Listening Assignment Three
Ethnomusicology 20A
1.“Delgadina” Mercedes López, Santa Rosa, New Mexico, from Music of New Mexico, Hispanic Traditions. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings 40409 track 16. Available through Online Audio Reserve Listening course reserve and permanent URL. Listen at high quality setting!
This is a classic tragic ballad, or romance, a part of the European narrative song tradition that was spread throughout the Americas by settlers in the new world. They are a classic example of “down home” music described by Richard Crawford in “Old, Simple, Ditties.” Ballads are found in every country in Europe and the Americas. The basic plots often remain the same over centuries and across languages, but the details change, different melodies are used. Sometimes new ballads are composed about local incidents. Often transmitted by women, many ballads and romances tell stories of domestic violence and scandal very similar to stories appearing today in tabloid newspapers. Some narrate the events, others are entirely in dialogue among the principal actors. This song, about the incestuous desire of a king for his daughter, Delgadina, had its origins in medieval or Renaissance Spain. The text of this version has been updated and localized in the new world, with a reference to the cathedral of Durango, Mexico. It begins narrating the events, moves to a dramatic dialogue between Delgadina and her evil father the king, and concludes in a narrative form once more. Mercedes López learned this song during her childhood in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Recorded 1992. Translation (I have placed slashes / between the 1&2 and the 3&4 lines of each verse to conserve space and indicated who is speaking inside square brackets—that is not sung) Delgadina paced around/ Her very square room [Father:] “Get up, Delgadina,/Dress in purest white, Delgadina got up,/Dressed in purest white, Delgadina was kneeling,/praying her prayers, When they left mass/Her father told her, [Delgadina:] “My God will not permit it,/Nor the Sovereign Queen, [Father:] “Come my eleven maids,/Shut Delgadina up, [Delgadina:] “Dear father of my life,/One favor I will ask of you, [Father:] “Come, my eleven maids,/Take water to Delgadina, When the water was taken/Delgadina was dead, Delgadina’s bed/Is surrounded by angels; 2. "Single Girl, Married Girl" performed by The Carter Family. From The Anthology of American Folk Music, Smithsonian Folkways Boxed Set, SFW 40090, 1997, CD 5, track 67. Library Online Audio Reserve ListeningThe Carter Family band from Mace's Spring, West Virginia, was one of the most important groups in the history of American country music. Members of the family have been active for over 70 years. This particular song was one of six recorded in August, 1927, at their first studio session. A. P. Carter collected folk songs in the Appalachian region near his home and arranged them in the Carter Family style. They used a characteristic harmony and instrumentation, including guitar and autoharp, featured on this track. A.P. Carter was one of the first musicians to copyright arrangements of traditional songs in his own name, and prepared song sheets for sale at their shows. During their career, the "Original Carter Family" recorded over 300 songs, some of which are still frequently performed. Many Carter Family songs became Bluegrass standards and they strongly influenced later musicians, among them Woody Guthrie, the New Lost City Ramblers, and Joan Baez.
3. "Close By" performed by Bill Monroe. (Bill Monroe-Van Winkle/Cedarwood, BMI) From Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, live recordings 1956-1969. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings SFW 40063, 1993, track 4. Music Library Online Course Reserve and also Static URL, listen at high quality setting:
Bill Monroe is closely identified with bluegrass music because he helped establish the style, and founded the band Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, from which the genre takes its name. Born in Rosine, Kentucky, on September 13th 1911, Bill Monroe was raised on an isolated family farm. His earliest musical influences derived from church and social traditions. When traveling singing teachers visited the area, the local churches participated in the regional tradition of "shape note" singing schools. Hampered by poor vision from birth, Monroe did not learn to read the music but developed a keen year for the stark harmonies of this heritage. At home, his mother sang ballads and folk songs and played both the accordion and fiddle. Bill Monroe began his professional performing career in the early 1930s working with his brothers Charlie and Birch in the mid-western towns around Chicago, where they had settled in search employment. To 1938 he organized his own band, which became known as "The Blue Grass Boys." This song is one of Monroe's profound vocal and instrumental performances. It ranks among the finest of his recordings. The extraordinary quality of the fiddling is supplemented by the other instruments in the group and provides a rich textured sound characteristic of Monroe's ensemble style, to which he adds a powerful vocal part. In this inspired performance there are many opportunities to observe the characteristics that account for Monroe's unique domination has creator and master of his genre (from liner notes). 4. “Early in the Mornin’” 22 Group, Parchman Prison, Mississippi. From The Alan Lomax Collection Sampler (Cambridge: Rounder Records 1700, 1997). “Early in the Mornin’” is a work song led by a young prisoner who went by the name of “22.” Alan Lomax remembers him as one of the few younger prisoners who liked to sing the work songs. The four men sing as they stand in a square around a tree, with two men chopping from opposite corners of the square on the first beat, the other pair chopping on the alternate beat. In the Southern prison system, work songs served to pace the men who hoed and chopped, to mediate between the strong and the weak, to pacify the prison bosses, to amuse, console, and dignify the men who worked every day from sun up to sundown under the eyes of armed guards. (From album liner notes, p 22). 5. Bessie Smith, “Poor Man’s Blues” recorded in 1928. Please listen to this while reading the Donald C. Meyer pages in the reader about this song.
6. “Everytime I feel the Spirit” Florida A&M University Concert Choir. African American Spirituals: The Concert Tradition. Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings 40076 track 10. Permanent URL: use high quality setting:
“The earliest form of black religious music to develop in the United States was what is commonly referred to as the folk spiritual. The folk spiritual was an outgrowth of slavery; it was a uniquely African response to an institution which waged a systematic, though unsuccessful, onslaught onto the cultural legacy of black people in America. The next form of religious music expression to develop among blacks on U.S. soil was the arranged spiritual, in which the spiritual assumed a character and purpose that differed radically from its folk antecedent. The folk spiritual was now transferred to the concert stage, superimposed by the aesthetic values that characterized [European] musical culture.” “The nurturing ground for the concert spiritual tradition was always the schools that were founded to educate African Americans,” such as Historically Black University Florida A&M, an institution that is also known worldwide for its marching band, the Marching 100. The “arranged” or “concert” spiritual heard here refers to Biblical themes and uplifting of the soul. (Quotes from Portia Maultsby’s “African American Musical Cultures” in
7. "It was a good day" Ice Cube. From The Predator, Priority Records, 1992. Gangsta rap emerged in the 1980s in Los Angeles as a response to the daily realities of minority youth in a postindustrial urban American context. Released in 1992 on Priority Records, The Predator was close on the heels of the LA riots sparked by the Rodney King trial. Set in South Central Los Angeles, this song documents a day in the life of West Coast rapper Ice Cube. This track samples "Footsteps in the Dark," a 1977 track by funk icons The Isley Brothers (from Cincinnati, Ohio) as well as "Sexy Mama" by the group The Moments.
8. Jesus Maya y Timoteo Cantu “Gregorio Cortez” (corrido). From Borderlands: From Conjunto to Chickenscratch, Music form the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and Southern Arizona (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings 40418). Online Course Reserve ListeningSee the synopsis by Kay Shelemay in the course reader (pp 349-352). This version is slightly shorter than the one she discusses in the text because it was made to fit on a 45 rpm analog discs of the type used in jukeboxes from the 1959 through the late 1980s. Technology has sometimes directly shaped musical styles, as in this case.
9. “Allons a Lafayette”, performed by Paul McZiel, accordion, and Wallace Gernger, vocals and washboard. From Zydeco Volume One: The Early Years (Arhoolie CD 307). Online Course Reserve ListeningZydeco music is a Creole form from Louisiana and Eastern Texas. The lyrics are in a Creole French patois. 10. “Uncle Joe,” performed by the Basin Brothers. From Stayin’ Cajun, (Flying Fish 70581). Online ListeningThe Cajuns of Louisiana are descended from the French Acadians of Nova Scotia, Canada, who were expelled by the British from the province in the 1750s and fled to the French possessions in southeastern North America. Instruments include fiddle and accordion. Text Translation: There is a place along the bayou, it’s uncle Joe’s Place. If you go there, be careful—the alligator will pull you into the water. Hey Uncle Joe, change your name and change your location. Hey Uncle Joe, Listen to me, well I’m scared to fall into the water! There’s some laughter near the little place, along the side of the old bayou. All sorts of people they go there. They look kind of crazy. Hey Uncle Joe, you just didn’t listen, now you see your mistake. Hey Uncle Joe you’re kind of like the others, all the people know that right now.
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