Last night, while my husband and I listened to Ajay Parham, a young jazz vocalist, perform at HR 57 (a club in DC), I pondered the title of Richard Thompson's 1000 Years of Popular Music, and I wondered what Parham would have included on a similar CD. What would the members of my favorite band Los Lobos (www.loslobos.org) have included?
Then I began to have a few qualifications about the idea of 1000 Years of Popular Music. This evening I've written down my qualifications, that is, the material in parentheses. First of all, the songs that Thompson & his musicians cover are mainly from the UK, the USA, and Australia, with the exception of one song that is in Italian. There is no mariachi, tango, or calypso, to name three types of music I have in my CD collection. There is no reggae. There is nothing by Brecht and Weill. Technically, one song sounds a little Indian, but would you count a song written by a British person who was influenced by Indian musicians as non-Western music? And there's no Chinese opera either. Secondly, all of the songs on Thompson's CD have lyrics. Apparently, Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing!" [or insert your favorite instrumental] didn't make the cut.
Nevertheless, 1000 Years of Popular Music helps us think about what it means to consider an anthology of works from other cultures--and times and then the way that these works all fit together to make, in one case, (popular) music and, in another, world literature. OK, I admit that we are at an advantage over Thompson since, in making up his list, he has to factor in what he can play and what he can afford to play. (Somehow I don't think "Sing, Sing, Sing" works without a horn section although, if anybody could make that song work with a guitar & drums, perhaps Thompson could.) In EN 201, we're more like someone who is burning a CD or two, but, like Thompson, we are still thinking about why it's important to examine older works from different traditions rather than just being content with our own times & traditions.
Which songs would you include in your 1000 Years of Popular Music?
p.s. I hope that you can take a closer look at the cover!! It is not simply a picture of medieval times, but the artist has created a clever collage of musicians from different time periods. And here is a link to Thompson's own web site. You may find out more about his ongoing tour and its evolving playlist...and ask him questions about his choice of songs!
http://www.richardthompson-music.com/default.asp
Here are some more pages on the DVD that I showed in class and the tour:
http://www.richardthompson-music.com/catch_of_the_day.asp?id=540
http://www.richardthompson-music.com/1000yrs.asp
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,1042743,00.html
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