New Musical Express, May 14, 1988

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NME

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Costello: Surprise benefit gig


NME

Elvis Costello made a surprise appearance at a National Union of Seamen benefit in Aberdeen last week to play a 40-minute solo set.

Armed with just his trusty acoustic guitar, Costello played to nearly 800 people at Aberdeen Music Hall last Wednesday afternoon.

Also on the bill were The Albion Band and other folk and roots music artists, most of whom had also played at the Shetland Festival along with Elvis a few days earlier.

As well as old favourites like "Oliver's Army," "Uncomplicated" and "Shipbuilding," he previewed some new material.

The new songs included "Tramp The Dirt Down" (first heard at last year's Glastonbury Festival), "Let 'Em Dangle" and "Nobody In This Town Loves You Until Everybody Knows You're A Bastard."


Tags: Aberdeen Music HallAberdeenScotlandShetland Folk FestivalOliver's ArmyUncomplicatedShipbuildingTramp The Dirt DownGlastonbury FestivalLet Him DangleThis Town



Whirling Blades


Richard Grabel

In his own field of modern Latin music, Rubén Blades has always been a star. But for his new record he's teamed up with Lou Reed, Elvis Costello and Sting, and is set for widespread success in America. He talks to Richard Grabel.

By the time his first major label album came out in 1984, Ruben Blades was already a major salsa star and a unique figure in that music's world. The convent ions of Latin music had called for lyrics written to st rict formulaic rules. Idealized romant icism. self-pitying melancholy, or party-party-party were the marching orders of Latin pop. Blades arrived on the New York salsa scene. fresh from the University of Panama. and proceeded to throw out those rules. In place of the old cliches he wrote narratives peopled with characters drawn from life. charged with deep emotions. He wrote of street murders. of generat ions of barrio fami I ies. of topics ranging from the pointedly political to the touchingly personal.

His records on the Fania label, by hi mself or in collaboration with Willie Colon, were wildly popular with a generation of salsa fans - Ruben's generation - that had grown tired of th old lyrical limits.

The old-line salsa stars spoke to an older generation's nostalgia for a romanticised Latin paradise that would never be regained. Blades new salsa spoke to a generation proud to be Latin but struggling to find its place in the Anglo world. He raised an angry voice to confront the problems they faced, and a hopeful voice to give encouragement to their dreams.

When Elektra released his ground-breakini •Buscando America' many rock critics found their first salsa album in their mail packages. and Ruben Blades for the first time found hintselfthe object of t he at of the pop press.

"Yeah". he recalls. "because they read the lyrics. I provided translations. so they went, oh. this is interesting. It's not like.'arriva arrive, oyeoye'. It was. this guy's really saying things. There was a lot of attention. And at one point I said, wait a minute. this is getting out of hand. all this attention. I think I better go back to school." So Blades followed up on an application he had filed for a dare and went off to Harvard to take a graduate degree in International Law. Not a very careerist move for a rising young salsa star, but completely in keeping with Blades' character. Asa young law student in Panama City. Blades undertook a research project to study local prison conditions, thinking of working to organize for prisoner's right. but was finally dissuaded by the deadly looks and constant threats he got from the authorities. Upon graduation with a law degree, rather than resign himself to ajob in a bank, he took off for New York to play music. He is not afraid of career changes. After Harvard. he went back to recording albums for Elektra - 'Escenas' i'Scenes't and the introspective and subtle 'Agua De Luna'.

He also began a film career. He co-wrote the script for Leon Ichaso's excellent Crossover Dreams, and starred as Rudy Veloz. a New York salsa singer who makes the kind of mistakes-turning his back on his identity in an attempt to go mainstream - that Blades in his own life has been conscious to avoid. He also had a part. with Richard Pryor, in a mediocre comedy called Critical Condition. Likely to be much more noteworthy is his major role in Robert Redford's new film The Milagro Bean field War, a study of development and displacement among the Mexican-American inhabitants of a small New Mexico town. To this multi-faceted career. Blades has just added a new dimension. with the release of 'Nothing But The Truth'. his first English language album. The album was recorded in LA with producers Toirimy Li Puma and Carlos Rios. except for two songs produced in New York by Blades and Lou Reed. The songs include collaborations between Blades and Reed. Blades and Elvis Costello and a contribution from Sting. With all of this heavy name-recognition factor in the project. you might think that Blades was trying to 'crossover himself. But remember that Blades was a star a long time ago. He had, he says, another agenda in mind. And as you talk with this very bright. very appealing man, the sincerity in his words is apparent. "I didn't do this English album thinking, this is my way to greener pastures", he says. "I've always thought I was already in a place where the grass was green. "I never felt that in order to get somewhere I had to 'crossover'.1 don't like that connotation. That's why I made it a point to have the album become an exploration of different moods and forms of music that are traditional to rock and pop and jazz. as opposed to trying just to make a hybrid of Latin and those things. My position is, you make the music. and let those who like it come to you." 'Nothing But The Truth'. is not an attempt at a Latin'pop fusion, though many of its songs employ very Latin flavours. What Blades has done is to make a rock/pop album that, even if it doesoccasionally lean too close toward the side ofdreaded "adult pop", is as styl istical ly diverse as his Spanish language albums, a record that goes from stripped-down bar-band rockers Metter To The Vatican's, to romantic pop ballads (*Hopes On Hold's. plaintive ballads ahe Letter. 'Shamed Into Love, political doo-wopl'011ie's Doe Wop'i and reggae/rock Salvador'(, to things less easily categorizable, like the melodic narrative and killer chorus of [ 'The Hit'. What really sets this record apart is Blades' lyrical gift. Whether writing of bag ladies in bars, barrio murders, Central American death squads. friends dying of AIDS or lovers reviewing a romance. Blades and his collaborators come up with startlingly fluid and evocative language. No one else is writing songs quite like this. This English language poptock project brings Ruben Blades back full circle. When he started playing music, as a boy in Panama. it was in local bands that played covers of the current pop hits. Then. as now, American culture exercised an all too pervasive influence on the pop culture of the world and in Latin America this influence was heightened by geographical proximity. Blades: "I grew up with radio that had no format. You would hear a ranchers byJorge Negrita. for instance. and then a Frank Sinatra song. then Elvis Presley and then a Peruvian waltz. "The other thing that was important in creating an affinity with rock was that, when we were young. the only people we had as role models as singers were guys that were much older. Guys with moustaches, singing boleros or salsa or whatever. "So the big thing was then I went to the movies and saw Frank ie Lymon in Rock Rock -Rock or something. and he was like 12-years-old and I was probably around six, but I could see him for the kid he was. And I had never seen a kid sing, let alone in the movies, with such an impact when you have it coming from the screen. larger than life. And they were doing that kind of music that was just coming oufof doo-wop. You could sing that, you didn't even need a band. "The fact that it was in English didn't bother us because we were listening to the melodies, and we would mimic the lyrics and do it phonetically. the way we heard it. 'The other thing was seeing guys like Bill Haley, Elvis Presley. jumping around with those guitars. In those days. if you wanted to be a musician you were supposed to learn to play the piano. or the conga. But the guitar . .. every house, no matter how poor, had an old guitar somewhere that some uncle would pull out at parties and sing old Spanish standards. So you just had to borrow one of those old guitars and get three chords happening and already you could play a song. "So most of us began singing in small rock bands. When I was 12, 13, I was playing in these little bands. You'd get to go to parties, you'd get paid a dollar, you'd get to sing and shake a tambouri ne. a couple of girls are looking at you, and all of a sudden you're a musician." But in 1964. major rioting in Panama's Canal Zone, then controlled by the US Army, left 21 people dead and 500 wounded. For 15-year-old Blades, it was the beginning of a policial awareness and the end of singing America's songs. Blades: "That love affair with rock 'n' roll had an abrupt end for many Panamanians when we had the riots with the US Army. We had the US Army in the streets shooting at unarmed people. The only thing we were demanding was the right to see our flag flown in the Canal Zone. So when we saw the US Army turned on us, many of us who had unconditionally accepted everything about the US began to ask some real hard questions. And many of us stopped playing rock 'n' roll and singing in English." "I felt very angry. It felt like finding out the person you thought was your friend was your enemy. And I blamed myself for not having paid more attention. "It shocked us into growing up, and realizing that we were not all going to go to California and have rock 'n' roll bands and surf, none of that stuff. "We might have held onto the music a little bit more. The Beatles came out and they were from England. So I was listening to the Beatles and still keeping up with what was going on. I knew the music was not guilty for this. But as far as performing, it felt ridiculous for us at the

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FROM PAGE 42

time to be singing in English when American soldiers were beating us up. At that point I said 'no, I have to know who I am first'?

So why sing in English now?

"Well, politically I feel much more knowledgeable. Now I have a character that is mine, I have an understanding of myself as a political being, as a person. And I also understand that part of the reason we had that conflict at that time was that North Americans really don't understand Latin Americans.

"And the way to create understanding is through communication. By making an album in English I hope I'm going to help dispel a lot of myths about Latin Americans, that we must sing 'La Cucharacha', all that nonsense. I want to show that music is not a privilege that is accorded in terms of racial background but that it is according to the soul, according to the heart.

"There are over 20 million Latins in this country. We're not going to go away. So you might as well begin to get to know us. And on our side, our responsibility is to present our culture in the most articulate way, so we can allow those who are not part °four culture by birth to understand what it is about."

Blades first met Lou Reed when they appeared in the 'Sun City' video together. Blades calls Reed a good friend, and says he's had a bum rap over the years for his "difficult personality."

"Lou and I. I think, are both writers who ended up singing. We have a lot of things in common. Lou is the ultimate New Yorker. He's a funny guy, a very compassionate guy, and he doesn't take any shit from anybody. which I really respect. It's kind of unusual in this business, where people usually become more and more bland. But he's not pretentious at all. Very down to earth."

Another collaborator with a "difficult reputation" was Elvis Costello.

"He's a tremendous writer. You read all these things about Elvis, that he's the enfant terrible of rock. But I met him once at a recording session and he turned out to be intelligent, articulate, a low key person. We talked about music in general. We both disliked the formula thing, we both felt music should be allowed to breath.

"So I invited him and he came to stay with my wife and I, and I was astonished at his facility to write. I would get up at 8.30 in the morning and I would hear the typewriter going and in the living room I would find Elvis writing.

"We would talk and talk about what we were going to do, and whatever he wrote. I would immediately try to put a melody to it, whatever I felt the first time I read the lyrics.

"I wanted to work with those people, not only because ! didn't know if! could write in English with the same passion and quality as I can in Spanish. but also. I wanted to use the opportunity to establish a cultural connection between an established salsa songwriter and these established pop songwriters. And everybody said alright."


In The Milagro Beanfield War, Blades plays a smalltown Chicano sheriff who must mediate between the townspeople and the developers who will change their way of life. "He's the guy in the middle. He understands the townspeople, and he's torn between his affection for them and his anger at their lack of resolution, their inability to make a decision."

Did it seem odd, considering how many times in your songs you have decried the crimes of various types of policemen. to be playing a Sheriff?

"No. I could identify with being the man caught in the middle. Because I'm always trying to educate, in one way or another. And I've always gone against the current."

For the future. Blades will be recording another Spanish language album. but his long-range plans, he says. definitely include a return to Panama to do political and organizational work. He shies away from saying so himself, but some who know him say that, should the current military dictatorship step aside. Blades would like someday to run for the Panamanian Presidency.

"I think my time here in the States is running out. I would just like to contribute toe better understanding of the Latin reality.

"Then I can go back to my country and make a difference there. Perhaps I had to first get out of my country and do all these things in order to become a better person and to really understand what the issues are."

Having met Blades, I would not put any achievement beyond his capacity. He is an extraordinary man and. I came to believe in two nights of speaking with him, a very good man as well. "Finally, l want to show that, whatever success you have, the nature of your character does not have to change. You can be successful without that being the mortgage through which your soul is bought."

Ruben Blades, I'll venture, will not double-cross the ones he loves.



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New Musical Express, May 14, 1988


NME reports on Elvis Costello's surprise appearance at the National Union of Seamen benefit, May 4, 1988, Music Hall, Aberdeen, Scotland.


Richard Grabel's interview with Rubén Blades includes his collaboration with Elvis Costello.

Images

1988-05-14 New Musical Express clipping 01.jpg1988-05-14 New Musical Express page 42.jpg
Photo by Kevin Cummins.


Cover and clipping.
1988-05-14 New Musical Express cover.jpg clipping

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