Leonardo Favio

Leonardo Favio – Nuestro
Microfon, LMS 76086, 1977
Microfon America, Hialeah Gardens, FL

A year ago Leonardo Favio was appointed Argentina's Ambassador of Culture by decree of the President. Apparently Mr. Favio was one of the most successful Argentine singers in the 1960s and 70s. Yet, until I picked up the 99¢ Nuestro record at the Goodwill the other day, I had never heard of him. With my three Carlos Gardel records I'd figured I had some records of the most popular and legendary Argentine singers in my collection. Favio's discography lists a long list of LP's (but Nuestro is not included in that list) as well as long lists of films that he produced, directed, or acted in. 

In thirty years of reading, listening, studying, playing, searching, writing music you'd think I would know most of the renowned singers and musicians in the world but the more I discover, the more I realize that the vast majority of them is hidden to me and the vast majority of those will remain hidden forever. The enormous quantity of recorded music is simply too large to exhaust, and new recordings appear at faster pace than the cars passing on your street. But at one given moment, one great record is all that matters. It's there in the moment, it's the best, and no matter how many records may be greater, no single one could be a worthy substitute for it, not at that moment. Those moments happen quite often when you're focused on listening. They happen listening to musicians that become ambassadors as well as to musicians that will be forgotten at the moment they step out of sight. Here's the song La Dicha que me fue negada by Leonardo Favio.

Latvia

Visu gadu dziesmas krãju, Jãņu dienu 
gaidĩdama: Lĩgo dziesmas (Ligo Songs)
T. Kalina choir, director E. Račevskis 
Melodia, C 30-13521-2, made in the USSR

My collection of international records as well as my obsession with thrift store records got started when a box of Latvian records landed in my possession some 15 years ago. There were about 40 of them, mostly orchestral works, some popular. And now I have  suddenly 45 Latvian records. The other five showed up, to my surprise, at the Goodwill just around the corner, just last week. Better yet, one of these five was a Lĩgo dziesmas, a type of song that was my favorite Latvian record from the original stack. Dziesmas, I first thought meant 'Christmas' (which would typically, but not always, make me snub a record), but it in fact simply means 'song'. Lĩgo then is the solstice, and the ligo songs are midsummer night songs. It's a nice proposition for a great record of songs and I wish some folksinger, some cult hero would sing it but it's all orchestras and choirs, and tenors and sopranos. Still, don't get me wrong, it's very nice. Listen to the second song of side A below or get it here

Children's pop

Quetcy Alma "La Lloroncita" – Ahora te toca a ti
Pop Art LP-152
Pop Art Records, New York

I talked about children's songs before but I focused solely on traditional play songs. Those songs that evolved through the times and that were conceived by children, they were games. Adults wouldn't pay any attention to them. But there is also a very different type of children's song, the kind that is created by adults and made for adults. It's called pop music and children can be a commercial asset in that world. Companies bank in on the cuteness and innocence of children, often with making them sing lyrics that are quite risque.  I used to not pay attention to either of those categories but a person can change (perhaps it's a sign of getting older) and now I pay equal attention. I've given up on age discrimination so to say. There have always been child stars, it's a whole chapter in the history of recorded music. Every country, every era, every style has its popular child performer, boys and girls alike. Careers that of course are not meant to last. This record here of Quetcy Alma was given the "happy-sad" concept, like the Tim Buckley Happy, Sad LP with the two sides of Tim Buckley on the sleeves. Quetcy Alma is a Puerto Rican girl (woman I should say) from New York. Apparently she lives in Brooklyn and joined the Jehovah Witnesses. Occasionally she performs.

Since I figured out how to embed an audio file to these posts, I haven't offered them for download anymore, but I'll make them available again. Just click here for this one, or let me know if you want something from any of the records I've written about.

The song I picked is the title track from the LP Ahora te toca a ti. Hope you like it.

Folk Songs of Iceland

Folk Songs of Iceland 
performed by Anna Thorhallsdottir
Edited by Mario de Luigi
Licensed by Editoriale Sciascia, Milan
Lyrichord Discs, Inc., New York

Just the photograph of Anna Thorhallsdottir on the cover of Folk Songs of Iceland alone is enough to bring about those nostalgic feelings about a country and their peoples. The photo is, like the music on that record, and maybe like Iceland itself, serene, mystical, and meditative. On the background is a picture of the northern light. I've never been to Iceland, only flown over, I never read the Edda (I only know of it because of crossword puzzles), and I can't speak the language but my mind has this rich history with the country based on a film I once saw that made a great impression, and an art teacher in college. Thanks to contemporary search engine miracles I was able to retrieve the name of the film, which is Hrafninn flýgur, without knowing any information about it, and see parts of it again on YouTube, a quarter of a Century after I saw the movie.

(The art teacher's name is Sigurdur Gudmundsson, by the way).

And...by the way again...the instrument Anna Thorhallsdottir is playing is called langspil, an Icelandic drone zither and the song below is called Sortnar thú Sky.