Alan Lomax in Asturias, November 1952

By Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax visited Asturias, in northwestern Spain, in the autumn of 1952, making one of the earliest and most extensive field recording trips in the land, as it's said in Spanish, en el fondo del saco - "at the end of everything." While the regime of the dictator Franco was then threatening the traditional expressive diversity of regional Spain in its quixotic quest for a unified national identity, Lomax's recordings succeeded in painting a portrait of a thriving Asturian musical culture. He collected love songs, lullabies, children's games, work songs of the vaqueiros (cow herders), chorales and folk dances for saints' days, ballads accompanying the tasting of new cider, the ancient corri-corri dance, performances of the exceedingly difficult tonada song form, and the music of the characteristic Asturian bagpipes; the veijixu (a filled wineskin); and the payel.la - a long-handled frying pan played only by women. Alan Lomax In Asturias includes over two hours of material, most previously unreleased, on two CDs, packaged inside a trilingual 170-page hardcover book containing introductory texts, song notes, lyric transcriptions, and many rare and never-before-published photographs by Alan Lomax and others.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0615419968
• ISBN13: 9780615419961
• Release Date: November 2011
• Publisher: Global Jukebox Media
• Length: 170 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.