Ned Sublette
{{short description|American singer-songwriter}}
Ned Sublette (born 1951) is an American composer, musician, record producer, musicologist, historian, and author. Sublette studied Spanish Classical Guitar with Hector Garcia at the University of New Mexico and with Emilio Pujol in Spain. He studied composition with Kenneth Gaburo at the University of California, San Diego. He grew up in Portales, New Mexico, moved to New York City in 1976, and has worked with John Cage, LaMonte Young, Glenn Branca, David Van Tieghem, Peter Gordon, and Pauline Oliveros.
Music performance
As a performer, Sublette is probably best known for fusing country-western and Afro-Caribbean styles including salsa, cumbia and rumba,{{cite news|last1=Rockwell|first1=John|title=New Music: Ned Sublette Presents a Ritual at the Kitchen|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1977/12/09/936903952.html?pageNumber=61|accessdate=13 January 2016|work=New York Times|date=9 December 1977}} as reflected on the 1999 album "Cowboy Rumba", as well as his 2012 second album Kiss You Down South. He is also a leading scholar of Cuban music. His label Qbadisc releases Cuban music in the United States and he has released music by Latin musicians including Ritmo Oriental and Issac Delgado and has co-produced Public Radio International's "Afropop Worldwide" show.{{citation needed|date=January 2016}}
During the 1980s, he led the Ned Sublette Band, which played country with Cuban stylings. His "Cowboy Rumba" reached number one on World Music Charts Europe during December, 1999.{{cite web |url=http://www.rootsworld.com/wmce/wmce9912.html |title = WORLD MUSIC CHARTS EUROPE}} Sublette also performed an experimental radio "mash-up" in 1984 for the "Art on the Beach" series {{cite news|last1=Page|first1=Tim|title=MUSIC: SUBLETTE PERFORMS IN 'ART ON THE BEACH' SERIES|work=New York Times|date=4 September 1984}} and performs in the opera [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7wA4Jcw8dQ Agamemnon] (1993) with singers Vera Beren and Arto Lindsay.
In 2006, Willie Nelson released Sublette's song "Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other" in the wake of the success of Brokeback Mountain.{{Cite web |last=Neuman |first=Clayton |date=March 1, 2006 |title=Brokeback Balladeer |url=https://time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1168901,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930014908/http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1168901,00.html |archive-date=September 30, 2007}}
Writing
His book on Cuban music, Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo ({{ISBN|1-55652-516-8}}) was published in 2004.{{cite news|last1=Weisbard|first1=Eric|title=The Ancestors of Pop|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/books/review/the-ancestors-of-pop.html|accessdate=13 January 2016|work=New York Times|date=31 October 2004}} The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square, ({{ISBN|9781556527302}}) was published in 2008 by Lawrence Hill Books.{{cite news|last1=Berry|first1=Jason|title=Urban Gumbo: The World that Made New Orleans|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/books/review/Berry-t.html|accessdate=13 January 2016|work=New York Times|date=17 February 2008}} The Year Before the Flood: A Story of New Orleans ({{ISBN|9781556528248}}) published in 2009 by Lawrence Hill Books continues the history of New Orleans cultures and music.
Awards
Sublette is a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow. In 2012 he was a Knight-Luce Fellow for Reporting on Global Religion at the University of Southern California. He did research in Angola, which resulted in a four-episode Hip Deep Angola radio series, produced for the public radio program Afropop Worldwide.{{cite web|title=A Musical Revelation|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/kongo/blog/posts/kongo-music-past-and-present|website=Kongo; Power and Majesty|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|accessdate=13 January 2016}}
Other works
Sublette starred in Vidas Perfectas, a Spanish-language version of Robert Ashley's 1983 "television opera" Perfect Lives, which premiered on stage at Irondale Theater, Brooklyn in December 2011, and which was to be shot for television in 2012.[http://www.vidasperfectas.org/about About] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006132620/http://www.vidasperfectas.org/about |date=2014-10-06 }}, vidasperfectas.org. Accessed online 2 April 2012.
In October 2015, Sublette and his wife Constance published The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry ({{ISBN|978-1-61374-820-6}}), a comprehensive history of slave trading in the southern colonies and states.
Discography
- Western Classics, as Ned Sublette and the Southwesterners (Lovely Music, 1980)
- Ships at Sea, Sailors and Shoes (Excellent, 1993)
- Monsters from the Deep (Excellent, 1997)
- Cowboy Rumba (Palm Pictures, 1999)
- Kiss You Down South (Postmambo, 2012)
References
External links
{{commons category}}
- {{AllMusic|class=artist|id=mn0000327059}}
- {{Discogs artist|146475-Ned-Sublette}}
- [http://www.thetakeaway.org/contributors/ned-sublette/ Interview with Ned Sublette on Cuban music], WNYC, January 2009
- [http://www.afropop.org/multi/interview/ID/68/Joseph+Roach+talks+to+Ned+Sublette Interview with Ned Sublette] by Prof. Joseph Roach of Yale University, 2005
- [http://www.afropop.org/multi/interview/ID/68/Joseph+Roach+talks+to+Ned+Sublettehttp:/www.afropop.org/multi/interview/ID/69/Vicki+Mayer+talks+to+Ned+Sublette Interview with Ned Sublette] by Prof. Vicki Mayer of Tulane University, 2005
- [http://bombmagazine.org/article/3149/ Interview with Ned Sublette] by Garnette Cadogan in Bomb, Summer 2009, on New Orleans music, Mardi Gras, and history
- [http://www.bombsite.com/issues/0/articles/3083 Ned Sublette performs songs at The Kitchen in New York City, June, 2006]
- [http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/issue/book-review-the-year-before-the-flood-by-ned-sublette/ Review of The Year Before the Flood by Ingrid Norton]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sublette, Ned}}
Category:American country singer-songwriters
Category:Musicians from Lubbock, Texas
Category:People from Portales, New Mexico
Category:Singer-songwriters from Texas
Category:Songwriters from New Mexico
Category:American Book Award winners