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Hey Ron, as i know that you are huge fan of old LPs
Hmmm...I think he needs a bit of EQ on that..
I'm not a special fan of LPs, Arash... it's just that I've got a lot, some of them not available on CD. I bought a cheap USB turntable last month to save the cost of upgrading some of the other stuff to CD, which no doubt will be obsolete as well in a few more years.
Now that's what I calls a viddy-o! Never heard of this "La Trinitaria".... what a set of pipes! Incredible voice. It sounds so clear even on those scratchy old records. Some cool stuff on there for sure
Thanks for posting that Arash, it's something I've been very interested in for the last few years. They're not LPs, they're 78rpm recordings. Some go back to 1908 and others are from the 1950s when the last "pizarra" (slate) recordings were made. The videos are especially cool because of the opening shot of the labels. There are usually two serial numbers there that identify the recordings. One is a catalogue reference and the other, called a "matriz" is the number that was assigned by the recording engineer when the disk was made. Sometimes the companies didn't release recordings immediately, so the catalogue references are practically meaningless, but the "matrices" show the order in which the recordings were made, which can be revealing. For example, there's a cartagenera of La Niña de los Peines where Ramón Montoya accompanies with toque de granaína with capo at fourth fret, the key of D sharp, which is way too high for her. You can hear her straining and, if you listen really close, after the first cante she says to him, "¡Está muy alta la guitarra!" Looking at the matrices, it turns out that this was the first recording of their first session together. After that, he moves the capo down to the first fret, then accompanies without capo, and ends up using toque de Levante with the capo at the fourth fret. It doesn't actually prove anything, but it's interesting because it looks like he thought she was going to sing higher. There's a big difference between D sharp and A sharp; the same as going from por medio to por arriba!
When I was a kid, my friend lived in his grandfather's house. There was a huge wind-up gramophone with a mechanical arm (like the one in the videos) and a huge concealed horn. It was a substantial piece of furniture of polished walnut and brass and very expensive.
The internal horn terminated in two doors which you would open as required in order to vary the volume.
The Old Boy, (who was very strictly religious ) used to listen to his collection of Classical, Scottish and Sacred Hymns on it and we were warned not to touch it.
However when he was out, my friend's big sister used to get her 78 of the Everly Brothers "Wake Up Little Susie" out from under the carpet where she kept it hidden and we would open the doors to maximum and bop around the room.
He would have killed us if he'd ever found out we were playing the Devil's music on his hallowed equipment and in his home.
Norman, thanks for the detailed and interesting information.
Ed, hmm.....let me think about it few days.......but till then, the answer is No! for now
Ron, nice story. I have one short and brutal one with my grandpa (actually my father told it to me, because i don't remember exactly)
My Grandpa had a Radio. A very antique and expensive one at that time. This was his one and only. My father told me that Radio meant the world to him.
So, we lived in 13th floor of an apartment tower at that time.
Don't know how and why (till today this is a mystery for me and for everyone)....... but in a moment where nobody was watching, i took the Radio, went straight to the balcony and thrown it all the way down to the ground LOL . of course, it broke into smallest pieces possible. I was a kid, but this is kind of Psycho! I really don't know why i did that lol
It was that day where i received my first (the one and only) slap in the face from my grandpa
My Grandpa had a Radio. A very antique and expensive one at that time. This was his one and only. My father told me that Radio meant the world to him.
So, we lived in 13th floor of an apartment tower at that time.
Don't know how and why (till today this is a mystery for me and for everyone)....... but in a moment where nobody was watching, i took the Radio, went straight to the balcony and thrown it all the way down to the ground LOL . of course, it broke into smallest pieces possible. I was a kid, but this is kind of Psycho! I really don't know why i did that lol
It was that day where i received my first (the one and only) slap in the face from my grandpa
haha you should have blamed it on the devil as it was playing the devil's music =D
Cool, I hope he has lots more, a variety of singers, good find!
Ok aficionados lets get the low down on this common arguement. I mean I argue about this cante a lot with aficionados. Is this cante he sings here Granaina, media granaina, or Malagueñas?
Now I always hear singers do what I consider media granaina as the first letra, then end with malagueña de mellizo, but so many times they just call it "malagueña", and I have many times argued with aficionados who say BOTH letras are malagueñas, just different styles. But when I hear granaina or media granaina by itself (minus the mellizo ending), it's the same melody.
Anyway, HERE Jose Cepero is singing something I understand by the record label is supposed to be a mix of the two cantes in one ( and he does 2 letras the same style), but it SOUNDS to me like he starts off like a fandango naturales, then it turns into the typical "media granaina" melody so I think of it, (yet many aficionados might call "malagueña"). So what are opinions???
For a person like me who doesn't know much about cante it's cool that many of the letras in these recordings are familiar to me, especially those of tomas pavon and nina de los peines. In the solea Tengo el gusto tan colmao for instance, he sings the letra that Felix recorded for the cante accompaniment challenge. So, the question is, were these letras 'trad. standards' for Tomas Pavon, or did he originate these (or someone for him)? Is 'Al Gurugu' a Tangos first sung by Nina de los Peines? And is it considered traditional material today?
Ricardo: I think it's his media granaína. He didn't really record any malagueñas, at least not in these old recordings. A lot more fandangos and granaínas. I don't particularly like his picado, mostly because he uses the same ones on many different recordings (the one on Manuel Torre's taranto for example), so it gets a little tiring after a while. But on a few of his recordings there are some very original and well-developed picados.
mrMagenta: Lots of those letras are in Demófilo's book from 1886 and were anonymous at that time. Some great recordings from the 1970s took letras from that book. I don't know about the history of the Gurugú tango, but it certainly is considered traditional today.
It has probably been asked before, but do you know any bilingual collection of traditional letras that contains many of these commonly sung ones etc? It would be a treasure for us that don't have strong spanish language skills.
It has probably been asked before, but do you know any bilingual collection of traditional letras that contains many of these commonly sung ones etc? It would be a treasure for us that don't have strong spanish language skills.
Maybe Norman knows...
I haven't seen any sites with translations. I know that at the old school forum (which seems a bit comatose at the moment), there was a thread where they were doing translations.
If you want to start a collection, feel free to make a letras translation thread here; I think I'm not alone in being interested in that kind of challenge.
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