Metal Heart, Amazing Grace

Cat Power
24" x 12"
oil on luan, 2012

She has a brand new look, a brand brand new hair style, a brand new music style too. She's Cat Power. Her song Metal Heart has been in the the Top 100 before, before I even blogged about those songs. I really thought of Cat Power back then as her having a metal heart (metal as in heavy metal). Can't be so sure anymore as she seems to have traded it for a hip hop heart now. Metal Heart is a Cat Power song that quotes from the classic Amazing Grace hymn. It's a blues song really (years ago I also likened Cat Power's music to the oral history of the blues traditions in American music). Metal Heart was featured on her third recording, an LP called What Would the Community Think, as well as on her second to last one Jukebox, recorded with the Dirty Dozen Blues Band. I've heard claims made that hip-hop is the linear ancestor to the blues, and that Grandmaster Flash and the Wu-Tang Clan could be considered as part of the same long line of African-American oral history traditions as Son House, and Muddy Waters would have been. I've done about 28 or so Cat Power paintings over the years, enough that you would think it's a career in and of itself but even the 2,000+ musicians overall that I've painted still don't add up to much of a career... There is still hope, the hobby continues, I'm still that fan.

Faiza Ahmed

Faiza Ahmed
12" x 12"
oil on luan, 2012

Faiza Ahmed (1934-1983) was an Egyptian singer of Syrian and Lebanese ancestry. Her top 100 song Set El Habayeb Yahabieba that was featured in an item on Faiza Ahmed in Bodaga Pop, is one of her best known songs, apparently a Mother's Day favorite. I went out of my way this time in preparation for the painting. I took a bunch of photographs of my banana plant in the early morning sun and planned the composition with superimposing a photograph of Faiza Ahmed onto one of the banana pictures's. The painting totally existed in my head (and on paper as well) before I started applying the first paint. I was after a lushness of both vegetation and singer's expression that I think in the end only partly materialized. Mother's Day in Egypt falls on March 21st, which was my father's birthday, and also the date the Top 100 2012 will be played. That day in 2013, when days have the same length as nights all around the world, I intend to play the Top 100—radio show style—live on line. I'll keep you posted on this.

Bocet in my back yard

Bocet: Lament for a dead father, Romania
12" x 12", oil on luan, 2012

It's all happening in my back yard. All my favorite musicians have been visiting and they came from all over the world. I had Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix over to play some soccer, just a week ago I had some girls from Borneo prepare the rice. I had tons of live music happening, from Guatemalan street musicians to a performance by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, there's been naked people, Muslim women that only showed their eyes, Siberian people dressed to withstand extreme (cold) temperatures, cannibals, and pacifists, and now there's a funeral going on. Maybe it's time to do some further landscaping, to make the background more inviting. Especially since one of my next visitors will be my sister, and she is for real. What I really need to do is to make the house presentable, because my sister, unlike all the luminaries I've painted, will also come inside. The three sisters in the painting, lamenting the death of their father, are not the same Romanian women that lamented their brother on a 1930s recording by the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, that will feature in this year's Top 100. There's actually only one woman singing the Lament for a dead brother. The song is, of course, also represented on the CD Keening Songs and Death Wails I recently compiled. The following text accompanies the Romanian Bartok recordings:

"The woman designated at the funeral to bewail the death in Romania is called a bocitorre (comp. voceratrice in Corsica), and the lament a bocet (vocerata in Corsica). The tradition of funeral lamentation in Romania is similar to those of other catholic countries. The laments are often sung by relatives of the deceased but sometimes a professional wailer is hired. The bocitorres on the LP Folk Music of Rumania (as Romania was spelled) are relatives of the deceased except in Lament for the dead which is sung by a professional. It is also the only bocet that has a musical accompaniment (in the form of a flute). All bocitorres are anonymous on the LP that was released by the Folkways label of Moses Asch in 1968. The recordings however, all made by the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, are much older. (Smithsonian-Folkways on their website, gives 1951 as recording year, but this can’t be true: Bela Bartok died in 1945. He was living at this time in New York City. I suspect the recordings stem from the 1930s, or even earlier)."

Rosa Balistreri

Rosa Balistreri

24" x 12"

oil on luan, 2012

I don't speak Italian, so the lyrics to the song Buttano di to mà by Sicilian singer Rosa Balistreri don't really make an impact on me but the song certainly did. It's clearly one of Balistreri's more dramatic songs. Not I'm an expert though, I had never heard of Rosa Balistreri until just a week ago when I picked up a copy of her album Amore tu lo sai,la vita è amara. I have since heard about twenty of her songs, 12 on the album and an additional eight or so songs on YouTube (the site that pretty much has everything you can think of). Buttano di to mà was not on the album, but it was the song that stood out for me most upon my first introductions to the music of the Sicilian singer. The blog(ger) Kalliope Amorphous states that the song "is quite possibly the most powerful 'fuck you' song ever recorded." Kalliope also states that Balistreri deserves more attention outside of Italy. In Rosa Balistreri: The Sicilian Folk Singer You Should Know About she writes: "I have been listening to Rosa Balistreri for many years, but was surprised to find very little mention of her in English speaking articles and reviews. It is unfortunate that these voices can become so easily lost in the miasma of what passes for music in our culture." Despite that there is "very little mention of her in English speaking articles", there is plenty of presence on line. Lots of texts in Italian, and also lots of music and photographs that don't require any language skill to indulge in. Great photos too! I may have to paint some more soon (I have to, if I keep listening so much to her music). Rosa Balistreri was born in 1927, grew up in a brutal, feudal Sicily. As an escape she began to sing Sicilian folk songs but it took her through many inhumane jobs and relationships before she was, at the age of 39, able to make a recording. Balistreri fled from Sicily to Florence in the 1960s, but moved back again in the 1970s. She died in Palermo in 1990.

A Mother's Lament

Sergio, harpist
(after a photo by John Schechter)
24" x 12", oil on luan, 2012

I reported a month ago I was working on a CD with examples of weep singing. I have now finished this compilation, it contains 28 tracks and has a 20 page booklet of pictures and explanatory notes. The CD won't be released anywhere but if anyone is interested in this subject or the CD, please write me a note. The texts in this booklet were often pulled from this very blog. Now I'm returning the favor: the following text is from the booklet Keening Songs and Death Wails. Sergio, the harpist depicted above, is featured on the recording of a Quichuan mother lamenting the death of her 2-year old daughter.

Keening Songs and Death Wails
collected by Berry van Boekel
private publication, 2012

Quichuan Mother’s Lament (to her 2 year old girl)

Ecuador, January 12-13, 1980, outside Cotacachi, recorded by John Schechter.

In the educational textbook Worlds of Music ethnomusicologist John Schechter gives an account of the circumstances surrounding the recording of this Quichuan’s lament. (Summarizing 4 pages into 1 paragraph): Against a backdrop of a high infant mortality rate amongst Catholicized  Quichua Indians in Ecuador a wake is organized for the passing of a two year old girl. The wake is festive, there’s food, drink, music, and dance. The musician is harpist Sergio, he plays non stop local favorite (traditional) dance music. The girl is put on the floor, decorated with the finest adornments, and just before her casket is closed, laid on a higher table, and a ladder put against it (to symbolize the ascension to a higher realm) her mother sings a song. The song is improvised, the lyrics almost impossible to decipher because of the mother’s sobbing, halfway into the song Sergio starts playing the harp again, and the song becomes different, more joyful.

Gustave Doré: A festive child’s wake 
in the Spanish Mediterranean, 1870s

In many Latin American countries the passing  of an infant is a festive occasion. When an infant died he/she is sinless and becomes an angle. The child did not have to endure the impurities and hardships of life adults have. In 1980, when the account by Schlechter was written, the mortality rate of infants was three out of ten. Funerary lamentation is a widespread practice among catholic countries/regions. It is said to have originated in Roman times but the origins of the singing at wakes and funerals may well go further back than Christianity does. A lamentation is an improvisation of an unaccompanied female wailing voice. The singer is often a relative of the deceased but also could be a hired professional "wailing" woman. In Ireland she's called a "keener", in Romania a "bocitorre", and in Corsica "voceratrice". Laments can be divided up into two categories: that of the wakes and funerals for adults, and for those of children. The adult ones are mournful while children's laments can have a festive quality to them as it is celebrated when a child "becomes an angel" without having experienced the hardships and impurities of life. The practice has become nearly extinct now but it used to be a tradition in nearly all catholic societies. It could be found throughout the Mediterranean, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and other pockets of Catholicism that existed around the globe. I grew up in the Catholic Netherlands, but I don't think lamentation was ever practiced there. It certainly wasn't  when my grandparents died while I was still a little boy in the late 1960s. The Netherlands had a sober kind of Catholicism, it had the introverted ascetic characteristics of it but not not the extroverted spirituality. The folk music in Mediterranean and Latin American countries were influenced by a rich spirituality and a cult of the death.

Source: Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World's People, 4th ed., Jeff Todd Titon (ed.), Schirmer, 2002

KIRK

Rahsaan Roland Kirk
24" x 12"
oil on luan, 2012

Downbeat magazine "Poll Winners' Show" 1975, Rahsaan Roland Kirk is introduced by Quincy Jones as having won the award in the category of multi-instrumentalist and miscellaneous instruments. In the clarinet category he won for the 2nd consecutive year, the stritch and manzello he won for 14 consecutive years (these were instrument he devised himself), he won the flute too. As soon as Quincy Jones is done with the lauds, Kirk tears into a mesmerizing version of Pedal Up. Kirk plays multiple horns, McCoy Tyner is on piano, Stanley Clarke on bass, and Lenny White is the drummer on this track that reaches high into the Top 100 for the 3rd consecutive year. It doesn't get old this one. I have a version on the 2LP-set Bright Moments but I prefer the Downbeat version. It's great to see him perform even just on video as I never had the chance to see him perform live in concert. Ronald Theodore Kirk was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1935, he died in 1977.

Albanian clarinettists

Laver Bariu   
12" x 12"
oil on luan, 2012

Laver Bariu (b. 1929) is a virtuoso Albanian clarinet player who is, despite his old age, still active today (as far as I can tell, I hope I'm right). There are a few videos of him performing on line, so you can check out some of his wonderful music. In the context here he's only a stand-in for his fellow clarinettist and compatriot Ajdin Asllan of whom I could find find no available image on line. Asllan was born in 1895, recorded in Albania before moving to the United States where he started a record label featuring Balkan music including some of his own. He died in 1976. I found Valle Devollice on Excavated Shellac, a site that is an authority when it comes to early recordings from 78s. The tune is a duet of Asllan's clarinet and the traditional Albanian llaute, recorded circa 1930. There is actually a lot of information concerning this obscure Albanian 78 record but rather than poorly paraphrasing I'll direct you to the source here in the words of master excavator Jonathan Ward.

Hungarian Tangos

Ilona Nagykovácsi12" x 12"
oil on luan, 2012

Not that there are so many Hungarians where I live, not that I know of at least, but there are certainly a lot of Hungarian records to be found at local second hand stores. I got myself something that might be considered a collection. From traditional music recorded in the field, via popular gypsy orchestras, to a record full with tangos, the whole gamut of records from a certain era from a certain country is to be found. In my blog Musical Thrift Store Treasures you can read about, and listen to some of these records. So many records from one place naturally reflects the content of the yearly list of 100 songs too. Ilona Nagykovácsi (1910, Hungary-1995, Canada) was a Hungarian actress, comedienne, and singer who moved to Canada during the second World War. One of the Hungarian recordings in the list of 100 is her song Gyűlöllek, a tango featured on that album Svívbajok ellen, kisasszony, szedjen tangót! that is dedicated to tangos only.

Back to Burkino

Maurice Sempore
12" x 12"
oil on luan, 2012

Maurice Sempore is the sax player and leader of the group L'Orchestre Harmonie Voltaique from, as the name implies, Upper Volta which was renamed Burkino Faso. The group was formed in 1948 by Antoine Ouedraogo. Sempore took over from Ouedraogo in 1964 and 'africanized' the sound of the group that had a repertoire mostly consisting of French popular songs (like those of the singer Sandwidi Pierre, also in the Top 100, who I painted in May). The song Killa Naa Naa Ye Killa was recorded in 1970 and appeared as a 7" single.

A song about rice

Young Dyak women grind rice using a
 traditional technique
(after a photograph by Harrison W. Smith
 for National Geographic)
12" x 12", oil on luan, 2012

In 1951 and 1952 UNESCO and UNO recorded indigenous music of the various Dyak (or Dayak) people on the Island of Borneo (now Kalamantan) in Indonesia. A selection of these recordings can be found on The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Collected and Edited by Alan Lomax, Vol. VII: Indonesia, Edited by Dr. Jaap Kunst, Indisch Museum, Amsterdam. A long title indeed, but inside the titles are short and descriptive. You can read more about the record when, a while back, I painted Roro natives from Papua New Guinea. The second song from the album is a pretty one labeled Rice Song. "Dyak women sing this appeal to the spirit of the mountains to send a good harvest." It could have been a lot worse; the song after the rice song is a headhunter's dance. The practice of cannibalism had been extinct in Borneo for a good while already. Volume five of the Columbia World Library series overlap volume seven a bit, it deals with Australia and New Guinea. The record features a recording of still practicing cannibals. Alan Lomax (who does the final edit on the liner notes in the series) states in a matter of fact manner: "(...T)he warriors burst into a song. Afterwards the bodies of the dead men are cut into pieces, cooked on hot stones, and eaten." I wonder if they serve rice with it.

The Super Djata Band

Zani Diabaté
12" x 12"
oil on luan, 2012

I found Bimoko Magnin, a song from the LP The Super Djata Band de Bamako vol. 2 (1983) on ghostcapital, a blog that I follow. The LP was produced in Burkino Faso but the group is from Mali. Bimoko Magnin is the second song that came to the Top 100 courtesy of ghostcapital, and also the second African Pop gem from them in the list. Guitar player Zani Diabaté was the driving force behind the Super Djata Band, who were active throughout the 1980s.  He had been playing in various groups in Mali since1963 before forming the Super Djata Band in 1974 together with Maré Sanogo. Diabaté lived most of life near Bamako in Mali but died in Paris in 2011. 

Like the previous two paintings this week, this one of him is again done on top of a landscape depicting my back yard featuring a banana plant. Despite my best intentions the banana plant is again being obscured by the portrait.

Flor Sinqueña

Flor Sinqueña
24" x 12"
oil on luan, 2012

Aah...the banana plant is still there, part of the floral design of Flor's transparent Peruvian dress. I can't get enough of playing those Peruvian records I got this year and the one by "La voz filamonica del Peru" is my favorite from that modest collection. The record situates itself to the left of the western orchestrated, beautiful and smooth music of a singer like Maria Jesus Vazquez, but well right of the raw huaylas by a typical Huanca orchestra. The orchestra here has the characteristics of the traditional huayno orchestras of Central Peru and other Andean regions. Flor's voice is pretty straight forward without many frills, no emotive extroversion, but solid and sober. The language is Spanish (as opposed to Quechua). Most of the tracks on that record of hers, El Peru con Flor (1989), are in the huaynos style (a dance), but a few tunantadas are also included. A slower tunantada Mi Ultimo Aviso is my favorite track on the album. I'm in the process of learning Spanish but I'm not nearly far enough to understand Spanish language web sites (I can barely count to twenty) so haven't been able to find too much information on the singer Flor Sinqueña. Translated sites don't go much beyond calling her "Flower" Sinqueña. I once saw a film about rocker Neil Young on German TV; they translated the name Johnny Rotten in the song lyrics of Hey Hey My My as Johnny Verdorben. 

The above text is edited from an article titled El Peru Con Flor that I wrote last June for Musical Thrift Store Treasures. Following the link you can listen to Mi Ultimo Aviso as well as to the huayno song Vas a Llorar, both from El Peru Con Flor.

The Dervish

Marika Papagika
12" x 12"
oil on luan, 2012

Rebetika (or rembetika) star Marika Papagika (1890-1943) is pictured against a backdrop of my back yard. I'm getting better at these back yard paintings and sometimes it's difficult to 'sacrifice' a particular good one. I do not pre-superimpose the musician, meaning that when I'm painting the backyard, I do it as if it were to be a painting that could stand on itself. Often the most interesting part, the focal moment, happens close to the center of a painting, and it is precisely these moments that are being covered up by the superimposed portrait. The background to the Marika Papagika painting once featured—for the first time—my finally mature banana plant, and it was my intention to paint Papagika's portrait transparent so the banana plant would shine through. I had even flipped the original photo I based the painting on, horizontally so that her facial features would not be right in front of the banana but her hair would. Needless to say it didn't quite work out that way. (There's only a slight trace of the banana leaves left). It's because I'm impatient; I envision the painting a certain way and I get restless, wanting it to be that certain way before I could technically accomplish it (meaning to let the paint dry before retouching it). That impatience also causes that here, on this spot on line, you will hardly ever find an image of a painting exactly the way it exists as a finished painting. Too soon I want to share it and write about it. You can bet your life that this Marika Papagika painting will be back in the studio tomorrow for some final adjustments and touch ups.

Marika Papagika? Yes, she's in this years Top 100 because I consider her song Dervisis as one of the price songs from the 2009 record set Mortika: Recordings from a Greek Underground from the cult-status like Mississippi label, a record I bought for full price, at a real record store (which doesn't happen too often). The Greek song was recorded in 1927, in New York City, and its topic is a brawl, hashish and wine, in a rather profane take on the meaning of the word "Dervish". A topic mind you, appropriate for the Mississippi label, and right up the alley of their audience (of which I'm one).

Sviatoslav Richter

Sviatoslav Richter
12" x 12"
oil on masonite, 2012

#2 in the 100 Greatest Recordings Ever series is the Piano Quintet in F-minor by composer César Franck as performed by pianist Sviatoslav Richter together with the Bolshoi String Quartet. For many years I lamented not being able to find this recording anywhere. A good friend of mine had this wonderful record and it became my number 1 in the Top 100 of 1985. For the longest time I thought of this as the best piece of music ever. I lost contact with that friend and the record at the same time. I hadn't seen the record in 20 years until, just a few weeks ago, it was right there, in a second hand curiosity store in downtown Fort Myers. I had filled one of the major gaps in my record collection. And it was not the only record of Sviatoslav Richter, there were three all from a series dedicated to him. Besides the Piano Quintet, there was Rachmaniov's Pianoconcert No. 2, as well as the Concerto No. 5 by Camille Saint-Saëns. I bought all three of them. I had never payed a whole of attention to individual performers or certain directors or orchestras (besides one or two opera singers) but this has now changed: I am officially a fan of Sviatoslav Richter. The newest edition may feature all three of the newly purchased Richter record and the Concerto No. 5 is already a certainty. Russian born Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter (1915-1997) is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century and I now know why. For the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) it is the first ever appearance in the 30 years of the Top 100.

Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók
12" x 12"
oil on masonite, 2012

Classical music has been a bit underrepresented in the Top 100 considering the vast amount of such records in my collection and the availability of cheap items. There are several genres, or topics that I collect within the broad field that is classical music. One of the topics that I always grab whenever I see one is that of the composer playing his (her's is a bit rare outside of contemporary classical music) own music. Recently I was delighted to find not one, but two records with the music of one of my all time favorite composers, Béla Bartók (1881-1945) at a local 2nd hand store. Bartók plays his own piano music on these. The two Bartók records, together with a third one, were neatly bound into an album by the previous owner. I love those personal touches added by music enthusiasts of yore. Bartók Plays Bartók is an album of short solo piano pieces, one is a piano adaption of a work written for strings, another is a piece for two pianos. The second piano is played by his wife Ditta Pasztóry Bartók. Ditta Bartók has even a more prominent presence on the second album, which is a performance of the piece Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Béla Bartók is heard on piano, Ditta plays the second piano while Harry Baker and Edward Rubzan are the percussionists. The album is then completed with  some short piano solos performed by Béla Bartók. The past several Top 100 years have included many recordings made by Bartók in his occupation as ethnomusicologist, these were field recordings of traditional music made in Romania and Hungary in the 1930s and before. It has been more than 20 years since I've welcomed a Bartók as composer in the Top 100, from before the time I painted all the musicians. Here then is the first time I painted a portrait of Béla Bartók.

Keening

Kitty Gallagher
12" x 12"
oil on masonite, 2012

A banshee is a fairy figure of Irish lore. Her appearance is an omen and she wails when someone is about to die. That wail, according to legend, is a high pitched ululating voice that would scare anyone to death. Keening, as wailing is called in Ireland, is closely related to the banshee. Keening is the practice of lamentation in song at Irish funerals. The keener is often a close relative of the deceased but sometimes she is a well known keener. The best keeners were in high demand. Keening comes from the Irish word “caoin” meaning “to weep” or “to wail” at a funeral. The practice is officially extinct.

It must have been 1995, when I heard in a museum exhibit a sound recording of a banshee. But a banshee is a fairy which makes it very improbable that the recording I heard was actually that of a banshee. Yet it was the most beautiful and haunting recording of a female voice I had ever heard. I still have, to this day, not found out what it was precisely that I heard that one day in 1995. My memory tells me it was at the Columbus Museum of Art. I contacted the Museum but they could not tell me what it was. They didn’t know what I was talking about. If it wasn’t there I would not know where else it was I heard it, or where to inquire. But I did hear it—I’m not crazy—it was not something my mind had made up by dreaming or otherwise. It became a quest to find it, the holy grail of my music collection, a song so beautiful it would render all other music meaningless or at least pale in comparison. Irish friends well versed in Irish lore could not lead me to it, scientific research through the music cognition program at the Ohio State University, lead me to many wonderful places but not to the banshee. Many things I’ve found on my quest for that elusive recording. Keyword searches in many search engines yielded a lot wonderful music. I searched for keywords like keening, wailing, laments, mourning, and of course banshee, and I’ve gathered many examples of weep-singing, a tradition linked to the wake of a deceased one, often a child. A wake for a dead child is a festive ritual observed in many parts of the globe. The rituals are disappearing, keening is officially extinct, and sound recordings of such rites are sparse. It is thanks to those tireless ethnomusicologists in the early and middle of the 20th Century, that made it their life’s work to capture the traditions in music that were dying out, that there are any at all. Since 1995 I have been collecting the sounds of the wakes, the mourning songs, and other examples of weep-singing. And even with the vast amount of ethnographical music found on the web, my collection of weeping songs is growing only very slowly, and the recording of the banshee may remain forever elusive. But as they say: it is not the destination that matters, it is the journey.

This is my introduction to a compilation of weeping songs from my collection. It will be released on CD in a limited edition of only 25, intended as Christmas presents to close friends. The CD leads the listener through the Cossacks of the Caucasus, to the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Ireland of course, and many other locations. I wanted to compile such a CD for a long time but it was lacking a good keening song. That, my dear friends, I have now found:

Keening Song sung by Kitty Gallagher is only a recent addition to my collection of wailing songs. I could not have completed this compilation without a keening song from Ireland, the land that started my interest in the genre but from where I had not yet found a sound recording. True, it may not be precisely that elusive recording I once heard at the Columbus Museum of Art but it comes closer than any of the other tracks featured in this collection. Keening Song is featured on the album Traditional Songs of Ireland with recordings made between 1952 and 1961.

⚡un

Cat Power
12" x 12"
oil on masonite, 2012

 Silent Machine is the second Cat Power tune to enter into this year's 100. I saw Cat Power perform a few weeks ago in Miami, the first concert of her new ⚡un tour. It was good, but the beer way too expensive. It was good to hear the several parts of the ⚡un songs performed by the musicians in the band (as opposed to overdubbing and electronics on the CD. Silent Machine was the only song in the concert in which Cat Power played the guitar. The song is also the only that's not new. I known it as She Loves You So Hard for many years. This will be the last post before the opening reception of 100 Top 100 paintings at Pinecrest Gardens Gallery on November 2nd, from 6 to 8 in Miami. This painting of Cat Power will just be dry in time to be included. Hope to see you there. Southwest 57th Ave and 111th. (Beer is free while supplies last.)

Sugaring Season

Adaption of Sugaring Season
album cover, Beth Orton
12" x 12", oil on board, 2012

Beth Orton's brand new Sugaring Season is out and it's really great. I bought the 12" vinyl version that does the beautiful photograph on the cover more right than does the 12 cm CD. I don't typically use such an iconic image as a record sleeve, as a source to draw from but this time I wanted to make an exception. I don't recall ever painting on a 12" x 12" surface but it surely makes sense as it mimics the format of the LP.  Thus here is an adaption of the LP cover of Sugaring Season, same size, sans the title and name, but with my trademark backyard background. And the portrait, as always, is done freehand without any mechanical devices. The more realistic and true to the source material the painting is, the more important this issue is to me because all the character of the portrait in the painting hinges on small subtleties and distortions from the photographic original. In my self taught course psychology 101 I learned that involuntary distortions in reproduction tell a lot about some unconscious hidden aspects of one's psyche. So I'll add more and more material to be analyzed if someday anyone out there would have an interest. (Which most likely will be my psychiatrist after I've yet completed another thousand more of such paintings.) For the first couple of the next thousand paintings I'll stick to the 12 inch square format in order to produce some more record sleeve adaptations. The next Beth Orton song after the already discussed Something More Beautiful in the Top 100 2012 from Sugaring Season is the opening song Magpie. The song has a reference to a crow in it, which is precisely the animal I attributed to Beth Orton when, two years ago, I asked myself the question: "If Beth Orton would be asked what kind of animal she'd be, what would she answer?"

The Roro

Roro, South Coast, Papua
24" x 14", oil on canvas, 2012

There has been a disproportionate amount of popular music in the Top 100 2012 list that doesn't really reflect all the music I have been playing on my turntable. Academic style field recordings from all over the world has been and continues to be the main focus of my record collection and what I choose to play at home as well. Within these records I like the older ones the best, recorded and collected at a time when there still was little influence of the Western popular music styles onto the traditional music of a certain ethnic group somewhere on this planet. A whole bunch of academic  ethnomusicologists, as well as hobbyists with high ideals, traveled around the world in the middle and later parts of the 20th Century, to record and catalog the music they thought of as a fast disappearing local cultural identity. One of the most prominent collectors out there was Alan Lomax, who spent his life collecting and recording the folk music of the most remote regions of the world. He started documenting the various folk styles of the most remote areas of the US but soon broadened his scope to the whole world. His ambition was to have a giant library that collected all the traditional musics from around the world. He was part of the Library of Congress that focused mainly on the music of the US including all of the various immigrant group's traditional music identities, and founded the World Library of Folk and Primitive Music. All the music had to be available to any and every person interested. The scope of that library was broad and ambitious but only 18 volumes were ever compiled by the Columbia label. All 18 of these are sought after and very hard to come by. I just scored my second in a record store in Miami: The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Collected and Edited by Alan Lomax – Indonesia, Edited by Dr. Jaap Kunst, Indisch Museum, Amsterdam is the full identifying title of the record in front of me. The record is divided into four geographical sections: New Guinea, Moluccas, Borneo, and Bali. New Guinea is subdivided into Eastern New Guinea (now Papua New Guinea) and Western New Guinea (now part of the Republic of Indonesia). The first song from this album to enter into the Top 100 is called Atestsua-Aroba and is from the Papua part of New Guinea, it's a song by Roro natives, who live scattered in small villages along the South Coast and on Yule Island. The three individuals in the painting (against a backdrop of once again my back yard) are adapted from a photograph included in the record album. The song was recorded by Dr. Kunst and the photograph is presumably his as well.

Top 100 Exhibition at Pincrest Gardens in Miami

John Coltrane and Miles Davis
13.25" x 10", oil on wood, 2008

While it's too soon to even think about the contents of the current top 100, there's big news concerning the exhibition of paintings that belong to this series. Nearly all of the 2012 paintings that are finished will be on display in November and December at Pinecrest Gardens, in Miami, Florida. The exhibition is a bit a of a 30th anniversary celebration of the Top 100. Besides the paintings from the current year there will be a large selection of last year's paintings on view as well as a selection of paintings from the top 100 dating back to the start of it in 1983. In total there will be exactly 100 paintings. The selected paintings can be considered the top 100 paintings from the Top 100 catalog. This time however it's not according to an objective list, but as a subjective pick from over 2,000 paintings I have made in the context of the Top 100. And... I've got to tell you... picking my favorite top 100 paintings  is the most fun project I've undertaken in along time. Going through all these boxes and boxes full of paintings gives me so much joy, and to select them in terms of visuals in stead of aural favorites gives it a whole new spin. For the first time the paintings are not an illustration of a piece of music but exist as painting. It's an art exhibition and the subject happens to be musicians. So if you happen to be in Miami in November or December be sure to come see it. The opening reception is on November 2nd in the evening and then there's an event on Sunday December 9th in the afternoon, where I will give a Gallery talk. That date, the latter, coincides with Art Basel in Miami. Well... hope to see you there. The above painting from the Top 100 2007 of John Coltrane and Miles Davis will certainly be one of the 100 displayed. At the time if functioned as an illustration for the track All Blues by Miles Davis accompanied by John Coltrane.

Hello Hallo

Hallo Dawe
24" x 12"
oil on canvas, 2012

I like strange recordings and the music on this cassette by Hallo Dawe that I found on Awesome Tapes From Africa certainly qualifies. Maybe it's not the recording that's so strange but the reproduction of it is perhaps. The playback doesn't seem quite right as it appears to be out of key and a bit too fast, maybe even more than a bit. Dawe's voice seems to have an unnatural high pitch that I really like–no matter if it's natural or mechanically (by accident) induced. There have been stranger things produced in Ethiopia. This cassette features Oromo music and that's right away all the information I have concerning this cassette, the recording, the singer, the circumstances. Trying to find out more on line proves a very confusing task. At this moment I'm not even sure the singer's name is actually Hallo Dawe as it may possibly be the title of the cassette (it sure sounds—on track 1 of side A—that the lyrics include the words Hallo Dawe) but it could be both, it certainly doesn't help that I don't know the Oromo language. Somewhere on line this recording had the year 1977 tagged to it, and that seems about right to me.

Pussy Riot (Sunset)

Three members of Pussy Riot
14" x 11", oil on canvas, 2012

The background for this painting was done at the same day as the one of Cat Power that I attached  in the previous post. Cat Power's background was done in the AM and for this one I turned the easel 'round in the PM. All these landscapes are done plein-air but I'm not particularly proud of this Pussy Riot painting. I could point out several things that are wrong with it, and that is just on the technical part of it (I won't even get started to self-criticize the conceptual aspects). To top it off I took a less than accurate photograph of it (which actually helps a bit to cover up certain mistakes). I am proud however to have Pussy Riot a part of my Top 100 2012 list. Most of you probably heard of the band Pussy Riot but I bet very few of you actually listened to their music. Pussy Riot, of course, is that Russian riot grrl group that made the world news because of their arrest following a blasphemous performance in a Russian Orthodox Church in which they ridiculed the Church's support for president Vladimir Putin. The group consists of approximately 12 members and performs with balaclavas, face masks to hide their identity. The three members that were arrested (and sit out a two year jail sentence for hooliganism) are not anonymous any more as the trial was a daily hot news item all over the world. The three, that also depicted in the painting, are Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich. Two others whose identity is revealed have fled the country. After hearing about them in the news I immediately looked up their music to listen to it and behold, it is really good, one of the most exciting bands I've heard in a long time associated with that term Riot Grrrl. The Top 100 song is Putin Lights Up the Fires, it is their latest single sung in Russian that was released recently.

Sun (rise)

Backyard Sunrise
24" x 12", oil on canvas, 2012

Cat Power
24" x 12", oil on canvas, 2012

To continue the thread I was on a few days ago while discussing Sugaring Season by Beth Orton...  ...Unlike Beth Orton, Cat Power does come to Miami, she actually lives in Miami, and the first date of her new tour—to support her new album Sun—is in her hometown of Miami, Florida. For me it's easier to get to this concert at the Grand Central (October 11, f.y.i.) than it is going to Mexico City, Brussels, or Amsterdam—downtown Miami is only a three hour drive from where I live so I'm going to go. And unlike Beth Orton too, I have seen Cat Power perform before, four times as a matter of fact, evenly divided over the last 12 years. But because of Sun, and also because my wife really likes the album, we are going. Maria and I, we bought Sun just a few days after it was released, we bought it in Miami to listen to it , for the first time, on our three hour drive across Alligator Alley back home. We played the whole CD three times over, every time a bit louder, and every time we liked it better. It's a great CD, Sun, but at first I was a little disappointed that some of the songs I had expected weren't on there. Among other new songs that had popped up on YouTube over the last few years I had hoped, for example, to hear the song Oh Time to finally be released. Somehow I think Cat Power hasn't given up on some of those melodramatic jewels, and I expect them on her next album then. My favorite tune of Sun might well be Silent Machine, that is actually one of those songs I've heard before, as an unofficial recording (it was called She Loves You So Hard then), but I also like Cherokee, the single and opening track, a whole lot too. Cherokee is the first Cat Power song to enter the Top 100 2012.

*And just in case, very unlikely as it is... If you happen to read this Chan, would you please consider putting me on the back-stage guest list, as I would love to talk to you after the show, and after 12 years of being a fan. Thank you so dearly... I also would like to invite you to my exhibition of Top 100 paintings in the gallery of Pinecrest Gardens in Miami. Opening reception: November 2, 2012, artist's talk: December 9. Featured will at least two portraits of you, together with scores of other great musicians. Love you,
Sincerely,
Berry van Boekel

Something More Beautiful

Beth Orton
12" x 24"
oil on canvas, 2012

The wait is over—we have our new Cat Power CD called Sun, and Beth Orton's Sugaring Season is about to hit the markets. The opening track Cherokee from Sun entered the Top 100 2012 list last week and Beth Orton's Something More Beautiful did the same thing weeks ago–ever since it was released as a sneak preview for Sugaring Season–and breezed through the ranks all the way to top the list. It is such a beautiful song, I can't wait to hear the rest. It appears as if Something More Beautiful keeps Bet Orton at no. 1 following last year's Shopping Trolley from her previous Comfort of Strangers CD. I will be painting my next Cat Power soon but first here's my next Beth Orton painting. Together with Bob Dylan, Orton and Cat Power are the most painted musicians in my top 100 history over the past 5-6 years. Dylan too, came out with a new CD (Tempest) so he'll get another portrait painted too at some point in the next few months. I checked on Beth Orton's tour schedule to promote the new CD but the closest she scheduled to appear is Atlanta, Georgia. (So...if you happen to read this, Beth, please add a show in Miami, or Tampa, or St. Petersburg, or anywhere in South Florida to your schedule, because I would really like it to have the chance to see you perform live. Thank you, I will certainly reward it with some more paintings. Hope you'll like this one in the meantime—it already has the appropriate background to get you in the mood. Yours truly, Berry:)

Summer Winds

Meagan Alwood
(The Alwood Sisters)
12" x 24", oil on wood, 2012

One of a handful of repeats from last year's Top 100 is the song Summer Winds by the Alwood Sisters. I have now two versions of that song that is subtitled, or combined with, the song Our Time. It is featured on their CD Black Falcon & The Forest Spirit of 2010, the version that was in the top 10 last year, but new for me is an older demo version, simply titled Our Time, on a homemade CD titled Across the Lines with recordings from 2003-2006. Across the Lines is the result of home recordings done by Amy and Meagan Alwood Karcic, while Meagan was living in New York and Amy in Ohio. The recordings were sent back and forth between the sisters. If everything goes according to plan the Alwood Sisters will perform next year at my Top 100 2012 opening reception in Miami, Florida. Hope my plan will work out—I'll keep you updated about the progress. The Alwood Sisters consist of the sisters Amy and Meagan Alwood, and the brothers Milan and Jovan Karsic. The two sisters are married to the brothers making the band a family affair. They're from my previous hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever

And here's the list... You can find a watercolor for each in posts from the last 5 months.

1. John Coltrane – My Favorite Things                       
2. Cesar Franck – Piano Quintet in F-minor                                  
3. Captain Beefheart – Big Eyed Beans from Venus                   
4. Jimi Hendrix – Driving South                           
5. Pere Ubu – Thirty Sec. over Tokyo           
6. Bob Dylan - Tangled up in Blue                       
7. Yoko Ono – Don’t Worry Kyoko       
8. Velvet Underground – Heroin   
9. Robert Pete Williams – Prisoner’s Talking Blues                   
10. Townes Van Zandt – Nothin‘                       
11. Igor Strawinski – Le Sacre du Printemps                       
12. Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit   
13. Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Three for the Festival                    
14. Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze (plus Instr. Solo)               
15. Miles Davis – Call it Anything                       
16. Velvet Underground – Sister Ray                         
17. Bob Dylan – Just Like a Woman               
18. Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil                       
19. R.L. Burnside – Goin’ Down South                       
20. John Coltrane – Ogunde                           
21. Trelldom – Sonar Dreyri                                                            
22. Torres Strait Islands Death Wail             
23. The Fairport Convention – Who Knows Where the Time Goes   
24. Muddy Waters – I Can’t Be Satisfied (I Be’s Trouble)       
25. The Stooges – Search and Destroy               
26. Maria Callas – Casta Diva                       
27. Lucille Bogan – Shave ‘em Dry           
28. Robert Johnson – Hellhound on My Trail               
29. Baka Forest Pygmees – Water Drums   
30. Thelonious Monk – Round Midnight                         
31. Kurt Weill/Bertol Brecht – Moritat von Mackie Messer        
32. The Sex Pistols – Anarchy in the UK
33. Albert Ayler – Ghosts           
34. Bob Dylan – Like a Rolling Stone       
35. M.I.A. – Born Free           
36. Effisio Melis – Fiorassio           
37. Harmonica Frank – Rockin’ Chair Daddy   
38. Bozie Sturdivant – Ain’t no Grave can hold My Body Down            
39. Miles Davis – Great Expectations                       
40. Neil Young – Like a Hurricane                 
41. Yma Sumac – Chuncho                           
42. Captain Beefheart – Kandy Korn       
43. Geechie Wiley – Last Kind Words Blues                       
44. Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues               
45. Diamanda Galas – Deliver Me (from Mine Enemies)   
46. Joy Division – 24 Hours                                 
47. Iry Lejeune – Donnes Moi Mon Chapeau   
48. Alessandre Moreschi – Ave Maria                 
49. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – I Put a Spell on You                     
50. John Coltrane – Ascension                       
51. Erik Satie – Gnossiennes                           
52. Daniel Johnston – Excuse Me                           
53. Jimi Hendrix Experience – Voodoo Chile                 
54. Roscoe Holcomb – Stingy Woman Blues               
55. John Cale –A Close Watch                             
56. Dr. John – I Walk on Guilded Splinters                       
57. Townes Van Zandt – Waiting Around to Die               
58. Mississippi Fred McDowell – Shake ‘em on Down               
59. Anon. Kipsigis (Kenya) – Chemirocha                         
60. Muchatera Mujuru – Nyamoropa Yevana Vava Muchonga
61. Rocket From the Tombs – Ain’t it Fun                                        
62. Van Morrison – I’ll be Your Lover too               
63. Tsjuder – Blasphemy                                  
64. Al Green – Simply Beautiful                             
65. Nico – Fairest of the Seasons                                                    
66. Edgar Varese – Ionization                               
67. Lucinda Williams – I Envy the Wind                                 
68. Frank Zappa – Trouble Comin’ Every Day       
69. Bikini Kill – Rebel Girl                               
70. Nina Simone – Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair           
71. Augustus Pablo – Rocker’s Dub                             
72. Harlem Hamfats – Weed Smokers Dream                   
73. Basque (Anon.): Ariñ-Ariñ                                                                               
74. Cat Power – Baby Doll       
75. The Raincoats – In Love                               
76. The Slits – A Boring Life                               
77. Giovanna Marini – Ulrike Meinhof                         
78. Chukchi Shamanic Ritual
79. Cat Power – Hate       
80. Brian Eno – Baby’s on Fire
81. Blooddawn – Nailed Fist           
82. Bob Marley – Mr. Brown                       
83. Beth Orton – Shopping Trolley
84. Zwabesho Sibisi – Angihambe   
85. Ni Lemon, dari Djangger – Lagoe Taboehgari   
86. Khan Shushinski – Shikestei Fars   
87. Nick Drake – Cello Song                             
88. Francis Bebey – Akwaaba                               
89. Daniel Johnston – Like a Monkey in a Zoo                   
90. Wanda Jackson – Funnel of Love                           
91. Peter Laughner – Cinderella Backstreet
92. Nick Cave – From Her to Eternity   
93. Cat Power – I Lost Someone   
94. Lou Reed – Berlin       
95. Laurie Anderson – O Superman                             
96. Don Drummond – Green Island
97. James Brown – It’s a Man’s, Man’s World                               
98. The Moldy Peaches – Anyone Else But You
99. Fairuz – Ya Ana Ya Ana
100. Steve Reigh – Tehillim                               

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 1–John Coltrane

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 2–Sviatoslav Richter

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 3-Captain Beefheart

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 4-Jimi Hendrix

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 5-Pere Ubu

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 6 – Bob Dylan

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 7-Yoko Ono

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: #8 – The Velvet Underground

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: #9 – Robert Pete Williams

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: #10 – Townes Van Zandt

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: #11 – Igor Stravinsky

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 12 – Billie Holiday

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 13, Roland Kirk

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 14, Jimi Hendrix

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 15, Miles Davis

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 16, The Velvet Underground

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 17, Bob Dylan

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 18, The Rolling Stones

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 19, R.L. Burnside

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 20, John Coltrane

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 21, Trelldom

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 22, Torres Strait Death Wail