It’s Passover! Let’s sing a song of slavery!
Paul Robeson brought the Spiritual to the concert hall, singing the suffering and indignity of his own father in slavery. A remarkable life any standards.
044: Paul Robeson, ‘Go Down, Moses’
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039: Blind Willie Johnson, ‘Motherless Children Have a Hard Time’
Willie was blinded at age seven when the lye his stepmom threw lye at his dad and missed. Willie sang on the street corners of Beaumont, Texas and slept in a li’l church. When it burned down, he slept there in a rain-soaked bed and caught pneumonia. And you think you got the blues?
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030: The Bulgarian State Radio and Television Women’s Choir (Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares) – ‘Pilentze Pee’
Bulgarian folk music predates our European tradition!! It wasn’t affected by early polyphony; it remained duophonic long after the Europeans Renaissanced. The singers use throat resonance to hold a steady pitch for 5 minutes. It’s full of modal scales, dissonant harmonies (abundant second, seventh, and ninth intervals). And if you’ll give it a chance, you just might find that it really is quite enchanting.
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