Music

Thursday, October 11, 2001

Craig, at Booknotes writes pretty regularly about music. I write pretty irregularly about music. Today (yes, it says the 11th but since I haven't gone to bed yet it is still the 10th) Craig had several links to one of my favorite albums (you know...those big black CDs), Stan Getz's Sweet Rain. The Stan Getz links are at the bottom of Craig's page. Bill Feeley lent me his turntable, until I get mine rebuilt, so I was able to listen to this old friend. Beautiful music.

Craig had another link to a site called Accordian Dreams.

The arrival of the European button accordion to Texas and its merging with traditional Mexican songs gave birth to an explosive new sound.

ACCORDION DREAMS captures this exhilirating musical style featuring yesterday's and today's squeezebox trailblazers.

It's about accordian driven conjunto with lots of history and information about this musical style.

One of the conjunto players mentioned in Accordian Dreams, Flaco Jimenez, played on one of my favorite albums - Ry Cooder's Chicken Skin Music. Ry Cooder is an amazing musician. He's played with everbody, including the Rolling Stones. I have always loved the way he moves through so many musical traditions. This album does that with both Flaco Jimenez on the button accordian and the late great Hawaiian slack key and steel guitarist Gabby Pahinui. Ry Cooder's latest cultural exchange was the popular Buena Vista Social Club.

Ry Cooder Links

Buena Vista Social Club - Biography

The Onion Interview

Ry Cooder on "Buena Vista Social Club" - Salon

Unsung Session Heroes: Ry Cooder

Ry Cooder's Pan-Cultural Journey
An old Addicted to Noise interview. Many broken links but the text is still up

Biography - Amazon

I only have one Flaco Jimenez CD - Arriba El Norte. It's a collection recorded in the 70s. Wonderful stuff. Great accordian. I need to get more.

Flaco Jimenez links

Folk and Acoustic Artist Database

Owit Music Europe

Most popular albums - Amazon

Flaco is to accordian music as Gabby Pahinui is to Hawaiian music - the real thing. Not long after Chicken Skin Music Ry Cooder colloborated with Gabby on Gabby Pahinui Hawaiian Band, Vol. 1. Beautiful, beautiful music.

Gabby Pahinui links

Gabby Pahinui

A Brief History of Slack Key Guitar

Hawaiian Music Guide

Gabby Pahinui's Music Catalog

Going throught the Accordian Dreams site and listening to Flaco also gets me closer to actually taking lessons on the accordian Maria lent me.