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BarkellWH -> RE: Latin American guitar solo music (Dec. 30 2013 14:59:44)
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Since we are veering away from strictly solo latin American guitar and getting into the realm of Latin American "folk," I particularly enjoy listening to Argentine Gaucho and Chilean Huaso songs accompanied by guitar. (Huasos are the Chilean version of Argentine Gauchos. Both are cowboys.) A favorite of mine is the poem written by the Uruguayan Juan Pedro Lopez entitled "La Leyenda del Parron," recited with guitar accompaniment.
I first heard "La leyenda del Parron" in 1988 when I was assigned to the American Embassy in Santiago, Chile. A group of us spent five days on horseback riding into the Andes, through passes, camping out each night. We hired horses, and we had mules to carry our gear, food, and plenty of good chilean wine. We engaged a couple of Chilean arrieros to mind the mules, set up camp each evening, and cook meals. Fortunately, one of the arrieros brought a guitar with him. Each evening after dinner we would sit around the fire drinking good Chilean tinto and listening to him sing the old traditional Huaso songs accompanied by his guitar.
The first evening he sang "La Leyenda del Parron" I was (in fact, all of us were!) transfixed. It takes the form of a ballad when sung, and, done well, it is absolutely mesmerizing. It doesn't quite reach the level of the great Argentine epic poem "Martin Fierro," but it wasn't meant to; listening to it around a fire while drinking wine, one can imagine one's self back in the 19th century, wearing bombashas with a knife held in the back of one's belt. The lyrics could easily be converted into a short story, one that no doubt would have been written by Jorge Luis Borges.
Cheers,
Bill
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