BLUR Music

One of the ways I first began to explore other cultures was through music. It was a world which felt exciting, expressive and yet familiar to me. A language I could understand. I suspect many of us feel this way.

It’s generally something visceral, something emotionally-rooted that begins to connect us to other cultures, other ideas. For many it’s food. For others it could be great books, engaging films, travel or even the most visceral of all, love. Regardless of what it is, we start turning over the stones, exploring the possibilities and looking at things a little differently. For me, it was music first……the rest followed.

My parents would always bring home records (yes, vinyl) from the places they’d travel to. Some of it would be a hit right away. Some of it would be a miss even after multiple listens. So, that Joe Dassin album they brought back from a trip to France got shelved almost immediately. I guess it took French popular music a little longer to come into its own….though some would question if it has.

From high school, to college, through bachelorhood to marriage and kids, my eclectic musical tastes have produced joy and confusion. For my part, it’s always been joy. How could it be anything else?

My college room-mates called it “Will Music”. My kids are embarrassed by my need to share this with others (particularly my interest in “rock en espanol”). Regardless, it has always been a way for me to communicate with others, no matter where I happen to be.

Despite my kids’ refusal to admit this, though, they wouldn’t be half as knowledgeable and open-minded about music as they are without having had me expose them to so much. And two of the three are musicians as well, so I know that music is one of their visceral connections too!

It’s not surprising that I’ve always been curious what is on people’s playlists. Regardless of where I am, if the conversation is choked and stifled, I can always resort to probing people on music. It’s part of my on-going education!

I still think in terms of bodies of work…..full CD’s. This is kind of old-fashioned, but it’s fairly easy for a band to one-off a decent, marginally catchy song. It’s the challenge of putting a bunch of compelling songs together into a seam that is difficult. And with the music business as it is, I think that challenge runs through selling those bodies of music.

Here are a few of the artists and CD’s that regularly make their way into my eclectic mix. These reflect my own biases. Maybe you’d like to share some of your own with us?

Some unique and accessible music:

Andres Calamaro, Alta Suciedad (Argentina 1997):  Calamaro is a poet. He is noted for playing cleverly with words. It helps to speak Spanish, but you can even get his gift for sharply turning phrases without it. Calamaro is a prolific writer, and the music is great. He has been called “South America’s Bob Dylan” (though in my opinion his voice is better), and he has toured with Dylan in the Spanish-speaking world. Calamaro has attracted a great list of supporting musicians from all over the world to play on his albums and with him live. His most recent album was released in 2008.

This is my favorite, and even ranks up there on my 19 year-old daughter’s play-list.

Maybe I’m not such a nerd after all.

Zucchero, ZU & Co. (Italy 2004): Zucchero has been around a long time. In fact, this is an album that was 16 years in the making. We brought it home from Italy with us. Throughout his career Zucchero has worked with a “who’s – who” of musical royalty, and this compilation includes collaboration with Eric Clapton, Miles Davis, Sting, Brian May, Sheryl Crow, Jeff Beck, Bono, BB King, Mana, Dolores O’Riordan….you get the gist. The guy is a musicians’ musician, and all of these songs, written by him, sound as if they were conceived with his collaborators clearly in mind. Some of them were.

Zucchero released his most recent non-compilation effort with 2006’s Fly.

This is another CD that doesn’t instantly elicit “can we listen to something different?” from those closest to me.

Béla Fleck & The Flecktones, Live Art (USA 1996): If you never thought you’d hear the words “virtuoso” and “banjo player” uttered in the same breath, you may want to check this one out. Béla Fleck & The Flecktones play with a manic (but precise) energy that will blow you away, fusing jazz, bluegrass, classical and folk music. This whole band is amazing (not to mention a bit of a cultural BLUR), which is probably why, out of this eclectic genre, they’ve collected twenty Grammy nominations, and have won eight, most recently for The Hidden Land in 2007. Outside of the band, Fleck has recorded with artists as diverse as Dave Matthews, Asleep at the Wheel, Phish, and others.

The Flecktones have successfully toured all over the world, and in fact are due to perform in South America (in Chile and Argentina) in November of this year.

Youssou N’Dour, 7 Seconds: The Best of… (Senegal 2004): Youssou N’Dour’s voice is haunting, and his songs can be as well, in a good way. This compilation gets at many of these, but leaves off several of my favorites (which is the danger of any “best of” anything). Regardless, there’s variety and depth here that show why Peter Gabriel picked N’Dour out of the African continent to highlight in several of his more intriguing songs. You may remember his tenor voice flowing through In Your Eyes, Biko and Shakin’ the Tree. Perhaps the most haunting of all though was his duet, 7 Seconds with Neneh Cherry, which fortunately is here, and is a song I can listen to over and over. It’s actually kind of a BLUR anthem if you listen well.

N’Dour won his first Grammy for Best Contemporary World Music Album in 2005 with Egypt, which is as eclectic as they come.