Solomon Linda
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
(Difference between revisions)
| Revision as of 21:28, 3 April 2009 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) ← Previous diff |
Current revision Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| {{Template}} | {{Template}} | ||
| - | ===Early 1960s=== | ||
| - | :''See [[1960s music]], [[Cultural appropriation in western music of the 1960s]]'' | ||
| - | After World War II a small but growing market developed for Western folk music and recordings of non-Western music, and this was supplied by specialist record labels such as [[Folkways Records]], [[Elektra Records]] and [[Nonesuch Records]] in the [[United States|USA]] and, later, [[Disques Cellier]] in [[Switzerland]]. Such labels were typically small "boutique" operations or minor specialist imprints of large companies, which released albums of non-Western traditional classical music, folk songs and indigenous music. | ||
| - | |||
| - | This market was fostered by the co-called "folk boom" of the 1950s and early 1960s, in which artists and groups like [[Pete Seeger]] and [[The Weavers]] explored the traditional songs and sounds of English-language folk music and re-interpreted them for the mass audience. In America, this process was massively influenced by the "discovery" of the treasure-trove of recordings of [[African-American music]] that had been made over the previous decades. Another more overtly political factor, and one that should not be overlooked in this case, is that many folk musicians were deeply involved in the struggle for [[Civil Rights Act of 1964|civil rights for black Americans]], and their championing of black music to white audiences was an integral and hugely influential part of this campaign. | ||
| - | |||
| - | This exploratory process also led many musicians to begin investigating folk music from non-Western cultures—as in the case of [[Solomon Linda]]'s "Mbube". In each case, these processes of discovery and appropriation were made considerably easier by the increasing availability of LP recordings of "ethnic" music. | ||
| - | |||
| - | This process had a definite cumulative effect, but it is fair to say that, until the late 1960s, "ethnic"/"folkloric" music remained more or less a specialist interest. Some "exotic" influences inevitably filtered through to the [[mass market]]—as in the case of "[[The Lion Sleeps Tonight]]"—but in general these were mostly Western re-interpretations, and very little original music produced outside of the mainstream Western popular music recording industry managed to break into the pop music market or achieve significant sales until the late 1960s. | ||
| - | |||
| - | As noted above, prior to the 60s, many classical musicians and composers had also written and/or performed music that experimented with combining western musical styles and influences from non-Western musical traditions, but this too was essentially an elite 'art' activity and gained little mass recognition. | ||
| - | |||
| - | Mass market acceptance of what we now call "world music" grew dramatically as a result of the [[pop music]] explosion of the 1960s and early 1970s. During this period, adventurous pop, rock, progressive and jazz musicians and producers attempted, with varying degrees of success, to create fusions of conventional English-language popular music with instrumental and compositional influences from exotic musical genres. Their interest in these "ethnic" musics, combined with their enormous personal popularity, encouraged a growing number of record buyers to seek out recordings of non-Western music. | ||
| - | |||
| - | A prototype of this [[fusion (music)|fusion]] of pop and world music in the late 60's can be seen in the [[folk rock]] phenomenon of the mid-1960s. Underlying this development was the fact that many leading American and English pop-rock musicians of the period—[[Roger McGuinn]], [[Bob Dylan]], [[Jerry Garcia]], [[Donovan]]—had begun their musical careers on the folk scene. | ||
| - | |||
| - | Intrerestingly, although the core of the "folk" genre at this time was traditional Anglo-American folk song, maintream folk music was still appropriating new "non-Anglo" influences like [[Calypso music|calypso]], black South African popular music and even Arabic music. | ||
| - | Another notable feature of the folk scene at this time was that it was also common to include African-American music as part of the broader folk genre, and as a result many legendary black American performers like [[Leadbelly]] were able to perform side-by-side with white performers like Dylan and [[Pete Seeger]] at American folk scene's peak annual event, the [[Newport Folk Festival]]. | ||
| - | |||
| - | Folk rock was in part an attempt to broaden the language of mainstream pop by incorporating the more "serious" lyrical approach and political awareness of postwar folk. Folk rock as a genre effectively began in [[1964]] with the release of [[The Byrds]]' electrified cover version of [[Bob Dylan]]'s "[[Mr Tambourine Man]]", in which The Byrds cleverly combined the pop-rock instrumentation and close harmonies made popular by [[The Beatles]] with elements of the Anglo-American folk genre. The huge commercial success of The Byrds' version of "Mr Tambourine Man" spawned scores of cash-in imitations, but folk rock continued to expand and diversify over the next few years. | ||
| - | |||
| - | English acts such as [[Donovan]], [[Fairport Convention]] and [[Steeleye Span]] combined [[pop-rock]] arrangements with songs, stylings and instruments drawn from traditional English and Celtic folk music, but all were also heavily influenced by Dylan. [[Alan Stivell]] (Brittany) began the same work in the mid 1960s. | ||
| - | |||
| - | Solo guitarist [[Davey Graham]] was a notable figure on the British scene; his finger-picking style, his introduction of the so-called "Open D" tuning to British fol guitarists and his groundbreaking incorporations of Arabic and Indian inflexions into his playing influenced many of his contemporaries, including [[Bert Jansch]], [[Jimmy Page]], [[Donovan]] and [[Ray Davies]]. | ||
| - | |||
| - | Graham's mercurial American counterpart [[John Fahey (musician)|John Fahey]] also made many innovative solo guitar recordings during this period, which incorporated influences from traditional folk, Hawaiian music, Arabic and Indian music. | ||
| - | |||
| - | In America (and also in [[Australasia]] and [[Canada]]), pop-rock acts like [[The Grateful Dead]], [[The Byrds]] and [[The Flying Burrito Brothers]] moved folk rock in a different direction. Drawing on their folk roots, and inspired by the hugely influential late 60's albums by [[Bob Dylan]] and [[The Band]], they fused pop and rock with American [[country music]] and [[bluegrass music]], creating the genre known as [[country rock]]. | ||
| - | |||
| - | Although these trends in what might be termed "folk-pop-fusion" were all significant in their own way, and they were clearly part of the process of cultural appropriation, such experiments by popular musicians, and the availability of recorded collections of "authentic" performances of English and American folk music, began to lead many curious listeners to explore these genres. This in turn would pave the way for the development of the "world music" concept in later years. | ||
| + | '''Solomon Popoli Linda''' (1909 – [[8 October]], [[1962]]) was a [[South Africa]]n [[Zulu]] musician, singer and composer who wrote the song "[[Mbube (song)|Mbube]]" which later became the pop hit "[[The Lion Sleeps Tonight]]", and gave its [[Mbube (genre)|name]] to a style of [[isicathamiya]] ''[[a cappella]]'' popularized by [[Ladysmith Black Mambazo]]. | ||
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
Current revision
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Solomon Popoli Linda (1909 – 8 October, 1962) was a South African Zulu musician, singer and composer who wrote the song "Mbube" which later became the pop hit "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", and gave its name to a style of isicathamiya a cappella popularized by Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Solomon Linda" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
