Laura Boulton

Laura Boulton/Tuareg singer

Laura Boulton, a socialite from Ohio (b. 1899, Conneaut, died in 1980), had a 50-year long career in ethnomusicology that started with a trip to Africa in 1929. She recorded more than 30,000 songs travelling throughout the world. She saw herself as a song catcher, doing the noble work of preserving the music of vanishing cultures, that she, like most other early ethnomusicologists, considered primitive. Her legacy, despite the colonial attitude, is the preservation of musical traditions now extinct. She was not only an early practitioner in the world of ethnomusicology, she did so as a woman. (Not many women recorded in the field in the early years. One notable exception is Frances Densmore, whose known for her work with Native American tribes is well known. Densmore started much earlier than Boulton and is also less colonial in her attitudes.) I've painted Laura Boulton four times now, three tracks from the LP African Music recorded in the 1930s made it into the 2021 list. The fourth track in the top 100 (at #2) is the Girl's Game from the LP The Eskimos of Hudson Bay and Alaska in the 1940s during the Second World War. She considered the Eskimo recordings "the most primitive in her collection" and therefore "unusually interesting." I've written about this painting earlier as it was the first painting I created for the current series of 100. I'm reproducing the painting here again because I've altered it quite a bit. I have all paintings in the series hanging on my studio wall and every time I see something in an older painting I don't like I fix it. The individual paintings aren't considered finished until the whole series is finished and exhibited. I did not change the figures much in the painting but adapted the rest to fit an evolved concept for the series as a whole.

Baker Lake Eskimo/Laura Boulton

The Folkways LP African Music [1957] was recorded in the 1930s and originally released as a set of six 78 rpm records on Victor in 1939. The recordings were made mostly in the French Sudan (now Mali) and also includes recordings from Cameroon, Nigeria, and Benin. The three tracks in the Top are War Song by Malinke people recorded in Bamako, Mali, a track with short outtakes from different songs sang by Tuaregs recorded in Timbuktu also in Mali, and Orphan's Wail by a Bakwiri singer from southern Cameroon. The painting up top illustrates the Tuareg recordings, a track that includes a lullaby, a herding song, and a marriage song. I used a photo taken in Timbuktu, from the record sleeve for the Tuareg singer. It is the only photo of the four that was not taken by Boulton as she also appears herself in the same photo. That image of Boulton I had already used for the image illustrating the Bakwari singer on Orphan's Wail. Boulton doesn't name the singer but she did photograph him in the process of recording.

Bakwari singer/Laura Boulton

The third track then from African Music is the War Song performed by Malinke people on harps and drums. The image of the Malinke harpist was again taken by Boulton during the recording. It's one of most fascinating drum rhythms I've ever heard.

Laura Boulton/Malinke harpist

 

Of Yamanas and Inuits

Yamana man holding oar

 The Yamana, or Yaghan people were the southernmost inhabitants of the earth. They are often grouped with the Selk'nam people as well other groups that lived in Terra del Fuego in the south of both Argentina and Chile, but they are a distinct other group with their own unique language. I've written a lot about the Selk'nam before as I have been intrigued by their remarkable traditions of body painting and the cosmogenesis it enacts. I reproduced two photographs of Selk'nam people, taken by Martin Gusinde in the early 1920s, in my art appreciation textbook You are an Artist. It was also Martin Gusinde who was the first to record the Selk'nam as well as their neighbors to the south the Yamana. Canto Yamana, at #58 in the Top 100 2020, is a recording from 1923 of a shaman. When Gusinde writes about the music of the Yamana he talks about boatmen songs. The singing of the Yamana, according to the early anthropologist Erich von Hornbostel, is the most primitive of the world, using only two notes. 

Baker Lake Eskimo and Laura Bolton

 

While the drawings for the Top 100 2020 continue to be made until all 100 are done, I started the Top 100 for the year 2021 already. The Top 100 2021 exhibition is scheduled for next summer in Dublin, Ohio and I felt like starting early. I also didn't paint much for a while and now with my studio in working order it is really nice to be out of the house. (A lot of activities, such as my job, are still being done from home.) I had a plan. The concept for the new 100 paintings was to paint double portraits, featuring the musician on one side of the canvas, and the one who recorded it on the other. I figure the juxtaposition is an interesting one. I have now one done and a second one started. I'm still not 100% sure how to tackle certain aspects, like text, in the painting. I experimented here but may change the markings later. The 1 in the top right corner means it's number 1 in the Top 100 2021. This may change because the making of the list for this year is in progress. I am certain, however, that Girl's Game, sung by Agnutnak and Matee, two-fifteen year old Inuit women from Baker Lake, Canada, will be part of the list when it is final. The song was recorded by Laura Bolton in 1974 at Baker Lake and appeared on the Folkways album The Eskimos of Hudson Bay and Alaska. The photograph I used to paint the young woman was taken by Bolton and was included in the liner notes for the record. The song was also listed last year. When I painted an image for the Top 100 2020 I used the same photo. I did include the rest of the family then.