Faber: isbn: 978-0-571-36000-0
Some thoughts about this mammoth new book – Alan Dearling
I started penning this review when I reached page 795. It’s nearly 1,000 pages long. Along with other quotes on the cover, here’s what Ry Cooder says: “One only hopes that this will be taught in schools.”
Joe Boyd has been a ‘name’ in popular music since the 1960s, having been a record producer, record label mogul and film producer. His credits range from his earlier work with the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Nico, Nick Drake, Pink Floyd and Billy Bragg through to world musicians from across the globe. In fact, Joe Boyd emphasises the transition from the ‘World’ music label to ‘Global’ music as a positive one, in changing the status of music from different cultures and countries. His own artists have hailed from Africa, South America, Cuba, India and Eastern Europe – a diverse roster from Muzsikás, Trio Bulgarka, Toumani Diabaté, Kanda Bongo Man and ¡Cubanismo!
And added to that career, Joe has been a formidable music promoter involved with artists, record labels and venues, often rubbing shoulders with the likes of Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Paul Simon, Ry Cooder, Ravi Shankar, Taj Mahal, David Byrne and Robert Plant. That I guess is what makes Joe Boyd and his massive tome different from many writers and books on musical history. Joe has had a personal stake in, and made contributions to, many films, festivals, gigs and record companies (particularly Hannibal). That is also a major strength of many of the most accessible sections and chapters in the book. These are sections where there are insider tales of places, events and musicians.
“The GLC (Greater London Council) African concerts in 1985 cranked up everything up a couple of notches before ‘Graceland’ multiplied the market at a stroke, bringing increased press and radio coverage and a surge of orders from shops.”
Joe Boyd’s writings about reggae as it evolved from Jamaica and spread around the world are especially interesting and enjoyable. He credits Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry as being at the forefront of “…the golden age of reggae.” (My photo of Perry at Toots’ 80th Birthday Bash in London). “Scratch worked standing up and barefoot , dressed in whatever he threw on when he got out of bed that morning, spliff always in hand.” Scratch is quoted as saying of himself: “When the people hear what I-man do them hear a different beat, a slower beat…a different bass, a rebel bass, coming at you like sticking a gun.”
However, this book is a major attempt at creating both a social history of the countries and continents that have provided many of the musical components in Joe’s life in music: jazz; blues; rock, folk; tango; reggae; Gypsy/Roma music and much more. That’s where it is both insightful in trying to join up the proverbial ‘dots’ between colonial pasts, more recent diasporas, riots, regime changes – the whole gamut of political change, but also rather problematic. It then becomes a bit of challenge when reading through vast swathes of detail in chapters about countries which we personally know little about, and perhaps have less interest in, either for social-political histories or their musical heritage. Tango and dance in general are not really of great interest to me, as a ‘for instance’. But African highlife music did whet my appetite to investigate bands such as Jazz Africa and revisit the music of Fela Ransome Kuti (though I felt it strange that Ginger Baker’s tour of drumming duty alongside Tony Allen in Africa 70 doesn’t even get a footnote.) Joe Boyd is especially compelling in his writing and memories about the Paul Simon period during the making of the ‘Graceland’ album, and likewise his knowledgeable description of the griots and jali (master musicians/story-tellers) of Africa, and in his back-stories around the kora and other musical instruments. There are many musical ‘nuggets’ buried within this massive volume. For me these include suggestions about the key volumes in The Ethiopiques’ series of album releases. ‘Tezeta’ from Getachew Kassa, and the 2006 release of ‘Ethiopiques 21: Piano Solo’ featuring Emahoy, including what Boyd calls, music which is, “…somewhere between Eric Satie and blues minimalist Jimmy Yancey perhaps.”
I have also followed up (a little) on Joe’s interest in detailing the importance of the sub-Madame Helena Blavatsky’s esoteric and occult beliefs in Turanism (aka Turanianism), which appear to have fed into the politics of Hitler’s Germany and the dissonant music of Igor Stravinsky with his ‘Rite of Spring’ and ‘Les Noces’. ‘Shambala’ and the Secret Doctrine are at its dark heart.
However, the breadth of information included in many chapters is such that it can become something of a Leviathan task to find the musical threads in amongst the political intrigues, coups, genocides and the sordid, dark episodes in the complex histories of many continents and individual countries. This is especially true with regard to those nations that have gradually gained independence from former colonial rule, but haven’t always prospered because of corruption, wars/conflicts and issues of race, religion, ethnicity and culture. It does make the book a bit unwieldy at times. I felt that I would probably have preferred Joe Boyd to have created a series of books, each one connected to a particular music, continent or set of countries linked by their musical traditions and heritage.
So, this is a book for serious students of global music. Plenty to grapple with and a fountain of information. But, it is quite a heavy-weight challenge for the average music fan, however much into World/Global Music.
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