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.