Havana Cuba. — The Miami Publisher Some othersdirected by the tireless and passionate music lover Armando Nuviola, has just published a new book by the writer and journalist Joao Pablo Fariñas: African-American music stars (1950-1980).
As its title indicates, the volume makes a detailed account of the life and work of the main interpreters of North American black music —jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, soul, funk— during the three decades in which it was consolidated, reached its greatest splendor and spread throughout the world.
The book is not limited to the usual and extensive list of artists and discographies that is to be expected —from Billie Holiday and Muddy Waters to Michael Jackson, George Benson and Al Jarreau, including, of course, Ray Charles, BB King, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Tina Turner, Gladys Knight, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, etc— Fariñas goes much further and places this music and its performers in the socio-political-cultural context of its time, and carefully details the stages it went through, since McKinley Morganfield (alias Muddy Waters), after emigrating from the plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi, to Chicago, plugged in his guitar and started the electric blues, until the recording by Michael Jackson of the albums Off-the-Wall Y thrillerproduced and orchestrated by quincy jones.
The author also critically analyzes the main record companies (Tamla Motown, Stax, Atlantic) and their characteristics, the most important composers, producers and instrumentalists, and dedicates an entire chapter to the popular television program SoulTrainled by Don Cornelius.
As if that were not enough, the book has, as reinforcement, a luxurious prologue, written by the narrator and essayist Francisco López Sacha, a great connoisseur of rock and soul music.
Probably, due to its thoroughness, it is the best and most complete book that has been written in the Spanish language on North American black music. The curious thing is that its author, Joao Fariñas, lives in Havana, Cuba, where, from the beginning of the sixties and until well into the seventies, North American and English music was banned for being considered deforming and ideologically harmful.
It is striking, taking into account his age —he has not yet turned 43—, Fariñas’ almost compulsive interest and taste for the music of the sixties, seventies and eighties, to which he has dedicated four of the seven books he published. He has written: Two decades of music: the Anglo-Saxon sound of 1960-1980, The long and winding road of the Beatles, A decade of music: the Anglo-Saxon sound of the 80s (published in Cuba by Editorial Arte y Literatura in 2011, 2014 and 2017, respectively) and one on Michael Jackson published by Editorial Some others in 2018.
Fariñas has explained that this music, these songs that he prefers, particularly those of The Beatles, are the ones he listened to at home, with his parents, since he was a child. It’s like he has it embedded in her DNA.
In the introduction to A decade of music, the Anglo-Saxon sound of the 80s, Fariñas wrote: “I always loved music and I remember with photographic memory the details of the time, when recording a cassette or getting a vinyl record was a feat. No one told me about it, I lived it with great passion”.
The author affirms that the deficiencies, doubts, questions and dissatisfactions about the music that he is passionate about have been filled with the research he has done for his books. With them he intends to provide readers with as much information as possible. And there is no doubt that he has achieved it.
I asked him in an email why he had this book on African-American music, and he replied, “It’s immensely important. Without her, today the sound universe would be different. For ´The Beatles´ and the Rolling Stones Black music had to exist first, which was defining in their careers”.
It is true, Fariñas does not have to convince us. It is inconceivable what Eric Clapton would have done if Robert Johnson and BB King had not existed before, nor Led Zeppelin, nor the very Rolling Stones, who took their name from the lyrics of an old Muddy Waters blues: “…rolling stone gather no moss” (rolling stones do not breed moss).
For me, a faithful lover of blues and soul, this book by Farinas, like the one he dedicated to The Beatles Eight years ago, I was dazzled. I recommend it. It is available on Amazon.
Another reason to thank Armando Nuviola and the UnosOtros publishing house, where Joao Fariñas —who is also passionate about baseball— announces the forthcoming appearance of his book Germán Mesa, the shortstop magician.
OPINION ARTICLE
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