Baby Mine: Little Green

Joni Mitchell: Little Green

[purchase]

Back in 1965, before her recording career ever began, Joni Mitchell faced one of the most difficult decisions a woman can ever make: she decided to give her child up for adoption. Mitchell was 20 at the time.

Through the years, this decision plagued her. She wrote “Little Green” about it a few years after the fact. Here Mitchell sends the same kind of wishes to her child as we have heard all week; the difference is that Mitchell sent out these wishes knowing she might never learn if anything came of them. In the early eighties, Mitchell wrote the song “Chinese Cafe”, which included the lines, “my child’s a stranger, I bore her, but I did not raise her.” So I think it’s safe to say that Joni Mitchell always wondered what became of the child, and if she made the right decision. Finally, she decided to find out. But there was a problem. The child was born and adopted in Ontario.

It is difficult for a parent to trace an American child who was put up for adoption; Joni Mitchell learned that under Ontario law, it is impossible. Mitchell put the fact that she was looking for her daughter up on her website, and hoped against hope.

Mitchell often wrote songs about her personal life in the early part of her career. Most of the stories she told ended sadly. But perhaps this would be different. The story in the website did in fact draw a response. A woman of about the right age contacted the website to say that she had been seeking her birth mother. And then another woman reached out. And another. Soon there were dozens, all thinking or hoping that Joni Mitchell might be their mother.

Kilauren Gibb was one of these. She had achieved some small fame of her own, as a model in Canada. The information she sent was enough to establish a match. 31 years after the fact, Joni Mitchell was reunited with her long lost daughter, her “Little Green”. And, as a bonus, Mitchell found out she had a grandson.

Baby Mine: Stay Up Late

Stay Up Late: Talking Heads

[purchase]

In this song David Byrne proves that he is taking the perspective of an uncle, grandparent, friend, or visitor. No parent of a new born would ever write these lyrics.

This song has always made me laugh though. "He looks so cute. In his little red suit."

Baby Mine: Keeping You

Tanya Donelly: Keeping You

[Purchase]

Tanya Donelly is best known as the front-woman for 90's alternative rock group Belly, as well as being a founding member of Throwing Muses and The Breeders. After Belly broke up in the late 90s, Tanya started to make solo records. She has since produced four albums and numerous EPs.

Shortly before the making of her second solo album, Beautysleep, Tanya had her first child, Gracie. The album has a number of songs that relate to this new life venture, but none as overt as "Keeping You". In this song, I hear the new found joy and worries of a woman who has experienced a lot and feels the scars and markings that life and love have left upon her. And now, with all her imperfections, is bringing an innocent new life into the world. A life, that she may have tried to keep away at other times in her life, but that she's finally ready for now. She is welcoming this new being to be a part of her life, flaws and all. She went through a lot of life and love to find herself back in in the role nature intended. Mother.

Baby Mine: My Boy

Thelonious Monster - My Boy [purchase]

"One day you and me, boy, we're gonna have it out, yeah,
And I know you'll probably hate me,
But that's life, boy."

We return to the Book of Bob for this week's contribution. Bob Forrest was/is the frontman for Thelonious Monster and he remains the patron saint of The Adios Lounge. "My Boy" is a U-turn in the band's catalog, a mournful piano ballad out of step from their shambolic rock 'n' roll wheelhouse. Bob wrote the song for his then-toddler son, Elijah, and is atypical for most baby songs in that it's written as a letter of apology. He knows that the kid was born into a broken, unstable family, soon to be wrecked by divorce, and that the toll on the boy will be immeasurable. He also knows that the boy will someday grow into a young man, at which time father and son will have it out. He knows this because, more than likely he went through it himself:

"Mom and dad, we're trying it for the first time and we're stable,
Pose for my boy,
Ain't it funny how history repeats itself,
She said that she never knew love could be so painful."

In just a few lines, Forrest subtly describes the legacy of familial dishonesty and dysfunction. Parents lie to their children because parents have always lied to their children. Sure, it doesn't capture a Capra-esque family moment, but it is undeniably and powerfully real. However, in being so honest, I think Bob was granting his son one of the greatest gifts a kid can get from his parents ... the truth.

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Elijah turned out just fine, didn't become a drug-addicted fool, and in fact, plays music like (and occasionally with) his old man. The picture above shows father and son before a gig, Bob in the center (hands clasped as if in prayer) and his boy to his left, our right. Elijah plays in a duo called Terrors, whose self-styled shoegazing blues is not unlike Will Oldham in one of his many grizzled guises. Check it out, yo.

Baby Mine: Secret O' Life

There's so much parental advice offered up out there: wear a jacket when it's chilly, don't pull the dog's tail, broccoli is good for you, never run with a lollipop in your mouth, you need fresh air and exercise, better not cross your eyes or they'll freeze like that, color inside the lines, eating food dropped on the floor is a big no-no – thank goodness there are songs like the lovely and eloquent Scott Miller's (which Nelson posted) to take us to the crux of the matter.

We want our children to be good people... to have a sense of family, friendship and the world... to live in the moment... to do the right thing when no one is watching (and, when that fails, to be lucky enough to survive the wrong thing) – ultimately, we become better people in our desire to shape their ethics, values and passions...

In the songs-I-wish-I'd-written-for-my-children spirit, I offer up four examples of counsel from the deepest, truest, most sincere place of all: the heart...

James Taylor: Secret O' Life

"The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time
Any fool can do it
There ain't nothing to it
Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill
But since we're on our way down
We might as well enjoy the ride..."

[purchase]


Joan Baez: Forever Young (written by Bob Dylan)

"May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young..."

[purchase]


Tom Russell: Box of Visions

"I give to you a box of visions
I give to you a jar of hearts
I'll give to you the gypsy's ear
To hear the sacred harp
I'll give to you a house of mirrors
A thousand eyes they belong to you
A labyrinth of wild roses
I know you'll find your own way through..."

[purchase]


Maura O'Connell: Feet of a Dancer

"I hope you find the feet of a dancer
I hope you can sing in the rain
I hope you find all the easy answers to your pain
I hope you find love and affection, someone who cares
I hope you find all the right direction everywhere..."

[purchase]


My children are now 27, 24 and 20... and I still wish all of the above for them – as Anne Tyler so eloquently states in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant: there's no statute of limitations on motherhood (amend that to parenthood)...

Baby Mine: For Jack Tymon

Scott Miller & The Commonwealth: For Jack Tymon

[purchase]

Scott Miller's hatred of babies has been well documented over the years. He isn't shy about his views. In fact, you can even buy a "Scott Miller Hates Me" onesie for your kid on Scott's website. Of course, you'll have to find them when they aren't sold out (as they currently are)... they're the best selling piece of merchandise he has.

There is, however, another side to Scott Miller. When one of his best friends had his first child, Scott wrote this song full of well wishes and hopes and dreams for the child's future. It appeared on his 2003 album Upside Downside.

I unknowingly played this song on the air last year on Jack Tymon's birthday. I got a phone call from a family friend who heard the song driving home from Jack's 8th birthday party. As it turns out... his back is straight, and he does have ten fingers.

Just don't start thinking that Scott Miller has softened his stance on babies once you hear this song...

Scott Miller - Hates Babies

Baby Mine: All The Pretty Horses

Calexico: All the Pretty Horses

[purchase]

Boyhowdy talked about the emotional impact of becoming a father for the first time, and I remember it well. I had always been interested in folklore, and when I looked at, and held, my infant daughter, my imagination took flight. Yes, I thought of hopes and dreams for her future. But I also began to make up stories for her. I would pace back and forth in the kitchen with her on my shoulder, telling tales of magic and wonder. Of course the words could not have meant anything to her at that age, but she nevertheless inspired me. I can easily imagine that “All the Pretty Horses” got written by someone who was similarly inspired. And that Calexico came up with their amazing arrangement of the song while in a similar state of mind.

My daughter is thirteen now, and I still read stories to her. It is an important ritual for both of us. And now, she has started to write stories of her own. So I dedicate this post to her, with love.

Baby Mine: The Things We've Handed Down

Marc Cohn: The Things We've Handed Down

[purchase]

Grammy-winning piano bluesman and composer Marc Cohn made a huge splash with his self-titled 1991 debut, winning both mainstream recognition and high praise from the gospel, americana, and deep blues communities. The album was perfect for its age, supported by the subtle strings of folk genius Robin Batteau and the folkpop production of John Leventhal - the same producer who made Shawn Colvin a star, and later, turned his wife Roseanne Cash into the second Cash coming - and released in an arena which was overdue for a male voice which could compete with the Shawn Colvins of the pop-hybrid genre spectrum.

But as I age, just as I prefer Shawn Colvin's less perfect, more subtle songs, it is Cohn's second album, the more pensive, mature Rainy Season, which I find myself coming back to. Released two years after the first, Cohn's sophomore release moves beyond the themes of childhood and young love which so please the popular mind to consider the stillness that is real love and family: the inner life of housebound mothers standing in their backyards at night, the mystery of death explained to children, the miracle and promise and mystery of birth. The album isn't perfect -- it yaws too far, I think, trying to please too many constituencies who joined the bandwagon with the first album, and the track arrangement is less than inspired -- but once you get past the AAA poppiness of the first two tracks, it has much more hits than misses. And it says something that when my children were first born, it was this final, perfect track which taught me that what I was feeling was right on, and really was as big as it felt.

Y'all know me: here's where I usually add a cover or two, if one is to be found. And they can indeed be found: since its release in 1993, the song has been covered by other, folkier fathers of the same sensitive new age male mold, most notably John Gorka and Art Garfunkel. But such versions are strained in comparison: not one holds a candle to the wonder of the original. For once, then, instead of sharing the covers, I'll ask you to trust me: this one needs no versions.

If I had to pick one song to give to an impending father, to show just what emotion was about to hit him like truck, it would be this original. This is the song that still makes me, as a father, stop in my tracks, and remember the moment when I knew that my tiny daughters were a thousand generations in my hands, and simultaneously all the hope I ever had, incarnate. How terrifying, and how wondrous.

Baby Mine: 140x

Brian Joseph: 140x

[purchase]

I remember the first time I heard this song at a Folk Alliance (San Diego, February 2004) - wasn't sure which reaction to give in to first: lump-in-the-throat tears or laugh-out-loud delight. Settled for both - realized everyone else in the audience was equally torn...

Saw/heard Brian at various other shows in the next year... and there was always a rush for the CD table afterwards ("where can I find that song?!?")... only to learn that it hadn't yet been recorded. He finally released If I Never Sleep Again, "smart acoustic pop for anyone who is a parent or has a parent" - he has since become a father yet again...

The song title refers to hearing the heartbeat in utero (the rhythm of which is insanely fast), surely one of the most magical moments on the planet - been there, done that, 3x...

In Memoriam: Davey Graham

Davey Graham: Anji

[purchase]


I can sit here and give you a lot of facts about Davey Graham's life, but the reality is he played hard and it cost him his proper place in the music business, he later described himself as having been "a casualty of too much self-indulgence." At the end of his career, he redeemed himself, but it didn't make up for all the lost time.

He inspired many of the famous practitioners of guitar fingerpicking, musicians like Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Martin Carthy, Eltjo Haselhoff, Jimmy Page (whom based his solo in White Summer on Graham's She Moved Thru) and Simon & Garfunkel, who covered Anji on their Sounds of Silence album. He was also known for his pioneering use of the DADGAD tuning, later widely adopted by acoustic guitarists worldwide.

David Michael Gordon Graham was born Nov. 22, 1940, in Leicester, England, to a Guyanese mother and a Scottish father. Though he never took any formal music lessons, he learned to play the piano and harmonica as a child and then took up the guitar at the age of 12. He lost the sight in his right eye after he fell on a pencil in a playground, that led him to develop a remarkable memory and ear for sound.

As a teen, Graham was a member of traditional Jazz bands and was tutored on the guitar by British Folk singer Steve Benbow. He traveled abroad every summer, busking on the streets of Paris before returning to perform in Folk clubs in England.

Graham's eclecticism posed a marketing dilemma for record companies and agents - his music was not exactly Folk and not quite Jazz. He incorporated Asian and Indian harmonies into his compositions and once termed his style "Folk-Baroque" because of the Classical techniques he brought to the guitar.

Graham's song Angi, named after a girlfriend, appeared on his debut EP 3/4 AD in April 1962, the tune spread like wildfire through a generation of aspiring guitarists. The spelling often changed, but it became Anji after it appeared that way on Simon & Garfunkel's 1966 album Sounds of Silence.

He reemerged in 2003 with a performance in the segment Red, White and Blues in the PBS series, The Blues, and in 2005, an BBC radio interview titled Whatever Happened to Davey Graham, which caused the reissue of his long out-of-print albums on CD. He started doing monthly concerts in London and released an CD of his own compositions, Broken Biscuits, in 2007.

At the beginning of 2008, Graham was diagnosed with lung cancer and died on December 15th. He's survived by two daughters and leaves behind a musical legacy that will last as long as there's fingerpickers plucking six-strings across the globe. For further reading, our Boyhowdy wrote more about him here: RIP Davy Graham, 1940 - 2008.

In Memoriam: Utah Phillips

To properly represent the career of Utah Phillips, I feel that I should present a train song, a story, and a political or union song. The last two are here. For train song, follow the link later in this post.

Utah Phillips: Moose Turd Pie

[purchase]

Utah Phillips: There is Power in the Union

[purchase]


I never met Utah Phillips, or even saw him perform. But, as I was starting to learn about folk music, his name would come up from time to time. A friend would say that this was somebody I would probably like. A song would come on the radio on a folk show, and it would be him, but by the time the show ended, his would one of a crowd of names I would try to remember. So how did I get to the point of writing a tribute to him?

It happened because I needed a snow song a few weeks ago. and I found the song “Phoebe Snow“. At that point, I learned that Utah Phillips was not only a musician I should have known about sooner, he was also a man I would have loved to hang out with.

Think about that. How many times have you heard a musician, loved what they did, but found out that they were the worst company imaginable? Not Phillips. He was a storyteller. He told tales of hobos in his songs with obvious affection. And, personally, I would have felt right at home talking politics with him. This is important, because the subject would certainly have come up.

What tied all of this together was Phillips’ belief that a man had the right to live by his own rules. Whether it was the hobo, who chose his route and answered to no one, or the union worker, who organized and struck when necessary, rather than submit to the whims of the bosses, these were the people Phillips sang and told of. These were the people he championed and fought for all his life. And now, the fight is left for others to continue. Perhaps to the tune of one of Phillips’ songs.

In Memoriam: Chris Gaffney

The Hacienda Brothers: Cowboys to Girls

The Hacienda Brothers: Gone

[purchase]

Chris Gaffney of The Hacienda Brothers passed away in April of this year following a brief bout with liver cancer. He was 57.

I was first introduced to Chris Gaffney through his work as a member of Dave Alivn's band The Guilty Men around the time Alvin released his Ashgrove album in 2004. I really became a fan of Gaffney through his work with The Hacienda Brothers and their self-titled debut album in 2005. Gaffney's voice was a key element to the band's classic brand of R&B flavored country music.

During his illness, I followed news of his condition through the website www.helpgaff.com and was always touched by the personal messages of love and hope left for Chris by his family and friends. A great obituary can be found here from austin360.com. Gaffney's best friend Dave Alvin has a few videos of he and Gaff playing together on his website (scroll down). YepRoc Records will release a Chris Gaffney tribute album in March with contributions from Joe Ely, Dave Alvin, Los Lobos, Calexico, James McMurtry, Alejandro Escovedo, Dan Penn, and many, many others.

The two tracks here both come from a live Hacienda Brothers CD called Music for Ranch & Town that is only available through the band's website.

In Memoriam: Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley - Pretty Thing [purchase]

Bo Diddley - Roadrunner [Live in '63]

Bo Diddley was more than a beat, though you can hardly blame people for being confused since he played the guitar like a drum. Diddley helped introduce a generation of white kids in America and England to hard blues and R&B at the very moment it was being rebranded into rock 'n' roll. Like Chuck Berry, Bo was one of the few early rock 'n' rollers to bring the guitar to the forefront of the band. He was an innovative guitarist, too. He was no virtuoso, but in terms of incorporating distortion and effects, he was way ahead of the curve. Listen to the live version of "Roadrunner" above and you can hear Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck, and Jimi Hendrix not far behind. More than anyone else of his generation, though, it was Bo Diddley who brought the intense, churning rhythms of the black church into his music. But hey, if all you know about Bo Diddley is that beat, that's OK, too. As long as you remember.

On a personal note, I'm indebted to Diddley because I think it was my two-part essay on the man's musical legacy where The Adios Lounge truly found its voice. If you'd like to check that out, here's Part 1 here and there's Part 2 there. To that end, here's a medley of Bo covers I put together which demonstrates the profound effect of the Diddley catalog on succeeding generations of rock musicians. For a complete list of the artists medleying with Bo, that's also available at The Adios Lounge. Check it, yo.

Medleying With Bo: A Bo Diddley Bouillabaise

If you don't like Bo, you don't know Diddley.

In Memoriam: Richard Wright

Pink Floyd: The Great Gig In The Sky

[purchase]

Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright passed in September of this year, and though I hadn't known much about him before his death, my pursuit of appropriate fodder for a blog post on the subject back then led me to a great respect for this undersung member of one of psychedelic rock's most influential bands. Taking a cue from Nelson, here's a clip from my Cover Lay Down post on the subject:

[Richard] Wright spent much of his career as third fiddle to two powerful songwriters (and, previous to that, one additional stellar frontman), but he deserves his due: his work was hardly negligible, and he did his share of songcraft, too, on some of the best known albums from the band.

Presciently, Wright’s most famous composition is probably The Great Gig in the Sky, which begins with the line “I am not frightened to die.”

It's not every artist who writes his own perfect epitaph. You've heard it before, of course. But isolated from the grandeur that is the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon, The Great Gig in the Sky stands alone as a finite atmosphere, a wash of keys and crashing waves rising ever higher and then floating down to earth again, a lifetime encapsulated in song.

So long, Richard. See you on the other side.

In Memoriam: LeRoi Moore

Dave Matthews Band: Best of What's Around

[purchase]

I attended college in the mid-to-late 1990's when the Dave Matthews Band were at their creative peak. As such, they became my favorite band during those years. I went to at least one concert every summer, bought every official live release, traded live concert recordings with other fans, and was a very active member of the message boards at nancies.org (a site that I still miss greatly).

Anyway... Saxophone player LeRoi Moore, a founding member of the DMB passed away in August as a result of an ATV accident in June at his farm in Virginia. I wrote of Moore's passing over at my own site shortly after his death. I think I said every thing I wanted to say there... so I'll just let that post speak for itself. I've reactivated the song links there as well as adding another song here from 1994's Under the Table and Dreaming.

Here's the link to what I wrote about LeRoi Moore back in August.

In memoriam: Klaus Dinger

Neu!: Hallogallo

[purchase]

Brian Eno once said that "there were three great beats in the 70´s. Fela Kuti's Afrobeat, James Brown's funk, and Klaus Dinger's Neu! beat." He was right of course. The Neu! beat, a single and minimalist 4/4, was also called the motorik beat, although Dinger later referred to it as the Apache beat for some reason. Its groove was highly influential on artists as diverse as Hawkwind, David Bowie, Public Image Ltd. and almost everyone working in the electronica and/or ambient scene. Hallogallo, a prime example of Neu!´s krautrock genius, comes from their selftitled debut (´72). Way ahead of its time.

In Memoriam: Odetta

Born on New Year’s Eve in 1930, Odetta would have been 78 today. And had she lived a few weeks beyond this, she would have realized her last dream, to sing at Barak Obama’s inauguration. When I think of Odetta, I think of three things: spirituals, the Civil Rights Movement, and that voice.

Odetta: Muleskinner‘s Blues

[purchase]

As a child, Odetta loved to sing, The first music she was exposed to, and her original inspiration for singing, was the music of the black church. And somewhere in her journey through life, she also heard the blues. A musically astute bystander, overhearing her at the age of ten, advised Odetta’s mother to wait until she was thirteen, and then start her on classical voice lessons. The lessons lasted for several years, and help shape this amazing instrument. It was at age twenty that Odetta first heard folk music, and fell in love with it.

Odetta: Spiritual Trilogy: Oh Freedom, Come and Go With Me, I‘m on My Way

[purchase]

Odetta’s spirituality was tied up in everything she did. Her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement certainly fit in with this. Many of her gigs at first were at civil rights demonstrations. One of her proudest achievements was singing “Oh Freedom” at the demonstration in Washington where Martin Luther King Delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Odetta: Blues Everywhere I Go

[purchase]

After the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the Civil Rights Movement began to split into factions, each of which believed that it knew the best way to continue the fight. For Odetta, this meant that it became harder to find the types of gigs she was used to. So, as she sought ways to expand her audience, she tried to broaden her sound. “Blues Everywhere I Go” is the title track from an album recorded late in her career, which paid tribute to female blues singers who had inspired Odetta. It is the only time I know of that she “plugged in”.

But, no matter what she sang, it was still Odetta. She was still the owner of that amazing voice. In her hands, even secular songs became expressions of the human spirit. And so they remain, even now that she is gone.

In Memoriam: Eddy Arnold

In perusing the list of musicians who passed on this year, I feel grateful in saying that, although I mourn the loss of all who passed from this earth in 2008 (some entirely too early), I didn't feel the impact of any nearly so much as I did for Dave Carter in 2002 or Rachel Bissex in 2005.

Then I scanned the list again and sustained a sucker punch to the gut – oh my god... Eddy Arnold...

I'd like to think I'm too young (even at the age of 54) to have been personally invested in his music – however, a secondhand ripple effect can be just as impactful. I've spoken before of my father's role in my love of music – I'd be an entirely different person today if he hadn't taught me the art of active listening. My father would sit... me... down... and explain to me, in musical and literary terms, why what I was about to hear was so meaningful – I do that today... to my kids, my friends... and anyone who, in conversation, sparks a memory/jumping-off point requiring a particular song be played, right then and there...

So it was with Eddy Arnold's Cattle Call, which I probably heard 100 times over the course of my childhood – the recording was half-ode, half-lament to the cowboy, with an accompanying yodel that was both joy-filled and mournful. Easy to visualize the “brown-as-a-berry", lonesome hero rounding up bovines – the tune would later become my mental soundtrack the first time I read Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove decades later...

Eddy Arnold: Cattle Call

[purchase]

Thanks for the memories, Dad – hope you've finally had the chance to tell Eddy face-to-face (or a reasonable heavenly facsimile) how much you loved his tune...

P.S. I've just come from the hospice bedside of Vic Heyman who, although not a musician, can certainly be credited with major support for many folk musicians in the form of reviewing, promoting and financing various music projects (most notably Remembering Rachel) – Vic and his wife Reba have been coming to South Florida in the winter for years (at first for a week at a time which has now extended to a four-month stay) when Vic took a turn for the worse last week. Reba and their daughter Judy are sitting vigil, after having disconnected the ventilator a few days ago – I brought them tangerines, stayed a few hours chatting and had an opportunity to say my goodbyes, staying strong while there and weeping all the way home.

...which brings us back to Rachel Bissex, who wrote this song, from her final recording In White Light, about Vic and Reba...

Rachel Bissex: Just Like That

[purchase]

...which segues to Dave Carter's brilliantly poetic unfolding of transition, the only somber banjo tune of which I'm aware...

Dave Carter (with Tracy Grammer): When I Go

[purchase]

...which reminds me of Mary Chapin Carpenter's song describing "that thin chiffon wave", the title of which came from Tracy Grammer's ("his partner in all things") description of Dave's passing...

Mary Chapin Carpenter: Between Here and Gone

[purchase]


"The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

In Memoriam: Eartha Kitt

Eartha Kitt: C'est Si Bon

[purchase]

She made her mark on pop culture as a particularly slinky Catwoman, and her 1953 Santa Baby set the standard for sultry in the Christmas canon. But dancer/actress/singer Eartha Mae Kitt was no pussycat: even in her softer moments, her claws were visible just under that paper-thin kitchy-coo exterior.

Conceived of rape on a South Carolina cotton plantation, raised by a woman who may or may not have been her mother, Kitt's anger at the world was her driving force. The bitterness got her in trouble, at times; most notably, her US career lost steam in the late sixties when her anti-war statements at a White House luncheon made Lady Bird Johnson cry. But she soldiered on, turning to the international community, reinventing herself for new audiences, most notably the burgeoning mid-eighties gay Disco revival, even as she held fast to her core persona.

Her later work on the cabaret circuit is known for a witty, weary ferocity; her aptest roles in this era included a stint as the wicked Kaa the snake in a BBC radio production of the Jungle Book, and a turn on the North American tour of The Wizard of Oz as the Wicked Witch of the West. But it is this 1963 recording which I always come back to, a movie song which hit #11 on the Cash Box charts. She sounds so happy, so young, so voracious, so full of promise. After a lifetime of hardship, I like to think it's how she would want to be remembered.

In Memoriam: Miriam Makeba

Patriotism is defined as “love of country”. Miriam Makeba understood this well. Raised in the traditions of her father’s Xhosa tribe in South Africa, Makeba was 16 when the Apartheid regime came to power. She began to sing professionally with the Manhattan Brothers, who combined traditional vocal techniques with the vocal stylings of the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots. As her popularity grew, Makeba was able to form her own group, the Skylarks. Makeba used her increasing popularity to speak to an ever widening audience in South Africa about the evils of Apartheid. Finally, her popularity enabled Makeba to become a solo artist. Her hit “Pata Pata” began to bring her international attention, and the opportunity to tour outside of her native land. This would prove to be an important turning point in her life and career.

Miriam Makeba: Pata Pata

[purchase]

While Miriam Makeba was on an international tour in 1960, the government of South Africa revoked her passport, which barred her from returning to her native land for what would prove to 30 years. Harry Belefonte became one of her champions, helping her to gain an audience in the United States, and her popularity globally allowed her to continue recording and touring the world. She began to adopt a more international repertoire, but she always mixed in the influence of the traditions of her native land, and she never lost the desire to return home.

Miriam Makeba: I Long to Return

[purchase]

In the late 1960s, Makeba married the Black Panther leader Stokely Charmichael. Makeba related the American civil rights movement to the struggle for freedom in her homeland, and she could not be uninvolved while she lived here. But Charmichael was a controversial figure, and Makeba found that the relationship hurt her career. Suddenly, offers to perform in the United States began to dry up. Even in countries sympathetic to the United States, Makeba found that work was harder to come by. So, when Charmichael fled the US, and settled in Guinea, she went with him.

In Guinea, Makeba absorbed the influence of the local music, and incorporated it into what she was doing. She continued to work against Apartheid, and for freedom, wherever she went. For this work, she briefly became Guinea’s ambassador to the United Nations. “Amampondo” is an example of her music from this period.

Miriam Makeba: Amampondo

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And so it went. She went wherever fortune took her, and always she sang. She never considered her songs political; she sang of her life. And she always put some of where she was into her work, but she never forgot where she came from. In 1989, Paul Simon invited her to join the Graceland tour. It was the first time she had worked with other South African musicians in many years. Simon was accused of “cultural imperiailism”, of coopting a foreign musical style. But, for Makeba, this was more of what she had always done. It was a way of bringing the music of her home to the world in a form that would be appreciated by the people she performed for wherever she was.

The next year, Apartheid in South Africa finally ended. Miriam Makeba could finally go home again. Her last few albums presented the traditional music she grew up with, and showed her catching up with the changes that South African music had gone through while she was gone.

Miriam Makeba: Ngalala Phantsi

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This year, Makeba was asked to perform a concert in Italy, at a concert promoting the right to speak out against the Mafia. Of course, she went. On November 9, she collapsed on stage after performing “Pata Pata”. Not long after, she was gone. But the spirit of freedom lives on in her music.