Minimum Wage

This song is from Lila Downs’ new album, Shake Away (Manhattan Records).

To hear the song and to check out more music from this artist go to http://www.myspace.com/liladowns

Travelled seven hundred miles
Cross the border to the states
With a plasic bottle running
Cross the desert in a shake
Come to English-only country
Hidin’ from the minutemen
Come to make this place my home
Run a long, long way from them
Story of a lifetime for the minimum wage

Well they chased me through the desert
Then the agents strapped me down
Then they ask me why in Spanish
Why you keep on comin’ back
Well I left my dad in Jersey
And my sisters in Des Moines
They been workin’ in this country
Pickin’ lettuce, washin’ floors
Story of a lifetime for the minimum wage

Well they raised me to eight dollars
Cause I washed the dishes fast
Well the boss he got me workin’
On the porch and in the back
Then I wash the dish and rinse it
Then I go home, then I sleep
Well, I need to be real careful
‘Cause I walk out in my sleep
When I see that black van comin’
Then I know I’m sure to run
But goddamn them agents caught me
And they cuffed me on the spot
For the minimum wage

No one forced the boss to hire me
But it’s nearly been fifteen
Well I left my baby cryin’ with
A promise in my skin
On the outskirts of L.A. I recite
A native poem million hands
Ten thousand years, it’s the season
For the crop, it’s my people doin’
The pickin’ in the valley of the dolls
It’s a decent job to work it any day
I’ll take this job

Ethiopian, Colombian, Pakistani, Cantonese
Every man that I run into
All the kitchens on the strip
And they’re pluggin’ in them hours
And they’re smilin’ in their dreams
They’re a long, long way from home now
But they lookin’ to be free
California, Alabama, and Missouri, Oregon
They been workin’ like their fathers were
A long, long time ago
For the minimum wage

Rage Against The Machine at the Republican convention

The band was prevented from taking the stage by the police at a festival that took place on Tuesday. Rage carried on with a megaphone and did a set of music, acapella, inspiring thousands of protesters to march toward the site of the Republican convention.

Joan Baez: “I Was Right 40 Years Ago and I Am Right Now!”

timesonline.co.uk

Joan Baez: ‘I was right 40 years ago and I am right now!’

Age has not wearied Joan Baez, the queen of protest, but it’s calmed her down … a bit

By Will Hodgkinson

Time has been kind to Joan Baez. Over peppermint tea in the restaurant of a South London hotel, the queen of America’s folk scene in the Sixties appears extremely youthful for someone in the fifth decade of her career. “We’ll sit here until we get thrown out,” she says, firmly but quietly, after the manager protests at our not wanting dinner. She appears the model of calm, unwavering serenity, but something about her unblinking stare — and her swift dismissal of a fussy maitre d’ — suggests that you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.

Perhaps the company she keeps has maintained her youth. Day After Tomorrow, her new album, is produced by the much younger country singer Steve Earle and it features songs by her favourite songwriters, including the British singer Thea Gilmore, who is half her age.

“Steve’s so like me in a lot of ways,” says Baez, who holds herself in a poised way that has a tinge of therapy about it (she underwent a lot of it in the Eighties) and reveals an awareness of her status as a diva, albeit one that would rather see the poor clothed and fed than swathe herself in diamonds. “We share the same beliefs, although he’s so left of me that I call him Mr Pinko, and there’s something about his gruffness and my voice that gels.”

Baez is a good advertisement for not getting caught up in stardom. Born to a liberal Quaker family in 1941, she’d already lived in France, Italy and Iraq by the time her Mexican father, a physicist who worked for Unesco, and Scottish mother settled down in Boston when she was 17. It was only a year later that she was thrust into fame after a triumphant appearance at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. Her first album was already out by the time a young, hungry and extremely ambitious Bob Dylan hit Greenwich Village in 1961.

For a brief moment in the early Sixties Dylan and Baez were the king and queen of the folk movement, the perfect couple to lead the young of America towards a new consciousness. But while Baez stuck to cover versions and causes, Dylan took off on a poetic journey all his own, hitching on the coat-tails of Baez’s fame and then leaving her behind to become the foremost songwriter of the 20th century.

“I’ve never really been a songwriter,” Baez says of the path she’s taken. “Steve Earle wrote a song for me called I Am a Wanderer that expresses a sentiment I relate to far better than anything I could write.”

These days, the warbling falsetto that Baez brought to We Shall Overcome and Babe I’m Gonna Leave You in the Sixties has been deepened by age, but she’s still using the songs to get across her core messages of pacifism, social responsibility and, for the first time, party allegiance, saying of her endorsement of Barack Obama: “For years I chose not to engage in party politics. At this time, however, changing that posture feels like the responsible thing to do.”

Her strident sincerity is something that doesn’t always sit well with audiences as radical politics fall in and out of fashion. “After 9/11 nobody wanted to hear anything bad about America,” says Baez, growing animated as she enters into political territory. “Nobody loves a war better than the President, and a few years ago it got to the point where if I said anything I truly believed about the Iraq war or global warming during a concert, people would get up and leave. That’s fine with me. Actually, it’s a badge of honour.”

Baez is used to hostility. One senses that she thrives on it. At school in California she upset teachers by refusing to leave class during a bomb drill, reasoning that if the school was to be nuked, running outside would hardly do anyone much good. Later, as a teenage folk singer she would stop singing and glower at anyone who dared to talk during one of her performances. She and her first husband, David Harris, served jail sentences for their resistance to the Vietnam War (he refused the draft; she refused to pay a portion of her taxes to the war effort). It’s no surprise that the rebirth of her career coincided with an increasing dissatisfaction with the Bush presidency and its foreign policy.

“Little by little it became clear that Bush was bizarre — and dangerous,” she says. “I would do concerts where I would see people in the audience sitting with their arms crossed, looking angry as I said: ‘I was right 40 years ago and I am right now!’ and throw my fist in the air. Now they’re listening. Bush’s great trick is to suggest that to go against him is to be unpatriotic. Slowly people realised that.”

Baez acknowledges that, to her generation at least, she eternally represents the Sixties protest movement. “I’m a part of history,” she says with calm resignation. “I represent so much before I’ve even opened my mouth. But I was more active when I was young, and it’s only now that I’m spending time with my family.”

Like so many of her contemporaries, Baez put bringing her message of peace to the world before raising kids. When she was divorced from Harris in 1972 their son Gabe went to live with his father, and it’s only recently that she has become close to him. “I live with my mother, who is 95, I have a four-year-old grandchild, and it’s a turning for me. It’s confusing, too — am I really allowed to hang around the home and look after my mom?

“I don’t regret what I did in the Sixties, but you can’t stay on the biting edge of radicalism all your life. My core beliefs of non-violence haven’t changed, but my lifestyle has.”

Baez accepts that the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement gave her a purpose, and that when they came to an end she was left floundering. “It’s natural,” she says with a shrug. “The Vietnamese developed all sorts of neuroses and phobias after the war ended because they were no longer spending every day in the heightened state that comes with not knowing if you’re going to be killed or not. When the war ended a lot of us lost direction. I certainly did.”

It’s also taken Baez a long time to relax and actually enjoy herself. She was, by her own admission, “far too neurotic” to appreciate early fame, and her image as an overly earnest Virgin Mary figure worked against her as the concerned citizenship of the counterculture gave way to hippy experimentation in the late Sixties. “I had this great fear of going commercial. As a result of becoming well-known at such a young age I was afraid of the wider world. But I did also have deeply held beliefs that I clung on to tenaciously. The big event was meeting Martin Luther King in 1956 at a Quaker seminar. That pretty much shaped the direction my life took.”

In 1963 Baez was given the job of driving King and Jesse Jackson from an airport to a march. “They laughed all the time and told racist jokes about themselves, and I realised that nobody could see that side of them. They had to be seen as serious, and I related to that. We got to a restaurant and I asked them: ‘Don’t you have a big march to organise?’ They said: ‘We just have.’ You get a public image that you have to live up to but your private reality is often very different.”

After years of being written off as an unsmiling anachronism, Joan Baez is relevant once more. She thrives on political and economic tension — such as now. “At times of great uncertainty music and politics are fused,” she says. “I would never have sung We Shall Overcome to an American audience during the Eighties because it would have been a nostalgia trip. Now it’s appropriate again because it’s relevant. I’m happiest when that happens.”

Tom Petty Q&A

azcentral.com

Tom Petty Q&A
by Larry Rodgers

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers don’t have a new album to support on their current tour, so they’ve leaned toward serving up a mix of hits and a few rarities.

There have been plenty of Petty’s trademark anthems on recent set lists, including Learning To Fly, Runnin’ Down a Dream, Refugee and American Girl. But lesser-known tracks, such as a cover of Them’s Mystic Eyes and the Traveling Wiburys’ End of the Line, have been dusted off.

Keyboardist-singer Steve Winwood, an almunus of Traffic and Blind Faith, will open when Petty, 57, plays Glendale’s Jobing.com Arena on Aug. 20.

As Petty prepared to be the star of halftime for Super Bowl XLII in Glendale in February, he gave The Arizona Republic an extensive interview covering several phases of his life and career.

Here are some excerpts, many of which did not appear in The Republic in February due to space considerations:

QUESTION: You and your band are among a handful of rock acts that have continued to create relevant, fresh material decade after decade. Is that easier said than done?

ANSWER: It’s kind of like just going where the wind takes you. I’ve been really lucky in that I’ve found myself in a different frame of mind with each album, so I don’t think we’ve made the same album over and over. . . . We’re not really great at grand plans or anything. (Laughs) So we just try to do what feels right at the time.

Q: That formula has kept you in arenas, far from the casino oldies circuit.

A: We’re not the kind of people that would go on the casino circuit. We’re too judgmental of each other. I think because the music has got a somewhat timeless feel to it, (our success has continued). . . . But I think the audience still trusts us in that we’re still trying really hard on the music we’re making today. And we take it very seriously.

Q: You seem to change up your delivery of some of the hits in concert to give them new life.

A: The songs are always better after a year playing them on the road. (Laughs) They just take on their own life, they just keep evolving. I do that without thinking about it. Sometimes when I have to go back and hear the record, I’m stunned by how different it’s become on the road. That’s just a natural thing.

Q: It’s surprising that at this phase of your career your shows draw such a wide age range of fans, including lots in their teens and 20s.

A: We have a lot of young people in the audience. The audience always gives us a lot. They’re usually very excited and there’s a lot of energy out there. We really count on that in a way, because it goes two ways. It’s a two-way street – the more they give us, the more we give them.

I’m glad we’re not just playing to 50-year-old people. I love those people but it’s great to have all ages. Honestly, if our music wasn’t being handed down or being discovered by the younger people – the later records – we would have been over long ago.

Q: You’re a master of the pop hook that people can’t get out of their mind. Is it a struggle to create that stuff or does it come easily?

A: It’s all of the above. Sometimes it’s very easy and sometimes it’s a struggle and sometimes it’s downright painful. But I just do it. I think that I can’t even help doing it sometimes.

I’m going to write the songs, whether I try to or not. But usually when an album is coming up, I put a lot of time into writing . . . . But I don’t have a perfect method for writing songs; I don’t ever do it the same way that often. It’s such a supernatural thing, it’s hard to even know.

Q: What’s the key to recording a good rock and roll song?

A: The best music to me is about how it feels, much more so than the intricacies of anything else. That’s what we always look for when we’re making a record, is how does this thing feel. I’m much more interested in that than if the bass player played all the right notes.

Q: So many of your songs have become rock anthems, and they get played quite a bit year after year. Do you ever get tired of singing a tune like Free Fallin’ or American Girl?

A: No, because when I’m singing it, I’m coming from the same spot I always did. And really it’s very flattering when they become that part of the kind of fabric of things. I Won’t Back Down is one I hear in every possible situation. I see the Republicans use it, then the Democrats. I’ve seen it sung on someone’s peace show, and I’ve seen it when the ships are going off to war. They take it and use it the way they want. (Laughs)

But I’m glad when one becomes (an anthem). As a songwriter you have to thank your lucky stars if one gets that kind of attention. It’s such a payoff.

Q: Your band toured with Bob Dylan in the ’80s and backed him up during his sets. What was the main thing you learned?

A: We took a lot away from that. It made us a much better band, it helped us get over the first big hurdle we had in our life, which was, “What do we do now?” Because we’d had a good amount of success. And then when we went on the road with Bob, it sort of loosened up the way we played and it showed us that if the song has really got its nuts and bolts together, there are many ways of interpreting that song, and that the solo doesn’t always have to be the same, and that sometimes that moment won’t always work, but when that moment comes . . . it’s so real, so overwhelming that the audience feels it in a very special way.

Q: You played with Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Dylan in the Traveling Wilburys from 1988 to 1990. What a lineup.

A: That was a really extraordinary thing. Those couple years, I think they were some of the best times of my life. It was an unusual way to work because there were so many writers. But I think that it couldn’t have been done with just any group of people. We were friends, and people often overlook that. The qualification for being in the Wilburys wasn’t to be famous, it was more about we liked to hang out, we liked each other’s company. And from there, we had a good foundation to write.

Q: Your band also backed up the late Johnny Cash on 1996’s Unchained album. No doubt, another amazing experience.

A: That was a joyous thing. For me, it was fun because most of the time I played the bass, and then when Howie (Epstein) decided to show up, he was playing the bass and I was free to do whatever I wanted. So I could play organ or mellotron or the guitar or whatever was there. . . . I wanted to please him (Cash) and wanted him to get off on what we were doing. And when he did, it was a great reward.

I still say that album, Unchained, is some of the best playing the Heartbreakers ever did. . . . We thought it was really funny when we won the country Grammy for that.

Salsa fans to Willie Colón: Let the music be heard

To me, the subject of outtakes…the quality of them and whether the release of such music has a positive or negative effect on the original recordings and on the reputation of the artists involved has never been a major issue.

As someone who has bought lots of reissue cd’s of all types of music, I’ve approached the listening experience by not weighing the unreleased material against the original recording. That’s always been my starting point.

There are different reasons why I have always found outtakes, b-sides, unfinished tracks, etc…to be of great interest. For one thing, it has provided me as a music fan a rare look into the artist’s creative process. To me that’s been an endless source of fascination and inspiration.

Though not always, sometimes the quality of unreleased songs can be quite high resulting in great music being exposed for the first time which is something that I can definitely appreciate. Also, the release of outtakes have at times revealed the limitations that artists sometimes have in being the best judge of their own work.

For example, Bob Dylan. When Columbia released the first of what is still today a continuing series of unreleased music, “the bootleg series”. It was enormously fascinating and thrilling to hear songs for the first time that were outstanding and simply flawless like “Let Me Die In My Footsteps”, “Moonshiner”, “Blind Willie McTell, “Foot Of Pride” and “Series Of Dreams”. And it is also a serious mental exercise to try to figure out how such a brilliant artist could make such poor musical decisions because to not have included those songs on official releases is simply mind boggling. But that is part of the fun of listening to unreleased material.

Also, unfinished songs or alternative versions with different lyrics or arrangements are interesting to take in and absorb, aesthetically and as unique musical creations and I’ve found that to be true in reissues of artists like Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Bill Evans, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, and many others.

I bought the Siembra reissue in 2006 and if it ever materializes I will of course buy the new edition of Siembra with the session outtakes.

It’s a good decision by Willie Colón. Fan reaction notwithstanding, it obviously makes alot of sense from a business standpoint and musically, the reputation of Siembra and of Willie as an artist will remain intact. And the inevitable success of a Siembra reissue with outtakes might even start a trend in Latin music where other artists will begin to release material long held in the vaults.

In the future maybe more outtakes by other Fania greats. Perhaps someday there’ll be some great outtakes released by Juan Luis Guerra, Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Afro-Cuban All Stars, and so on.

nydailynews.com

Salsa fans to Willie Colón: Let the music be heard

Looking to avert a backlash from salsa fans, Willie Colón is withdrawing his opposition to the release of additional outtakes from “Siembra,” the classic album he created with Rubén Blades 30 years ago.

As reported in the Viva last week, some unreleased music from “Siembra” is included in the cache of tapes discovered three years ago in an upstate warehouse by Emusica, a Florida company that purchased Fania Records.

Colón threatened to go to court if Emusica published any new “Siembra” material, but the reaction to the story made him change his mind.

“Because of an outpouring of e-mails and blog posts of outraged fans, I am changing my position on the unpublished ‘Siembra’ tapes,” Colón says. “I will withdraw my objection to the publishing of these outtakes and leave the final decision to Rubén Blades and Emusica.”

One poster, Boriquabxstyle on the Daily News site, commented: “Willie’s an idiot! He should allow them to remaster the tracks. As long as he receives his royalties, he should not be complaining.”

Colón made it clear, however, that salsa lovers should not expect a musical treat: “In my humble opinion, outtakes are not very flattering to all concerned. Obviously, there are people out there that believe I have some agenda for wanting to deprive the world of some hidden masterpiece.”

Emusica CEO Giora Breil says that his company won’t release any music over the opposition of Colón — or for that matter Blades, who could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, the company has not decided what to do about the bulk of unreleased tapes it’s sitting on, which according to Emusica includes recordings from such legends as Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, Celia Cruz, Mongo Santamaría and Ismael Rivera.

“I can’t deal with that just yet,” Breil says.

Critics say Emusica has put too much emphasis on releasing remastered music that any true-blue salsa fan has while it holds back on putting out never-heard-before material.

“It remains to be seen whether or not there’s something wonderful” in the unreleased Fania trove, says Bruce Polin, owner of online Latin music seller descarga.com.

Polin adds, though, “From a historical point of view and the collector’s point of view, it’s probably very interesting material. I would market it as gourmet material.”

Two noteworthy music reissues

It’s amazing how Columbia continues to come up with new ways to repackage and re-release Miles’ music and in particular Kind Of Blue. But I guess a 50th anniversary is as good a reason as any to market the music once again to the public. Anyhow, such a landmark recording really does deserve a box set of its own and this one appears to have some worthwhile material for all Miles fans.

The Nina box set looks fine too, lots of great music along with a documentary.

allaboutjazz.com

MILES DAVIS – Kind of Blue: 50th Anniversary Collectors Edition 2-CD + DVD + LP + book + poster (Columbia/Legacy)

Originally released by Columbia Records on August 17, 1959, Kind of Blue heralded the arrival of a revolutionary new American music, a post-bebop modal jazz structured around simple scales and melodic improvisation. Trumpeter/band leader/composer Miles Davis assembled a sextet of legendary players — Cannonball Adderley (alto sax), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums), John Coltrane (tenor sax), Bill Evans (piano) (Wynton Kelly plays piano on “Freddie Freeloader”) — to create a sublime atmospheric masterpiece.

Fifty years after its release, Kind of Blue continues to transport listeners to a realm all its own while inspiring musicians to create to new sounds — from acoustic jazz to post-modern ambient — in every genre imaginable.

Disc 1 of Kind of Blue: 50th Anniversary Collectors Edition will feature the original album in its entirety with the “Flamenco Sketches” alternate take, the rare “Freddie Freeloader” false start, and a selection of in-the-studio dialog from the Kind of Blue sessions.

Disc 2 is a CD of rare musical material circa the Kind of Blue recordings including the very first session by the classic Miles Davis sextet (May 26, 1958 — Davis’s 32nd birthday — with Adderley, Coltrane, Evans, Chambers and Cobb), more than a half hour’s worth of studio material — “On Green Dolphin Street,” “Fran-Dance,” “Stella By Starlight,” “Love For Sale” — previously available only on the two-time Grammy award winning Miles Davis & John Coltrane boxed set (“The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-1961); and the first authorized release of two extended live performances: “So What” from the April 9, 1960 Den Haag Concert featuring Miles, Coltrane, Kelly, Chambers and Cobb; and “All Blues” from the April 8, 1960 Zurich Concert (featuring the same band).

The final disc, Disc 3, is a DVD including an in-depth documentary illuminating the story behind Kind of Blue; and the historic April 2, 1959 television program “Robert Herridge Theater: The Sound of Miles Davis” starring Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

This deluxe Collector’s Edition will also include a vinyl LP copy of Kind of Blue, a poster, and an LP-sized 60-page hardbound book.

NINA SIMONE – To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story 3-CD + DVD box set (RCA/Legacy)

Nina Simone was one of those controversial figures American pop music puts forward from time to time, with the notable exception that she started her controversy earlier in the 1960s than, say, Bob Dylan.

To see this African-American woman get angry about the racial situation in her country, right there on stage, was a shock to people who’d come to hear her sing “I Loves You, Porgy.” Not that she cared; she figured that it was the artist’s job to deliver the truth, and if the truth hurt, so be it. Of course, events wound up proving her right, but she never stopped being prickly about one thing or another. It was just part of who she was, and part of why her music has endured while that of some of her contemporaries has faded: she’s still contemporary.

Over the course of nearly four hours, To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story presents a comprehensive overview of Simones’s recording career from her first recordings for Bethlehem in 1957, through to her last major label album for Elektra, 1993’s A Single Woman. This box ably demonstrates that she was arguably the most eclectic musical artist of the twentieth century — elements of jazz, classical, blues, r&b, gospel/spirituals, folk, folk rock, rock, pop, Broadway, movie songs, Great American Songbook standards, French chanson, African music, reggae and protest songs, are all included. Between 1957 and 1973, Simone was a prolific artist, cutting some 27 albums for Bethlehem, Colpix, Philips and RCA. For the remaining thirty years of her life she recorded sporadically, but toured often.

In addition to three CDs of music, To Be Free also includes the Emmy-nominated short film, Nina: A Historical Perspective. Running 23 minutes, this 1970 TV special highlights rare performance footage filmed between 1968 and 1969 at various US venues and locations, including the Westbury Music Fair, The Village Gate, and RCA Studios in New York City. Also featured are candid and personal interviews with Nina herself, revealing her unique views on music and life.

Never-released Fania’s golden era music hits stores

This is very exciting. A treasure of unreleased music by Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barretto, Celia, Machito, Mongo Santamaria will be seeing the light of day. Though not mentioned in this article, also appearing for the first time on CD will be a two-disc collection, of 40 Tito Puente songs from the 1950’s. This is all not just brilliant music, it is also of the highest historical importance.

And if all of this wasn’t enough……there’s unreleased music from the Siembra sessions!!!!

To even think that there are songs in existence that were made but not included on that legendary recording is extraordinary news and I’m sure many people will be very eager with anticipation, to hear that unreleased music for the first time……but…….. it appears that Willie Colón’s ego will get in the way of stopping what should be a real cause for celebration, stopping an important event in the history of Latin music.

Willie’s ongoing feud with Rubén Blades is not allowing him to exercise sounder judgment. Who is he really hurting by threatening to stop the release of this music?

I think his arguments are really weak. If the songs that were left out of Siembra were to be released today it would not diminish or take anything away from the original recording. Hardly. The music of the official album is so superb and deeply embedded in the hearts and consciousness of all the people who have listened to it and it is so embedded in the history of Latin music that there is absolutely nothing that could ever put a dent on it. The integrity of Siembra is unshakeable.

On the contrary, the release of these songs would complement the musical and historical context of the album. Willie is quick to talk about respect but not so quick to think about the millions of people who love his music and who have unconditionally supported his career. The majority of whom, I’m quite sure, would love to hear the unreleased songs.

And what about Rubén Blades? As someone who is as equally responsible for the creation and success of Siembra as Willie Colón, Rubén should surely have a say in what happens to the music. Even if he doesn’t have that right, legally, Is he not entitled to that right just out of artistic principle?

And how can Willie speak and carry on in public like he is rightfully the only one that should have complete control over a musical creation that he knows is not even remotely of his own making. He is wrong even if the law says he is right.

Respect and Integrity?

It’s sad to think that there is music from the Siembra sessions that will remain in the vaults for no other reason than that it is being used as ammunition by Willie Colón to continue waging his own personal battles.

nydailynews.com

Never-released Fania’s golden era music hits stores

Two never-released songs by the revered Celia Cruz?

A full recording of a live concert by the original Fania All-Stars in Cali, Colombia?

Unpublished music from Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barretto and other legends of Latin music?

These are samples of what has been found so far in the Fania Records archives since 2005, when Emusica bought the fabled label and rescued thousands of original tapes from an upstate warehouse where they had been languishing for years.

The names on these tapes, according to Emusica CEO Giora Breil and other people familiar with the Fania treasure trove, are astonishing.

Breil even talks of “songs unreleased” by Willie Colón and Rubén Blades from “Siembra,” the classic 1978 collaboration album that contained the hits “Pedro Navaja” and “Plástico.”

But Colón, who’s embroiled in a highly-publicized breach of contract lawsuit with Blades in Puerto Rico, says he would move to block any additional releases from the album.

“‘Siembra’ is a complete work. It should not be remixed nor should any material be added that we decided we did not want to release,” the bandleader said in an e-mail.

“I will take legal action to defend the integrity of my project,” he vowed. “Would they change the Mona Lisa’s backdrop or her clothing? That would be a lack of respect towards the artist who created the project.”

Whatever unreleased material may or may not exist from “Siembra,” it seems to be the tip of the Fania iceberg.

“Every day we find new, unreleased recordings,” says Breil.

Locating the Croton-on-Hudson warehouse where the tapes had been stored took some detective work in 2005, says Breil.

Since then, Emusica has been involved in what he called a “labor of love” to identify and preserve the material.

Some of the tapes had to be literally baked in order to save them from disintegrating, and many were not labeled at all, says composer, producer and Emusica consultant Bobby Marín.

To work on them “you had to literally blow the dust off the boxes,” says Marín. And some tapes weigh more than 20 pounds.

It was during this process that Marín noticed that “some titles looked unfamiliar, making me believe that perhaps they were never released.”

His research found that those titles had been “kept in the can for future release, but never were.”

The list of artists in these unpublished recordings, according to Marín, includes the legendary sonero Ismael (Maelo) Rivera; Cuba’s Orquesta Aragón; the dynamic duo of Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz; merengue singer Wilfrido Vargas and many sacred names in Caribbean music including Benny Moré, Daniel Santos, Machito, Mongo Santamaría and Cortijo y su Combo.

Siembra – 30th Anniversary

It’s been 30 years already. Time really does go fast.

My earliest memories of the album was as a youngster living in Puerto Rico around the time of the album’s release. I can still vividly remember playing outside my house with other kids from the neighborhood and hearing older people walking around singing out loud the lyrics to “Plastico” and “Pedro Navaja”, especially the line “la vida te da sorpresas, sorpresas te da la vida, ay dios”

Siembra was, is, and always will be an extraordinary recording. Its reputation well earned over the years due in large part to the brilliant musicianship and songwriting that created the album. But to me its greatest significance and what made it so ground breaking was Rubén Blades achievement in bringing deep social and political commentary into a musical genre not traditionally known for having songs of such a serious nature.

Rubén changed and revolutionized Latin music, with Siembra, breaking many barriers and establishing a new level of artistry. Ruben took the music to a higher level by introducing not only a new approach to songwriting but by also expanding the boundaries in which all other Latin artists could create and achieve.

The subject matter that the songs took on were simply unprecedented to the wide Latin audience of Afro-Cuban music that listened in for the first time and afterwards. The album opener, “Plastico” starts off warning about the hazards and inherent absurdities of materialism and racism, ending with a call for Latino consciousness and Pan-Latin American unity as the way forward.

This was not your parents El Gran Combo or Celia Cruz album.

The centerpiece and most famous song on Siembra is “Pedro Navaja” which tells the tale of a barrio hustler whose lifestyle finally catches up with him one day as he inevitably experiences a very tragic and lonely end. Like Ruben writes in the song, 8 million stories the city of New York has. Many of those just like Pedro Navaja.

In songs like “Maria Lionza” which is set in Venezuela but the expressions of racial unity and the longing for Liberty are meant for all the oppressed masses in Latin America not just in Caracas.

“Ojos” is a song about hope, about the poor, about young people, who despite the hopelessness of their social conditions are still able to rise above it. The words of the songs, once again, speak to all of Latin America.

“Siembra” closes the album out and is an earth shaker of a song. The rhythms so blazing hot that it is impossible to listen to this song sitting down and without boppin’ your head and moving your arms and shoulders all around.

The song goes back to the themes of not surrendering your soul to materialism, Latin American unity, elevating one’s consciousness to make a better world, fighting together against racism, never losing faith and in between all of this there’s even a shout out to Puerto Rican revolutionary Ramón E. Betances.

A truly monster of a song and a perfect ending to a tour de force of an album.

Finally, I would be very remiss to not mention the enormous contributions that Willie Colon made with his fiery trombone playing and the masterful arrangements of all the songs.

Willie and the rest of the musicians push the songs along, making them swing, like crazy.

Siembra would not be what it is without the musical genius of Willie Colon.

30 years later, the music is as alive as ever. And the political context of the songs as relevant as ever just by looking at the political situation across Latin America today.

In my opinion, Siembra is still to this day the greatest artistic achievement ever made in Latin music history.

Nas on Dylan, Jazz and why he changed the title of his new album

wsj.com

Name Dropper
Rapper Nas on Dylan, Jazz and Why He Changed
The Title of His Controversial New Album
July 11, 2008

The rapper Nas got people talking about his new album months before its release by announcing it would be titled with a racial epithet. However, he eventually backed away from the plan after some major retailers said they wouldn’t stock an album bearing the n-word; it will be released without a title Tuesday.

Born Nasir Jones, the New York rapper cemented his place in the genre with a widely hailed debut album, “Illmatic,” released in 1994 when Nas was 20 years old. Since then he has increasingly positioned himself as a musical commentator. For instance, his previous album, “Hip Hop Is Dead,” took issue with the state of rap music. We spoke to Nas about Billy Joel, jazz music and why he changed the name of his album.

WSJ: You dropped the name for the new album because big retailers wouldn’t carry it. Isn’t that something you could’ve predicted from the start?

Nas: Yeah. But I just wanted to see how far I could go with it. People didn’t know about the limits. Even rap artists didn’t know about how far they could go. So many of them don’t try and they stay in the safe box. Because of the heat coming down on me I saw it becoming a circus. I told myself that if it came to that point that I would make the change, because there’s a message in that, too.

WSJ: Do you think the response would have been the same if the title ended with an ‘a’ instead of an ‘er’?

Nas: There’s a big difference. But I think it would have been the same because of the time period, the Don Imus thing and the NAACP and a lot of other people coming down on the “n-word.”

WSJ: On the album you address race, politics and other big themes. What do you hope listeners will take away from it?

Nas: At the end of the day you should be able to go pick up a Lil Wayne album and a Nas album and not get the same thing on both. Rap should be like other music where it’s not all the same content. I’m just giving people a different thing.

WSJ: Your father, Olu Dara, is a jazz musician. What have you borrowed from jazz?

Nas: Jazz has a feeling to it that pushes me. I can hear the tempo and I can hear flows that I want to produce. It gives me direction for what I want to do with my words.

WSJ: A lot of your peers have tried to branch out from music as entrepreneurs and by endorsing brands. Why have you avoided that?

Nas: I love the music. I don’t feel like doing anything else. I really like to wake up and look at the sky through the nice window where I live and know that the music and the people made this possible. There’s no better joy. Anything I do on the side will be very low-key.

WSJ: You’re one of just a handful of people who’ve had a long career in hip-hop. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Nas: Hopefully I’ll still be doing what I’m doing. When I watch Billy Joel, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, I see myself headed down their path. These guys have been around for decades and they still love it. I would look to them. Hip-hop is still young but we’re going to see it grow older. We’re going to be going to Snoop Dogg concerts in the meadow.

WSJ: Speaking of those guys, on the song “Heroes” you say, “Try telling Bob Dylan, Bruce or Billy Joel they can’t sing what’s in their soul.” Are you claiming there’s a double standard?

Nas: When I look back at a group like Public Enemy, people thought they were gangsta rap before that term was even used. They were looked down on. There were no Grammy nominations. They got no love because of the fear. Now hip-hop has busted down the door and it’s everywhere, but there’s still hidden fear.

Manu Chao y Maradona

This footage was filmed in Buenos Aires and is part of the Emir Kusturica documentary on the life of Diego Maradona.