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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
