SOUNDTRACK: MARTHA REDBONE-GlobalFEST Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #135/154 (January 13, 2021).
GlobalFEST is an annual event, held in New York City, in which bands from all over the world have an opportunity to showcase their music to an American audience. I’ve never been, and it sounds a little exhausting, but it also sounds really fun.
The Tiny Desk is teaming up with globalFEST this year for a thrilling virtual music festival: Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST. The online fest includes four nights of concerts featuring 16 bands from all over the world.
Given the pandemic’s challenges and the hardening of international borders, NPR Music and globalFEST is moving from the nightclub to your screen of choice and sharing this festival with the world. Each night, we’ll present four artists in intimate settings (often behind desks donning globes), and it’s all hosted by African superstar Angélique Kidjo, who performed at the inaugural edition of globalFEST in 2004.
The fourth artist of the third night is Afro-indigenous appalachian performer Martha Redbone.
Martha Redbone performs her Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST performance from her home studio in Brooklyn’s Navy Yards. Native and African-American singer-songwriter Martha Redbone is known for her mix of folk, blues and gospel from her childhood in Harlan County, Ky., which she infuses with the eclectic grit of pre-gentrified Brooklyn. Inheriting the powerful vocal range of her gospel-singing African-American father and the resilient spirit of her mother’s Cherokee, Shawnee and Choctaw culture, Redbone broadens the boundaries of American Roots music.
“The Garden of Love” starts with Martha playing percussion sounds. Keyboardist Aaron Whitby is playing some backing chords while guitarist marvin Sewell is playing some interesting slide guitar sounds. Martha sings in a very traditional style. Then the song starts proper with an old sounding blues riff and the song feels old and gospel-like.
She tells us her inspiration is the Appalachian mountains where she grew up–rattles, soul music, the blues.
“Talk About It” is a prayer for stronger communication around the world. It’s a more conventional sounding soul song, with heavy keyboards and Redbone’s vocals taking the fore.
“Underdog” is a very pretty ballad with slide guitar sounds and gentle keys. But it’s all about her gorgeous voice.
[READ: March 1, 2021] Kindred [prelude-the fall]
I’m always happy to start a new group read with the fine folks at Infinite Zombies. Normally we read big books by white men. So this time it was decided to pick a different kind of author.
I was pretty pleased to see that Octavia E. Butler would be the new reading choice. I had only recently heard of her and had recently read Mind of My Mind, which I really liked. So it was a great opportunity to read more from her.
Kindred is Butler’s most famous book. I was looking forward to reading something different from Mind (although I do intend to read the rest of that series).
I didn’t know what this book was about. The cover of this book gives absolutely no indication is what’s going inside. In fact, it looked pretty much exactly like what is not happening in this book.
I was blown away by the first sections of this book. Butler’s style is not fancy and I found this direct writing to be really effective at conveying what is going on.
Butler basically puts a horrifying slave narrative into a science fiction story.
It starts very abruptly with the prologue. The narrator, Dana says that she lost her arm on her last trip home. The police question her husband Kevin but she assures them it is not his fault.
Then the story resumes with The River. It flashes back to when this all started–June 9, 1976.
In The River, Dana and Kevin are unpacking books in their new California home when suddenly Dana feels dizzy. She is pulled through space into a river where a young red-haired boy is drowning. Dana thinks quickly and stomps into the river to rescue the him. She even does some mouth to mouth
The boy’s mother starts blaming Dana for what’s happening even while she is trying to resuscitate the woman’s son. Dana succeeds and just as the boy, whose name is Rufus comes to, his father holds a shotgun at Dana’s head. What is the black woman (who is dressed like a man) doing with her mouth on his son?
Rufus’s father is Southern and they seem very, very old-fashioned. But just as Dana fear the worst from the shotgun, she flies back to her bedroom. She is covered in mud and soaking wet, but Kevin says she was gone maybe ten seconds. He has a hard time believing her (who wouldn’t) despite the proof of the mud on her clothes.
What in the hell just happened? (more…)
