumpet that makes Lebanese jazz possible, for technical reasons I do not fully understand. He holds his father's legacy both in his being and literally in his hands. At 39m20s he answers a question about what. legacy he hopes to leave for his daughter. The first few words of his answer could describe what every parent should want: 

"I would like her to feel comfortable in this planet...."

He then elaborates with a more detailed answer that sets out guideposts for any parent. He then explains how travel with his daughter helps them to attain this goal.

Jen White observes that he is an optimistic person and asks how this is possible. Optimism is in short supply everywhere these days, and his own lived experience would give him more cause than most of us to reject optimism as folly. Again, please listen to his entire reply, but consider this excerpt a good glimpse into his thinking:

"There is no day I'm not crying these days. There is no single day that passes without tears going on my cheeks. No one. But I am optimistic, of course. Again, because I have no choice."

These are important words from someone who speaks every day with friends in Gaza, and who has lived similar traumas himself. 

The program ends with his performance of what he calls a very small part of his music with a song called "Our Flag," which he wrote with musician Sharon Stone. 

Lagniappe

As someone who endeavors to communicate in other languages, I am always impressed with people who do it exceptionally well. This interview is in English and Maalouf discusses very complex ideas with great clarity, despite this being at least his third language. 

São Vicente Paisagens

Landscapes of São Vicente 

This entry is an excerpt from a more complete entry of the same name on my Environmental Geography blog; it describes a travel course we are planning, in which music will combine with environmental and linguistic topics. Please see that version of São Vicente Paisagens for much more information about the course we are planning. It will offered primarily to BSU students but others may apply. The full entry describes the environmental content of the course and more about the music as well.

Music is an important part of cultural geography everywhere, but it seems especially to be the case in Cape Verde, where each island is home both to several distinct musical traditions and to a variety of contemporary artists. 

Among the latter are producers of music videos who really help geography learners by their rich incorporation of the cultural landscape. One example is Khaly Angel and his 2022 production Mindel (Mindelo -- below); another is Ariah by Jenifer Solidade.

We are very fortunate indeed that one of my collaborators in offering this course is Angelo Barbosa, who directs our Pedro Pires Institute for Cape Verdean Studies and who also has helped to create the definitive museum of Cape Verdean music, which is fully online.

Nopal

Somos de la Tierra del Nopal
Image: Aswer Garcia

I was captivated by this image during my random scrolling a few weeks ago, and I also enjoy the caption. It is profoundly geographic and definitely sounds better in the original Spanish  than in translation. 

The Spanish "Somos de la Tierra del Nopal" means "We are the Land of the Nopal." This is even less poetic if we translate the last word: "We are the Land of the Prickly Pear Cactus."

But in any language, the point is made (pun intended) about the symbols that tie people to their land, in this case Mexican people to Mexico.

This illustration is a variation on the illustration central to the national flag of Mexico, which reflects the origin story of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan -- which was to become the literal foundation of Mexico City. The artist Aswer Garcia has done the original story one better, with the cactus growing from a skull instead of a rock. 

And now the final tangent in this post: I became aware of the symbolic importance of the nopal through a song by the McAllen, Texas band Los Frijoles Romanticos: ¿Donde Está Mi Raza?

Yours Truly with a Nopal at CATIE

Everywhere Johnny Goes

Johnny Cash was known as a performer of Country music, which is also sometimes called Country & Western. The latter is appropriate in the context of his song "I've Been Everywhere" which has been represented on the map below, shared on the popular Facebook page Terrible Maps.

Most of the locations are in the United States and even those that are elsewhere are in the Western Hemisphere. This is not what is usually meant by Country & Western, of course, but it works for the purposes of this post. And given that this is for a course on world music, we might call this an example of half-world music.

It is often good to avoid the comments in social-media posts, but I recommend the comments on this one. Some are unduly sarcastic or pedantic, but many do offer some geographic insights and opinions. They also mention other musicians with a claim to the song -- Johnny Cash was not the first nor the last person to record it.

Herewith, the song itself, with helpful subtitles.

I have not examined the map or lyrics in detail, but I estimate that I have been to about half of the "everywheres" mentioned.

Belonging from Sudan

Ahmed Gallab is a Sudanese-American song who performs as Sinkane. He spoke recently with NPR's Tamara Keith about his new album We Belong and how he, his family, and his music have emerged from the troubled land of their origins. 

Album art from Bandcamp, which sells a digital version of We Belong.

Praia Famosa

 Two beaches, two famous songs. In preparing to write this, I scoured the photos from a quick -- very quick -- visit in 2004, in which I took all the beach photos I could manage of both beaches. 

One of these is the subject of a song by Barry Manilow. (Okay, Manilow scholars -- the song is about a hotel, but you can see the hotel from the beach.)

The other is an even bigger hit from a decade earlier -- the Girl from Ipanema. The stage decor in this version mimics the pavement patterns common on Portuguese and Brazilian public places, including the sidewalks near both of these beaches.

This version is the most familiar. Another YouTube video includes two interesting versions, one from a movie and one from a jazz club in Germany.

Música Rondônia

In many ways, my introduction to world music began in Rondônia, the state in the western Amazon of Brazil where I completed my dissertation research in 1996. I was there to study the connections between urbanization and deforestation, but the friends I met during my three-month stay were eager to teach me other things about their country, and many of them were particularly interested in music. 

The CDs that were recommended during that stay and during briefer research trips in 2000 and 2003 formed the basis of Music of the Americas in Global Context -- a web page and public lecture series I offered in the mid-aughts.

With a couple of delightful exceptions, the music they shared was from elsewhere in Brazil. The local music scene in Rondônia has flourished in recent years, along with the arts in general. Thanks to social media connections, I learned just yesterday of a YouTube playlist dedicated to the very local music of Rondônia. 

 

I am glad to be able to explore these performances with students who are studying global music in general and the Amazon in particular.

Coche Rápido

Just kidding. The song is Fast Car. In English. 

It was written, produced, and performed by artists born in the United States. 

But I include it on this blog because it is has a story -- a big, beautiful story that overlaps with many of the stories of world music.

Fast Car -- and the story of its recent revival -- is best told in several videos. The 1988 song is the second track on Tracy Chapman's eponymous 1990 album (CD/vinyl/cassette), which we played repeatedly in our home and (not-so-fast) car in the years after its release. 

Chapman's success was as ground-breaking as the song was ubiquitous. The Grammy she earned with it was among many firsts for a black female artist. And the song stayed with an entire generation of men and women, regardless of race. 

The live version recored at Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday celebration has garnered over 5 million views on YouTube alone. (Read "the story behind this performance" for the bittersweet details of how she ended up on the Wembley stage for the second time that day. She was originally scheduled only to perform Talkin 'bout a Revolution -- which is equally amazing and important.)

Among the white folks who enjoyed the song was Chester Combs, a North Carolinian more or less my age. Like me, he played the song so much that it became one of his son's favorite songs. Luke Combs was born two years after Chapman released the song, the same year as it was released on the album.

Young Luke grew up to become a country musician and in his mid 20s he started singing Fast Car at his live shows. People sang along. Again, everyone of a certain age already knew the words. His cover is the same song, beautifully reimagined but at the same time only subtly different from the original.

This version of the song did several things at once. It helped to earn awards and set records for Luke Combs. It earned Tracy Chapman Song of the Year from the Country Music Association -- something nice to go along with multiple nominations and one award from the Grammys and MTV a full generation earlier. 

And like all great cross-over successes, it introduced artists to new audiences. I am willing to bet that there as as many "Tracy who?" as "Luke who?" questions being asked when this news broke. I remember learning of a group called Black-eyed Peas only after they recorded a few songs with Brazilian bossa nova singer Sérgio Mendes (speaking of world music).

 

Grammys: African Music Performance

From NPR's All Things Considered, we learn about two of the 2024 Grammy Award categories: Best African Music Performance and Best Alternative Jazz Album. Best Pop Dance Recording is another new category not mentioned in the NPR report. As reporter Rodney Carmichael points out, the inclusion of an African category comes far too late and is far two small a vessel for the music of 1.4 billion people in 54 countries with at least 30 music genres, but it is a start. I could not help notice the irony that even on NPR, his comments were tucked into the back half of a story on two new categories, rather than a stand-alone piece on African music. But here we are.

Ayra Starr of Nigeria
Photo: Glamour UK

Winners in all 94 categories will be announced on February 4 in an arena now known for bogus currency. Meanwhile, five nominees in each category are listed on the Grammy site. It was easy for me to find an "official" video on YouTube for each nominee in the African Musical Performance category, which I share here. I notice that all of these have had dozens of millions of views so far.

Amapiano by ASAKE & Olamide

City Boys by Burna Boy

UNAVAILABLE by Davido Featuring Musa Keys

Rush by Ayra Starr

Water by Tyla

Lagniappe 

I cannot think of Grammys and Africa without thinking of the incomparable Angélique Kidjo of Benin, who has won a number of Grammys and who performed her Afirika at the Grammys in 2020, shortly before I saw her perform the same amazing work in Providence, Rhode Island, about two weeks before the world shut down. 

This song sustained me through the very hard times that were to come and still always brings a song.