Greeting from Herzegovina

Greeting from Bosnia and Herzegovina
(four) stages, 12" x 12", oil on masonite, 2013

Last weekend I taught a class titled Expressive Landscape Painting. A day before it started I went to work in my back yard and took pictures as I progressed my painting. The 3rd from the four pictures above, was the "finished" painting I took with to show to the students, while also bringing in photos of the progress. When all was said and done, and the weekend gone, I took it back back to studio and painted on it the next image for the Top 100 2012. And next was the song Kaharli Sam, Večerala Nisam (poetically translated as "I am distraught, I have not supped" in the liner notes to the CD World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Vol. V: Yugoslavia) sung by Naza Muhović, a Muslim woman from eastern Herzegovina. The song was a familiar one to me, a version that appeared on the LP Folk Music of Yugoslavia made all the way to #2 in the Top 100 2009 (on the liner notes to that record the song is translated less poetically but is perhaps more poetry as "I am sad, I have not eaten". Curiously it is the distinguished Professor Albert Lord—an authority in ethnomusicology as well as in Homeric poetry—who was involved with the translation of both. The recording for the World Library was made by Peter Kennedy in 1951, while Laura Boulton recorded the Folk Music version in 1952—the recordings actually sound identical to my untrained ear.) Muslim women from Herzegovina do not play instruments as a rule but in the confinement of their kitchen they do play with utensils, such as in this song where the singer sings into a reverberating spinning copper tray. ("The same type of instrument has been observed in the Arctic among the Hudson Bay Eskimo women" —Folk Music of Yugoslavia. I love those theories concerning disparate geographical occurrences. I also love conspiracy theories, and most of all I love scientific anthropological theories.)

Top 100 2012, #1-25

 

The Top 100 2012 list is finalized. I'll publish it in four installments over the next few weeks. Here are the first 25. Clicking on an artist's name below will lead you to the original post for the song. All images are to scale, every single one painting is 12" wide.

1. Beth Orton – Magpie
2. M.I.A. – Born Free                            
3. Beth Orton – Something More Beautiful                        
4. The Moldy Peaches – Nothing Came Out                       
5. Land Dyak Women – Rice Song                           
6. Lady LeShurr – Lego                                   
7. Pussy Riot – Putin Lights Up the Fires                       
8. Béla Bartók – Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion                   
9. Ajdin Asllan – Valle Drvollile                               
10. Sviatoslav Richter – Saint-Saëns: Concerto No.5                   
11. Kitty Gallagher – Keening Song                           
12. Cat Power – Cherokee                                   
13. Sandwidi Pierre – Je Suis un Salaud                           
14. Mukim Tahir – Yaram Sizlar                               
15. L’Harmonie Voltaïque – Killa Naa Naa Ye Killa                   
16. Kimya Dawson – Being Cool                              
17. Marika Papagika – The Dervish                           
18. Rizeli Sadik – Erkek Kadin Oyun Havasi                       
19. The Alwood Sisters – Summer Wind/Our Time                    
20. Super Djata Band de Bamako – Bimoko Magnin                   
21. Flor Sinqueña – Mi Ultima Avisa                           
22. Anon. Romania – Lament for a Dead Brother                    
23. Cat Power – Silent Machine                               
24. Kel Hamza – Kişlatar Doldu Bugün                       
25. Hallo Dawe – (track 5)                                     

Beth Orton

Beth Orton
12" x 12"
oil on masonite, 2013

The third and final entry from the Sugaring Season LP, and the third and final Beth Orton song in the Top 100 2012 as well. And it's a silly painting. Once it was a decent back yard painting, but that's nothing new in these series, then it became a Bob Marley portrait playing soccer. A very awkward Bob Marley painting it was, and I added, like in the photo I used, Jimi Hendrix to the scene. The result was only slightly less awkward and I set it aside. Today I recycled it again and superimposed Beth Orton onto the scene while blocking out all that was left of Bob Marley, and now it is finished, and part of the Top 100 2012 series. As in an earlier Beth Orton painting I used the cover of Sugaring Season for the Beth Orton portrait and it is now forever attached as illustration to the song Candles.

Putin Zassal

Nadya Tolokonnikova (Pussy Riot)
11" x 8.5", ink, watercolor, pencil, 2013

I read the Pussy Riot manifesto the other day. It is called Art and the Human Manifesto and was written by Nadya Tolokonnikova, one of the two members of the band jailed for hooliganism in Russia, and now serving a two year sentence. The manifesto was written to protect the integrity of the band and makes for a good read that I would recommend to anyone interested in punk rock, politics, current events, feminism, to anyone reading this blog really. It's on the Free Pussy Riot website. Putin Zassal (Putin wet himself) is the second Pussy Riot track in the list. (For those of you who pay close attention to these writings: I indeed made an error a few weeks ago when I stated that Hirut Bekele was the only non-English speaking musician in the Top 100 this year. I had simply forgotten about the band Pussy Riot.) Here's a link to the video for Putin Zassal.

Mountain Music of Kentucky

Roscoe Holcomb
11" x 8.5", 2013
ink, watercolor, pencil

There aren't that many pictures available of Roscoe Holcomb without a hat. In the past I've painted him many times but always with a hat. Most of these paintings were done from the jacket to the CD An Untamed Sense of Control that shows a photograph of Roscoe Holcomb playing a banjo in front of a barn. A young boy also figures in the photo. I painted him too several times. John Cohen, who recorded Holcomb in the field in Daisy, Kentucky, was responsible for that image on the jacket, as well as most all of Holcomb's pictures that you'll find in a Google image search. John Cohen, a well known photographer, musician, and musicologist, "discovered" Holcomb during one of his field trips to the mountains of Kentucky, which resulted in the highly influential album Mountain Music of Kentucky (rec. 1960). Across the Rocky Mountains, in this year's list, is just one of a score of Holcomb tracks on that record that have passed the Top 100 review in the past decade. I don't know if the photograph without hat that I used to draw this image from was also taken by Cohen. I wanted to use it because of the challenge it provided. Holcomb looks like a different person without the hat. Roscoe Holcomb (1912-1981) lived his whole life in Daisy and was a coal miner for most of it.

Dry Grass and Shadows

Alela Diane
10.5" x 11", 2013
ink, watercolor, pencil

Dry Grass and Shadows is the opening track from Alela Diane's CD To Be Still that I like so much. I bought it in 2009 at a festival in Nelsonville, Ohio. She was nice enough to sign it for me. The song was listed in the Top 100 2009 and the Top 100 2010. I didn't listen to the song since but it's back in the top 100 this year (2012) due to a live concert video recorded at the Nuits des Fouvière in 2012, and posted on line. Ms. Diane herself forwarded a link to it on her facebook page. The drawing may be a bit of a caricature (or at least it is mannieristic) but I think it's sweet nevertheless. (And remember, it's not about me, the drawings and paintings are about them. I'm a fan.)

Hirut Bekele again

Hirut Bekele
12" x 12"
oil on luan, 2013

One of my favorite "world" music albums I discovered in 2012 was this cassette by Hirut Bekele that I found on the blog Awesome Tapes from Africa. The cassette (notes are all in Ge'ez, or Ethiopic script) has two tracks in the Top 100, making Bekele one of only a handful repeat musicians in the list, and the only non-English speaking musician to do so. I can't read the titles on the jacket so the songs in the top 100 are simply labelled track 1, and track 5. I commented in an earlier post about the stripped down accompaniments on the cassette (compared to the jazz bands that were common at the time in Addis Ababa), and on track 5 it is stripped down even further. With the elimination of the keyboard that is heard throughout the cassette, all that's left is the krar to accompany Bekele's voice. It is the most hypnotic track on the cassette, and one that I consider highly and will store in a special place.

M.I.A. – Paper Planes

M.I.A.
11" x 8.5"
ink on paper, 2013

M.I.A.'s biggest hit, without a doubt, is Paper Planes. The inclusion of it in the movie Slumdog Millionaire propelled M.I.A.'s status from starlet to megastar. The song too, together with Born Free (see Top 100 2013, #2), made M.I.A. now enter the list of my favorite 200 musicians counted over 30 years of Top 100 history. Besides being on the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, Paper Planes appeared on M.I.A.'s second album, Grammy winning Kala of 2007. It should not come as a surprise then, that on YouTube a score of live recordings are posted. One night I had myself a little Paper Planes marathon and watched six of these in a row. Some are fan videos recorded from within the audience, others are more official ones recorded properly on stage, and then there are still other versions that were recorded for a live TV audience, such as her appearances on Letterman and the Grammy's. And they're all different. My favorite one is labelled the "official live video". On it there are tons of people on stage dancing, another large group of kids providing the chorus, and a special guest appearance by Rye Rye. The small little ink drawing above almost didn't make it. I'm getting way to meticulous in my sketchbook. Out of frustration I almost tore out the page and threw it away (or folded it neatly to let the wind carry it away.

Sugar Man

Rodriguez
11" x 8.5", 2013
watercolor, pencil, pen, ink

It occasionally happens that my lists are in synch with those of the mainstream. Usually this is related to a current event. It could be the passing of an icon, a lifetime achievement award, or the making of a film about some musician. In the last case this musician is now Rodriguez. When I first heard about the film a half year ago ago, I was intrigued and had to find out what the musician in the film was all about. I had never heard of him and neither did anyone else it seemed. But by now it is not even necessary anymore to summarize his story in these few lines available here, because everybody would have heard all about him already as the film is nominated for an Oscar for best documentary. I haven't seen the film yet, just the same excerpts as anyone can see on YouTube, but I've listened to a lot of his music that suddenly have become available on various sharing sites. The documentary is called Searching for Sugar Man, the alter ego of Sixto, or Jesús Rodriguez, and also the title of the song in the Top 100 list.

Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley
11" x 8.5", 2013
watercolor, pencil

Michael Hurley hasn't gotten any younger since I met him in 2008, but then: neither have I. He released his first record in 1964, the year I was born. He released a whole score of consequent recordings, mostly hard to find, minor (his own often) label, small edition issues. I have a handful on CD, LP, and cassette. Top 100 2012 #54 is Knockando from the CD Ancestral Swamp. Released in 2007 on Gnomonsong Recordings, it's one of those self published discs. He has his own publishing company too: Snocko Music. I don't think anyone else publishes for Snocko, or records for Gnomonsong than Mr. Hurley himself. As with most of Hurley's record, it features his own artwork on the cover. As a bonus there's a cartoon inside. The hero of the story (I guess you call him Snocko, Hurley's alter ego) sleepwalks into a bar. I doesn't keep him from drinking though. He wakes up and then gets back into his patrol car and falls back asleep again behind the wheel.

Katajjaq (2)

Tumivut (Inuit) girls performing
12" x 12", oil on luan, 2013

Today it is exactly thirty years since I made the top 10 that lead to the Top 100 project. I've compiled 75 top tens on average every year since, and just yesterday I finalized the Top 100 2012, a list constructed from 74 top tens. Today is the official start of the Top 100 2013 but the images I post are still going to be belonging to 2012 for a while. There's an exhibition scheduled for May 11 to show the 100 paintings (details will follow soon!), and I'll be working up to that date to make paintings for it. Today's painting I made yesterday, and I struggled with it. It seems that the more I teach, and the better I become with demonstrations, critiques and such, my own paintings suffer. Pictured above are two Tumivut Inuit girls performing the song The Competion at a song tournament. The song nearly made it in the list, as did many others in the genre but the only one in the Top 100 is simply named Katajjaq (the word for this style of throat singing) and is performed by anonymous singers. It is the same track that was in last year's top 100, and if you click in this link you can read what I wrote about that style of singing in January of 2012.

Serbian Lazarus Song

Serbian women singing
8.5" x 11", 2013
pencil, watercolor

Pictured are a group of seven Serbian women engaged in song. These seven women are found on the cover of the LP СРПСКА НАРОДНА МҮЗИКА or SERBIAN FOLK MUSIC. The second song of side B of this marvelous album side is May This Tree Bear Fruit, a Lazarus 'to the fruit-bearing tree', from the village of Surlica in the Pčinja region. It is sung by six girls which rules out the possibility that the seven women pictured are the singers of the song. Overlap is possible though, some of the younger women in this group may well be a part of the group of six girls (called a lazarice—I don't know if, and how, this is related to Lazarus). The LP was produced in Belgrade in 1981, the music recorded in 1978. I'm surprised that the name Yugoslavia isn't even used on the album, as Serbia was not an independent country yet, or again. I spent way too much time on this insignificant little watercolor. My intention was to make a gestural sketch of the seven women and ink it in. In stead I found myself getting real tight and precise and before you know it, the evening has passed (I might as well just watched a movie).

Koleo

Guadalcanal, girl
24" x 12"
oil on luan, 2013

Photographers in the earlier and mid twentieth century had a blast photographing exotic women. Under the guise of anthropology they took license to shoot cute bare-breasted girls and women from around the world. They published them as postcards and it was a good business. Now, of course, you can't do that anymore. Even the photographers of National Geographic shy away from nudity. It is politically incorrect to objectify, but also—even in the most remote and secluded areas—the women have covered up. I have followed suit and stay (mostly) away from exploitative images (I used to search out precisely such images to illustrate the often anonymous recordings of the female voice in remote areas that I love so much). I make an exception here partly because the only timely image result for keyword search "Guadalcanal and girl" was the vintage postcard I painted this from. Sometimes those postcards are fake. Commercial photo studios, especially in Paris, dragged cute exotic looking girls into their ateliers and put them in front of a decor with palm trees or thatched huts, had them put on a bamboo skirt or even less, and sold the results as authentic photos taken in the colonies. I don't know if this particular photo I used is authentic or not but I do know that the scenery in the painting is located in Fort Myers, Florida, it's my back yard: guilty. The reason for my image search was a song on the record Iles Salomon: Musique de Guadalcanal, Ocora/Radio France, 1970, recorded by Hugo Zemp in the Solomon Islands for which I didn't have an image available. The song is Koleo: Chant Funèbre de Femmes that I used it on my compilation of funerary laments.

Lee Perry

Lee "Scratch" Perry
11" x 8.5", 2013
pen, ink, pencil, watercolor

Lee Perry is back in it too! It's been a long time since he'd be there. Yet he's my favorite Jamaican musician. He's been through it all, from the ska, the dancehall, and the dub. He was instrumental in the development and popularization on reggae music. Disco Devil is the track, he recorded it back in the late 70s in his famous Black Ark Studios in Kingston. It wasn't released on CD until 2012 as part of the Disco Devil compilation. Lee Perry lives in Switzerland these days. Disco Devil is a remix of the song Chase the Devil that he wrote with Max Romeo, who had a hit with it in 1976. The music is provided by Perry's house band The Upsetters.

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan
11" x 8.5", 2013
ink, watercolor, pencil

Here he is again, Bob Dylan, standard fare every year, plus I've done 4 watercolors of him over the Summer (The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever), and I may have to do another before the Top 100 2012 paintings are completed. I've listened to his new record Tempest and I liked it, but it's not what makes this year's list. Instead it's two songs from the live album Before the Flood recorded with the Band in 1974, an album that somehow got separated from the other 30 records I have of his, and was placed in a stack of records right next to my player. The first of the two songs illustrated is It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding, a classic, one of his many. He performs it acoustic on Before the Flood, and receives a huge cheer from the audience when sings the lines "But even the president of the United States—Sometimes must have to stand naked". That the area right under his nose is painted red is purely coincidental, I wasn't thinking about the song at all when I did that. I would never take his lyrics that literal, would I?

The Record Collector

Jon Ward
12" x 12"
oil on luan, 2013

I used to think of myself as a record collector but now I merely consider myself as someone who collects records. Being a blogger, and looking at blogs of people that are serious collectors, I've come to realize what it means to be a real record collector. In the old days my Top 100 depended on my own modest collection and those of my friends but now I can browse almost any collection, of anyone who's serious about collecting, and—a lot of them do—shares their findings on line. So, as I did last year, I'd like to forward a top 8 of music blogs I have been following in 2012. Nearly 50% of the music in this year's list I found on one of the many music blogs available on the web. 10% came from Excavated Shellac, a blog written by Jonathan Ward, collector of old 78 discs from around the world. The discs he writes about are pretty obscure and hardly ever is a picture of the musician available. For illustrating these then, I have to revert to appropriate approximates. In the case of a recording by Rizeli Sadik (Top 100 2012, #18) I chose to paint Jon Ward himself. And rather than writing something about Sadik's song Erkek Kadin Oyun Havasi, I'll link you to the post in Excavated Shellac that deals with it, and let Mr. Ward explain all about the record in his own words. Besides being an awesome record collector he is also an excellent writer.

The following then is my new Top 8 music blogs, the ranking is based on the Top 100 2012 list (last year's ranking in parenthesis):

1. (–) Excavated Shellac by Jonathan Ward
2. (–) The World's Jukebox by Gadaya
3. (5) Bodega Pop by Gary Sullivan
4. (3) Awesome Tapes from Africa by Brian Shimkovitz
5. (1) Tools and Techniques by Lightactivity
6. (6) Ghost-Capital by Nick Barbery
7. (–) Musical Thrift Store Treasures (my own music blog)
8. (4) Friends and Wieners by Ryan J

Charles Duvelle

Charles Duvelle
11" x 8.5", 2013
ink, watercolor, pencil on paper

Charles Duvelle (b. 1937) is a French musicologist best known for his ethnographic recordings made in former French territories in Africa. On Ghostcapital, one of the music blogs I follow, I found this wonderful hypnotic recording he made in Niger that appeared on Rhythmes et Chants du Niger (Ocora, 1971). The sound example Ghostcapital used in their article is also the one to appear in the Top 100: Chant de louanges Sonrai (Sonrai praise song). It was performed by the singer Doulo Soumahilou accompanied by Ibrahima Douma, who plays a kountigui (a one stringed lute), and a group of six young men who clap the rhythm.

Edison State, 2–Portrait of a Song

Edison State–1: A garden of sound

Soundgarden
4.25" x 5.5"
ink on paper, 2013

Maria van Boekel is a Learning Resources Assistant at the library of Edison State College, Charlotte Campus, and is responsible for monthly revolving displays at the entrance of that library. The topic of January's display was music. Beside an awesome display of books about music, she invited visitors to the library to write down their favorite song onto a whiteboard. While more and more people added songs to the list, she and I made illustrations to go with each one. These are simple small portrait drawings executed with pens and markers on paper. I was asked to execute the drawings in blue and yellow, the colors of Edison State. About 30 portraits are accumulated and it is still growing. The display has received enthusiastic responses and will be extended well into February. The respondents are students, library employees, and everyone else who would walk into that library and is inclined to respond. As you have gotten to know me by know; I'm no stranger to such projects. What I always resisted, until now, was to draw those musicians that were someone's favorite but not mine. It always felt like a concession, a betrayal of my Top 100 series, to exploit the concept. But now I'm excited about this—I'm making the drawings of mostly mostly popular musicians without any discrimination and I find myself able to treat those I really don't care for with the same respect as for those who I regard highly. If it weren't for my own list entry (John Coltrane – My Favorite Things) there wouldn't have been any musician that in the last 20 years made the Top 100 list, and save for Coltrane and Led Zeppelin, not a single musical act I had drawn before. So here I am, making portraits of R Kelly, The Little River Band, Bruno Mars, Lauryn Hill, Whitney Houston, and you name it, with a joy of a schoolboy having been told for the first time in his life he had talent.

Hank Williams

Hank Williams
11" x 8.5", 2013
ink, watercolor, pencil on paper

The world of a music fan, like myself, is like the universe: ever expanding. With accelerating pace I discover new music and start to like music I didn't like before, while it rarely happens that I dislike music, a musician, style, or period I used to like. The Top 100 just isn't big enough to do justice to the thousands and thousands wonderful recordings and musicians that are out there deserving the pedestal. That certain musicians that used to be regular contenders in the Top 100 haven't been there anymore is not because I don't like 'em any more but because I haven't heard them. From the millions and millions of recordings out there available for me to play, I tend to play those things I haven't heard before. And when a certain music, musician, style, or era, suddenly makes a comeback, it is by chance. I may have found a new record I hadn't heard yet, a movie may have highlighted some music I hadn't heard in a while, or some musician may suddenly re-enter the limelight (because of the inclusion in a movie, because another musician may have played his or hers music, or because he or she died). Hank Williams was on the shortlist for inclusion in the 100 Greatest Recordings Ever that I compiled to celebrate 30 years of list keeping with his classic I'm So Lonesome I could Cry but was only edited out at very last moment. It's was a while since Hank Williams make the list (the last inclusion was in 2008, the year I found his Luke the Drifter in a thrift store) so when his music was featured in the Moonrise Kingdom movie, I didn't have to think long about his nomination for this year. I singled out Ramblin' Man, another of Williams' classics to be part of the Top 100 2012. It simply may be that the stars of the Top 100 have a cycle in which they shine bright every so many years. Some stars are more distant than others, Hank Williams' is pretty bright.

Nieves Quintero

Nieves Quintero
11" x 8.5", 2013
ink, pencil, watercolor on paper

Manuel "Nieves" Quintero was born in 1931 in Nací en Corozal, Puerto Rico. He was still alive in 1999 when the biography Nieves Quintero was written. A master of the cuatro (a lute like instrument that looks like it was taken out of a 17th Century Dutch master's still life painting), he was living in Bayamón then, still playing his instrument. I would have never learned about Nieves Quintero were it not for the purchase at a thrift store of a record of Cuban lucumi music. Turned out that there was no Cuban lucumi record inside but in stead I found Santos Cantados con Nieves Quintero y Su Conjunto (Canta Luz Celeni Tirado) Y Coro inside. I was a bit disappointed not to have the lucumi record (especially after I found out it would sell for $185 on line) but then I came to like the substitude record as well, and now after learning more about Nieves, I wished I had had the cover for the Santos Cantados record. It's a lovely record indeed but Nieves Quintero on YouTube is where it's at. The video I found there of him performing Linda Campesina is simply magnificent. With so many Puerto Ricans living in the United States I knew at some point I would run in some traditional music records from there in some thrift stores here. The Nieves Quintero record was the best of seven from my haul last week.

Hirut Bekele

Hirut Bekele
11" x 8.5", India ink on paper, 2013

There's just no chance I can get all 100 musicians for the Top 100 painted in oils in time. There are still almost 60 musicians to be painted and time is running out (the usual mid-March deadline). The solution to this problem is simple: I resort to ink drawings on paper. So in the next month there will be an onslaught of such colorful ink drawings as the one above, published here. The portrait of Hirut Bekele was made to test the materials I have in mind for finishing the Top 100 2012. I think I like my new bottles of ink. Hirut Bekele, by the way, is an Ethiopian singer who recorded in the 1970s in Addis Ababa. The 1970s was the golden age of "Ethio-Jazz". Music from that era has been Top 100 material for many years now largely because of the release of the multi-volume series Ethiopiques. Hirut Bekele is not represented in these series as far as I can tell, but that doesn't mean she wasn't a star. If you go by the amount of videos on which she can be seen on YouTube, she certainly is a big star. The track in the Top 100 isn't quite like any of the YouTube videos though. There's no jazz band to back her up, instead you hear a simple and sober accompaniment of organ and krar (said to be an ancestor of the banjo) that allows Bekele to fully exploit her mesmerizing voice. Thanks to Brian Shimkovitz who posted the music on Awesome Tapes from Africa from an original cassette, and at the same time, introduced me to it.

Bosavi Rainforest Music

Bosavi Women Lamenting
(after a 1966 photo by Edward Schieffelin)
12" x 12", oil on masonite, 2012

Consider the lives of Papua New Guinea natives living in the Bosavi rainforests for a moment. Just for the sake of reflection you should try to imagine what it would be like to live a life like they do. Imagine not to know any of the things you learned in school, imagine that most everything you do is guided by tradition rather than by reason. What a different life they live compared to that of ours. All of their days turn into music, their most sacred as well as the most profane moments of their lives are accompanied by a song, by humming, or by drumming. Me? I can't even remember the last time I sang a song. I don't even sing in the shower anymore. My most musical moments are when I'm in my car waiting for a traffic light and I tap my fingers on the dashboard to the rhythm of my left turn signal. My most sacred moment? I can't even conceive the meaning of that word anymore, as all days and every moment are profane, mundane, and secular. And yet there they are, in my back yard, a group of six Bosavi women whose weeping in front of a deceased relative turns into the most wonderful of songs. And yet it is music that colors my days...but it's the idea of music rather than the experience of it.