First, apologies that this blog entry is rather later than the show, which aired June 8th...But anyway here goes: the curtain rises as World Tour goes to the movies...featuring some of the best music from "world" artists to grace the soundtracks of recent movies.
The Spanish film-maker Pedro Almodovar takes a lot of care with the songs he includes in his often quirky movies. And for the artists being part of an Almodovar film can open the door to new audiences. So it was in 1992 for Spanish singer Luz Casal, whose heart-breaking bolero "Piensa En Mi" became the signature song of the movie Tacones Lejanos (High Heels), which began to establish Almodovar's reputation.
Casal has made a name for herself reinterpreting flamenco, bolero and jazz to become one of Spain’s most successful artists. Over the course of her career, she's sold an estimated 5 million albums. 'Piensa En Mi" written by Agustin Lara is on Casal's 1991 release A Contraluz (Behind The Light), which sold over 400,000 copies.
Ten years after Tacones Lejanos came perhaps Almodovar's most successful movie "Hable con Ella" – Talk to Her. The movie included a beautiful ballad from Mexico, sung by one of Brazil’s greats, Caetano Veloso. The song is "Cucurrucucu Paloma." It’s about a very sad man…
“They say that at night he would do nothing but cry;
They say he wouldn't eat, and would do nothing but drink.
They swear heaven itself shuddered at the sound of his crying.”
Cucurrucucu Paloma was originally written by Tomas Mendez and first performed by Lola Beltran in the film of the same name. Covered by many artists, it can also be heard in the movies "The Last Sunset" and "Happy Together."
And before we leave the subject of Almodovar’s music – if you saw his captivating 1999 drama All About My Mother, you were probably enchanted in equal measure by actress Marisa Paredes, and this unlikely choice of music for the opening titles – accompanied by a panoramic view over Barcelona…A beautiful ballad from the Senegalese artist, who plays harmonica too.
Recorded in 1990, it was the song that launched Lo internationally. As for the movie, this is the way the New York Times described it. “Starting at that place in Mr. Almodóvar's great big heart where womanhood, artifice, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and "All About Eve" collide, it weaves life and art into a rich tapestry of love, loss and compassion.” Not bad.
Ridley Scott's epic of modern war "Blackhawk Down" could not be more different. The score to this riveting film about the U.S. intervention in Somalia is by Hans Zimmer, who turns to one of Africa's greatest voices for the haunting and atmospheric track that opens the movie. The voice is Baaba Maal's and the song (sung in his native Fulani) is "Hunger."
One of the most imaginative and eclectic of soundtracks of recent years was for the movie "Broken Flowers" directed by Jim Jarmusch. Released in 2005 it starred Bill Murray, Jessica Lange and Sharon Stone. The music includes a track from the Brian Jonestown Massacre, several by the Ethiopian jazz artist Mulatu Astatke – and a cover of one of his compositions “Ethanopium", by the wonderfully-named Dengue Fever.
Very few bands have the convoluted but fascinating history of Los Angeles' Dengue Fever. Inspired by a trip to Cambodia, brothers Ethan and Zac Holtzman went about forming a band that would pay tribute to that country's pop music from the 1960s before the genocidal regime of Pol Pot came to power. Somehow, the brothersstumbled across Chhom Nimol, a native Cambodian who was already a well-known karaoke singer in her home country, when she was singing in a Long Beach nightspot. Armed with a Khmer singer, Dengue Fever was born.
As a movie "The English Patient" has everything: forbidden love, heroism, tragedy and a boatload of Academy Awards, plus a soundtrack that ranges from "Yes We Have no Bananas" to an aria from Bach. And from Hungary it had "Szerelem, Szerelem" performed by Muzsikas featuring Márta Sebestyén. Sebestyen's floating vocals over an arrangement that hints at the Orient is the mystical opening
Sebestyén's mother was a composer, and a music student of Zoltán Kodály. Her father was an economist and author. When Sebestyén was seven years old, her father came home from a visit to the U.S. with a large collection of ethnic music recordings from the Smithsonian Institution. And his daughter's destiny was cast.
While the English Patient was a sweeping wartime drama, the "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" was a surreal fantasy that might be best described as non-linear. Like "The English Patient," it won Academy Awards and had an interesting soundtrack, which included a song by the Indian star Lata Mangeshkar: "Wada Na Tod."
Mangeshkar is one of the best-known and most respected playback singers in India whose career started in 1942. She has recorded songs for over a thousand movies and has sung songs in nearly forty regional Indian and foreign languages. She is also the sister of the equally famous playback singer Aaashe Bhosle.
From the Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind to the very different and quite hilarious "Little Miss Sunshine." Both won Best Original Screenplay, but there any comparisons melt away.
There's not much "worldy" about the soundtrack, but it’s a great excuse to include a track by my favorite Detroit-based singer songwriter, the distinctly alternative Sufjan Stevens. Off his 2005 album Illinois, the breezy "Chicago" works perfectly in the movie. Illinois was Stevens' fifth album, and part of what he then said was an ambitious if not impossible plan to record albums about all fifty states (the first was Michigan in 2003.) He later said the idea was just a promotional gimmick, but that's not to detract from an album that found its way into several respected "best of decade" lists.
On the subject of heart-warming and distrinctly oddball comedies, the charming French film Amelie was an Oscar contender in 2001…with a soundtrack from Yann Tiersen. He grew up in Rennes in the west of France enjoying Joy Division, and at the annual Transmusicales festival saw acts like Nirvana, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, and Television. But his own compositions derive more from Chopin and Philip Glass. Amelie includes more than a dozen tracks from Tiersen, including La Valse d'Amelie.
For our next offering we stay in la Belle France. Sometimes it seems as if a movie is almost a vehicle for the music within. The film "Something’s Gotta Give" with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton had 29 songs on the soundtrack - it's a surprise there was time for a plot. There were a lot of mainstream and largely forgettable songs shoe-horned in, but hidden away was also a gentle bossa nova tune from French singer Coralie Clement: Samba De Mon Coeur Qui Bat sung by the seductive Coralie Clement. You can tell her inspirations include Serge Gainsbourg and Astrud Gilberto. The song was originally on an album called Salle des Pas Perdus from 2002 - which Clement described as a soundtrack for a film that doesn't exist, but if it did, it might be Jean Luc Godard's "A Bout de Souffle."
And finally before the end credits roll, a track from another of Pedro Almodovar’s movies, the 1993 film "Kika", wherein a young cosmetologist is called to the mansion of an American writer to attend to the corpse of his stepson, Ramon. Ramon, who is not dead, is revived by Kika's attentions and she then moves in with him. And it’s only just started. "Kika" includes a track from Mexican diva Chavela Vargas called Luz de Luna and is one of 28 on an album called Songs of Almodova.
Vargas herself was a pretty outrageous type – dressing in men’s clothes and packing a gun and having some scandalous relationships. She’s now north of 90, and made her Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 83. Someone needs to write her biography.
Tune in every Wednesday @ 7p ET to World Tour on WMLB Atlanta - "The Voice of the Arts" - on 1690AM and online at www.1690wmlb.com
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