The Top 100 started as a hobby; a fan adoring his musical heroes and paying tribute by making portraits of them. The hobby became obsession and the project went from the boy’s room into the art world. But I'm still that fan, it's about them in the end, their music, and not about me.
Lola Kiepja was about 90 years old when she died in October of 1966. She had survived her two husbands, all of her nine children and most of her grandchildren as well. She actually survived most all of her people, the Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego, and was, in 1965 and 1966 when ethnologist Anne Chapman befriended and recorded her, the only surviving member who knew their language and customs. Lola Kiepja was, like mother and maternal grandfather, a shaman who had been instructed on the secrets of Selk'nam mythology. She had been born just before the onslaught of disease, fracticide, and a genocide had reduced the numbers of Selk'nam from about 4,000 to about 300 in just a few decades. Anne Chapman recorded 92 chants by Kiepja, The Guanaco Myth Chant, one of Kipeja's favorites, was recorded more than once and featured in last year's top 100 as well as this year's. The myth (and lyrics to the chant) goes as follows:
I am about to die. Bury me in the white earth (where the guanacos
often sleep and rub their backs to rid themselves of vermin) but
do not bury me deep in the earth, leave my head and shoulders
free. After I die you must perform tachira (the mourning
rite) and as you are going away singing of your grief, a man will
approach you. He will look exactly like me but he will not be
me. He will ask to make love to you, do as he says.
"When he died the daughters did just as their father
had ordered. As they walked away, while they were still singing
the lament, the father jumped out of his grave, hot with desire
to make love to his daughters. He sniffed their tracks and chased
wildly after them, urinating as he ran (as if he had already been
metamorphosed into a guanaco). When he caught up to them he said:
"I am the one your father told you about. Come let us make love."
One of his daughters ran on. When he made love to the other both
became transformed into guanacos." [Anne Chapman, The End of the World, Buenos Aires, 1988]
A guanaco, a camelid related to the Llama, was a main food staple of the Selk'nam. Check here for more information and other portrait paintings of Lola Kiepja.
Several versions of Patti Smith rendition of the Them
classic Gloria secured the entry in
the top 100. Different live versions exist on YouTube, notably a 1979
Rockpalast concert but the original recording on Horses, her debut album, is picked for the top 100 playlist. The
song on Horses has two movement: In
Exelsis Deo written by Smith herself and Gloria (version) penned by Them frontman Van Morrison. In 2005 on
its thirtieth anniversary Patti Smith rerecorded Horses live and in 2015, the
40th, she played the full album again in a series of concerts.
Patti Smith
11 x 8.5 inches, stencil print, 2019
62.
Garifuna Indians: Abelagudahami
Garifuna Settlement
Day Festival, oil on canvas,
2019
The Garifuna are descendants of West Africans and the Carib
and Arawak peoples. The song Abelagudahami
appears on The spirit Cries: Music of the
Rainforests of South America & The Caribbean (Smithsonian, Library of
Congress, 1993). It was the first album of the Endangered Music Project series initiated by Mickey Hart (the
Grateful Dead). As with so many indiginous Americans the history of the
Garifuna is one of persecution and displacement. They ended up in Honduras and
spread to neighboring Belize and Nicaragua. The Garifuna heard on Abelagudahami are from Belize. Despite
the "endangered" label on the cd they are today thriving in Belize.
63.
India>Kerala: Malayalis' Kurava
Kerala:
Kurava performer, oil on canvas, 2019 From Wikipedia: "from Latin ulolo, is a long,
wavering, high-pitched vocal sound resembling a howl with a trilling quality.
It is produced by emitting a high pitched loud voice accompanied with a rapid
back and forth movement of the tongue and the uvula." Ululation is an
example of onomatopoeia (another beautiful word) "the formation of a word
from a sound associated with what is named."
64. Gour
Khepa – You Were Unable to Keep the Love Water...
Gour
Khepa, oil on canvas, 2019
Sometimes referred to as madman or wild man, Khepa is not a
name but a Bengali title more properly translated as "wise man." Gour
Kyapa (as Khepa is now spelled) was a storied Baul philosopher and musician.
The Bauls are an ethnic Bengali sect of wandering minstrels traveling through
Bangladesh and eastern India. Their musical tradition goes back to at least the
eighteenth century and was orally transmitted only (until sound recordings and
subsequent transcriptions were made.) The Bauls are ascetics, renouncing
material belongings and marriage. They subsist on gifts or alms in exchange for
(musical) recitals that use only very basic language, including many
profanities. The LP Bengale: Chants des
"fous" (Chants du Monde, 1990) is an excellent compilation. Tu n'as pu conserver le nectar d'amour
by Gour Khepa is the song listed in the top 100 2019/19. Gour Khepa was born in
1947 and died after a traffic accident in 2013.
65.
Xongorzul – The River Herlen
Ganbaararyn
Khongorzul, oil on canvas, 2019 The River Herlen is found on a cd
tucked into the book Where Rivers and Mountains Sing: Sound, Musica and
Nomadism in Tuva and Beyond by Theodore Levin. Unlike the other musicians
on the cd Xongorzul is not discussed as an individual but functions as a sound
example of the Mongolian 'long-song' tradition. The long in long-song
references the extended syllables in the text. "A four-minute song may
only consist of ten words." Ganbaararyn Khongorzul performs with Yo Yo
Ma's Silk Road Ensemble and performed at the opening ceremony at the 2002 World
Cup.
66. Utekn
and Yuimuk – Women's Wu-ungka Songs
From the cover of Aboriginal Music from Australia, oil
on canvas, 2019
The image of an Aboriginal preparing food I used comes from
the LP Aboriginal Music from Australia on
the Phillips label. The source of the music this image represents is a cd
however, a reissue on UNESCO's Collection
of Traditional Music now named: Australia:
Aboriginal Music. The cd has the texts and music of the original LP but not
the photographs. I can not identify the images on the LP cover. I'm not certain
about the gender either but the breast shown seems to indicate a woman. There
is only one track sung by women on the record but it does not necessarily mean
that a photo on the cover illustrates a song on the record. The song is a type
of Wu-unka song sung by Utekn and Yaimuk in the Wik-ngatara language in
northern Queensland. The song was recorded in 1966 by Alice M. Moyle, who I
assume was also responsible for the photograph on the sleeve.
67.
Nowayilethi Mbizweni, Ngqoko group recorded by Dave Dargie
Nowayilethi
Mbizweni, oil on canvas, 2020
The recording is like last year's from Dave Dargie's film Umngqokolo: Thembu Xhosa, Overtone Singing
1985-1998. On the particular section in the top 100 she's not performing
solo or as a duet like she was in a previous top 100 but fronts the Ngqoko
group seen in the movie. The group consists of about fifteen singers, mostly
women but a few men are included too. Nowayilethi sits in front next to (her sister
perhaps) Nofirst Mbizweni. The rest of the group are standing behind them. The
term 'umngqolo' refers to the type of throat singing Mbizweni is known for and
I now learned how to properly pronounce it with the Xhosa clicking sound
included.
68. Cat
Power – Robbin Hood
Cat Power,
pencil on paper, 2019 Talking with my friend Jade before the Cat Power concert last Friday he
mused that most of the musicians I painted would be unknown to her. I told him
that I wouldn't be surprised if Cat Power would be much more familiar to these
ethnomusicological recordings than one would expect. During the concert Cat
Power used her hands to alter her singing voice on several occasions very much
like the Rundi women (#42), most poignantly during a cover of Bob Dylan's Hard Times in New York City (perhaps to
mimic Dylan's nasal voice). One of my favorite tunes she performed that Friday
was Robbin Hood from her latest Wanderer. The above drawing done during
the concert then becomes the official illustration for the song in the Top 100.
69. Lola
Kiepja – Guanaco Myth Chant
Lola
Kiepja, oil on canvas, 2019
In 1964 Ann Chapman went to the Argentinian part of Tierra
del Fuego to meet and record the Ona (Selk'nam) shaman Lola Kiepja. She was the
last, and oldest, remaining indian who had a living memory of Selk'nam customs.
Whe she died in 1966 the Selk'nam were a people of the past. Kiepja was around
ninety. Chapman published eleven photos and numerous recordings of Kiepja, all made
during her stay in 1964/65. A photo of a much younger Kiepja exists and was
published along 47 of Chapman's recordings by Smithsonian on Selk'nam Chants of Terra del Fuego in
1972. Smithsonian released an additional 42 chants on a second volume. Guanaco Myth Chant is one of these. In
the 1905 photo of Kiepja, made by Carlos Gallardo, Kiepja is seen wearing the
traditional guanaco costume.
Lola Kiepja
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2019
70. Cat
Power – Horizon
Cat Power,
oil on canvas, 2019 Five of the six Cat Power songs, all from the LP Wanderer,
are painted. The Cat Power portrait here, painted several months ago,
belongs to Horizon. The final Cat Power portrait for the Top 100
2018/2019 exhibit, illustrating Robbin Hood, will have to wait until I
go see her live in concert in Tampa in September. It'll be based on sketches
done from life.
Shaman Chant is one of 47 songs (all named Shaman Chant or Lament) by Lola Kiepja recorded in Argentina by Anne Chapman in 1964 and released on Folkways as Selk'nam (Ona) Chants of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina: 47 Shaman chants and Laments in 1966. The liner notes were also written by ethnologist Anne Chapman. The following is her introductory paragraph: "These records comprise 47 chants sung by the last true Indian of the Selk'nam (Ona) group, Lola Kiepja. The Selk'nam had no musical instruments. These chants are sung without any sort of accompaniment." In 1966 Kiepja was one of only ten survivors of the Argentinian genocide against the Selk'nam. She was the oldest of the ten and the only shaman, the only one versed in the traditions of the Selk'nam. The Selk'nam, or Ona, did not come in contact with (ethnic) Europeans until the 19th century not long before the genocide started. Lola Kiepja was about 90 years old when she died in 1966. The last ethnic Selk'nam, Angela Loij, died in 1974. Currently there are about 500 people (according to the Argentinian census) who claim (partial) Selk'nam ancestry, only one speaker of the Ona language is known today. The decline of the Selk'nam people was accelerated by the discovery of gold in their lands. Early in the 20th century, Martin Gusinde, among other anthropologists, studied the customs of the Selk'nam in depth. Even a photograph of Lola Kiepja taken in 1905 exists. The most important ceremonies of the Selk'nam are initiation rites in which their cosmology is reenacted. The masks and body paint used in these ceremonies belong (in my mind) to the highlights of art history. Beyond these spectacular impersonations of their ancestor spirits the Selk'nam are not known to have created (material) art.
