Chavela Vargas ha muerto

[Lateralthinking1]

Thanks, Lat. I'm reading quite a bit of Lorca at the moment so I'd be grateful for any further information you have on that CD

From memory, the pianist Mieczysław Horszowski was still performing aged 100 or more - the most difficult part of his later Wigmore Hall recitals appeared to be the shuffle from the stage door to the piano stool

Interesting to read the contributions. Oilrig - I am the only late night contributor to WM on the forum. However, you broadcast late. I am more than happy for you to accept the tag "late night staff inc" (#7) and there could be a record in it if you are lucky. Basically I am here to read what others are turning up in the daytime project and to provide more context when they turn over.

Ams, the Pogues have a song about Lorca called "Lorca's Novena". That is how and where I first heard about him. The album is "Hell's Ditch" (1990). Lead singer Shane MacGowan was drinking excessively then so the vocal delivery is poor. Nevertheless, it is the best song in that collection. Ray Davies of the Kinks originally wrote "Coca Cola" in the lyrics of "Lola" (1970) but had to change it to "cherry cola" for the record to be played. Had it been recorded just a few years earlier, that might not have been the only point of contention. It details a romantic encounter between a young man and a transvestite he meets in a club in Soho.

You might like the late Lhasa de Sela who is referred to in this thread. She was a particular favourite of Charlie Gillett and died, aged 37, two months before him. Information about Lhasa is on this website:

http://lhasadesela.com/lhasa_de_sela/menu.php?lang=en

Here are two websites about the Vargas-Lorca work -

http://magoproduction.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/now-you-can-visit-website-of-project.html

http://elruisenorylanocheng.wordpress.com/

Hope this is helpful.

[johncorrigan]

Ray Davies of the Kinks originally wrote "Coca Cola" in the lyrics of "Lola" (1970) but had to change it to "cherry cola" for the record to be played. Had it been recorded just a few years earlier, that might not have been the only point of contention. It details a romantic encounter between a young man and a transvestite he meets in a club in Soho.

Thanks for all that Lat - I used to like to think that Davies threw in a distraction with regard to the coca cola, and that was more upsetting to Auntie, and they didn't pick up on the rest of the lyrics - so when he made the change to cherry cola that was fine with the suits. I have little doubt that if they had, a song like Lola in 1970 would probably have got the elbow from the Radio 1 just for fun playlist (Tony Blackburn would have been horrified after all). I loved that LP it came from, Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One.

[amateur51]

Interesting to read the contributions. Oilrig - I am the only late night contributor to WM on the forum. However, you broadcast late. I am more than happy for you to accept the tag "late night staff inc" (#7) and there could be a record in it if you are lucky. Basically I am here to read what others are turning up in the daytime project and to provide more context when they turn over.

Ams, the Pogues have a song about Lorca called "Lorca's Novena". That is how and where I first heard about him. The album is "Hell's Ditch" (1990). Lead singer Shane MacGowan was drinking excessively then so the vocal delivery is poor. Nevertheless, it is the best song in that collection. Ray Davies of the Kinks originally wrote "Coca Cola" in the lyrics of "Lola" (1970) but had to change it to "cherry cola" for the record to be played. Had it been recorded just a few years earlier, that might not have been the only point of contention. It details a romantic encounter between a young man and a transvestite he meets in a club in Soho.

You might like the late Lhasa de Sela who is referred to in this thread. She was a particular favourite of Charlie Gillett and died, aged 37, two months before him. Information about Lhasa is on this website:

http://lhasadesela.com/lhasa_de_sela/menu.php?lang=en

Here are two websites about the Vargas-Lorca work -

http://magoproduction.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/now-you-can-visit-website-of-project.html

http://elruisenorylanocheng.wordpress.com/

Hope this is helpful.

It's more than helpful, it's magnificent Lats - many thanks

[johncorrigan]

Following on from Lat's links, I was having a look further at some things to do with Lorca and Chavela and in the process came upon this very interesting (I thought) piece in wiki from Nick Cave writing about duende.

'In his brilliant lecture entitled "The Theory and Function of Duende" Federico García Lorca attempts to shed some light on the eerie and inexplicable sadness that lives in the heart of certain works of art. "All that has dark sound has duende", he says, "that mysterious power that everyone feels but no philosopher can explain." In contemporary rock music, the area in which I operate, music seems less inclined to have its soul, restless and quivering, the sadness that Lorca talks about. Excitement, often; anger, sometimes: but true sadness, rarely, Bob Dylan has always had it. Leonard Cohen deals specifically in it. It pursues Van Morrison like a black dog and though he tries to he cannot escape it. Tom Waits and Neil Young can summon it. It haunts Polly Harvey. My friends the Dirty Three have it by the bucket load. The band Spiritualized are excited by it. Tindersticks desperately want it, but all in all it would appear that duende is too fragile to survive the brutality of technology and the ever increasing acceleration of the music industry. Perhaps there is just no money in sadness, no dollars in duende. Sadness or duende needs space to breathe. Melancholy hates haste and floats in silence. It must be handled with care." All love songs must contain duende. For the love song is never truly happy. It must first embrace the potential for pain. Those songs that speak of love without having within in their lines an ache or a sigh are not love songs at all but rather Hate Songs disguised as love songs, and are not to be trusted. These songs deny us our humanness and our God-given right to be sad and the air-waves are littered with them. The love song must resonate with the susurration of sorrow, the tintinnabulation of grief. The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil - the enduring metaphor of Christ crucified between two criminals comes to mind here - so within the fabric of the love song, within its melody, its lyric, one must sense an acknowledgement of its capacity for suffering.'

[Lateralthinking1]

John, that's very good, a thought-provoking article, and it applies too to Cave himself. I was a late convert to him but on seeing him live under thundery skies it was, without question, atmospheric. Efficiency is all about being in the present. The emotions there are inevitably different from those in a wider time frame. I guess that essentially they are simplified. Much of music as product is not intended to roam far beyond the here and now.

Not sure what he has in mind with love songs but it is an area that tends towards the formulaic. Sadness and suffering in music work best when there is something positive intertwined. I'm not overly keen on punkish nihilism which seems excessively overwrought. For many years, I have held to the view that conveying happiness in music is a difficult art. Spontaneity is key. I am not sure whether it can be easily crafted without sounding trite, Lat.

[Paul Sherratt]

Thanks for all the ! links Lat.
I thought some might be interested in seeing how the funeral went off:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/slideshows/sa_cultura_slideshows/slideshow/Tribute-to-legendary-Chavela-Vargas-47177.php#photo-3295841

[johncorrigan]

Thanks for all the ! links Lat.
I thought some might be interested in seeing how the funeral went off:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/slidesho...#photo-3295841

Thanks Paul - looks like the crowd enjoyed the arrival of the rain.

[Lateralthinking1]

Thanks for all the ! links Lat.
I thought some might be interested in seeing how the funeral went off:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/slidesho...#photo-3295841

Not a problem Paul - and great photos.

I see that Buika has been recording the songs of Chavela Vargas. Given the remarkable quality of Vargas, I'm not sure whether that is a good thing or not.

[handsomefortune]

i'm finding chavela vargas's singing great for current hot dark summer nights with twinkly stars.

[Paul Sherratt]

Picture to accompany the last song on World on 3, 12/10/2012

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2327/2742548999_a5fd28855b.jpg