Black & Blue Yodelin': As Bessie Smith noted “I'm gonna yodel, yodel my blues away,” which goes a long way toward showing that the involvement of Africans & African-Americans in yodeling is not incidental but intimately linked with the history of the disapora associated with the slave trade. The forced migration from Africa to the Americas as facilitated by the slave-trading nations of Western Europe led to the introduction of African musical traditions in a New World-setting. The histories of jazz, blues, soul and rock and roll are all well-documented positive results of this very negative diaspora. Less noted [very little documentation] is the prevalence of yodeling among the freed slaves, among black cowboys, black country performers, and the employment of yodeling in black music genres like jazz, blues, funk, reggae and hiphop.
Artists include: Ray Charles, Leon Thomas, Solo Burundi Girl [Burundi], Trio Bow [Congo], Bosavi people [Papua New Guinea], Baka Beyond [Cameroon/UK], Kipsigi [Kenya], Francis Bebey [Cameroon], Lottie Kimbrough & Winston Holmes [US], Salum Abdallah & Cuban Marimba [Tanzania-Cuban rumba yodel], Tommy Johnson [Mississippi], C.B. '88' Cook [US], Charles Anderson [US], Josephine Baker [Paris], Slim Gaillard [US/Detroit], Charley Pride 2:51 [US/Mississippi], McDonald Craig [US/Tennessee], Mike Johnson [US/Washington], Minnie Ripperton [US], Sly & The Family Stone [US/CA], Parliament [US], De La Soul [US/NY], Leroy Gibbs [Jamaica], Lee Perry & Mad Professor [Jamaica/UK], Dub Syndicate [UK], Barrington Levy [Jamaica] Zap Mama [Congo], Trio Select [Haiti], Pygmies [Gabon], Sally Nyolo [Cameroon]. |
Avant la Voix: Human Experiments with the Yodel: I'm fascinated by vocalists who utilize radical and unusual mouth and throat techniques. Since I began researching the secrets of yodeling in 1996, I’ve been struck by how fixed and limited most people’s notions about yodeling are. But the yodel here is taken far afield by a group of adventurous extended vocalists, and conversely, the yodel has launched them into a realm beyond narrative & content. But for all of their futuristic, other-worldly utterances, they often sound a lot like the ancients, like Tibetan monks or Central African Pygmies or 16th-century herders. In fact, some of the most progressive/advanced vocalists make no bones about their desire to communicate with spirits, their roots, fauna, with a part of us not easily accessed, with our bones and organs, rather than our brains. Artists include: Vicki Bennett [People Like Us], Shelley Hirsch, Paul Dutton, Jack Collom, Anna Nacher, Alvin Curran, Fatima Miranda, Erika Stucky, Mysterious Asthmatic Avenger, Mike Johnson, Mal Webb, Meredith Monk, Phil Minton, Lynn Book: You, Barbara Hannigan & Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Rocket Freudental, Igor Dvorkin, Randy Erwin, Stimmhorn, Kristina Fuchs, André Minvielle, Leon Thomas, Demetrios Stratos, Christine Lauterburg...
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The Rough Guide to Yodel: Runner-Up World Music Album of the Year: fRoots /BBC Radio 3: The yodel maligned and derisively dismissed as gimmick and slapstick no more. It is a worldwide phenomenon. From its spiritual homes in Africa the Alps and the US, the yodel’s influence can be found almost everywhere – from Hawaii to Cameroon to NYC – and in every genre of music – from techno to Bollywood, from opera to hiphop. The Rough Guide To Yodel explodes the clichés and invites you to open your ears to its joys. As compiler and proud champion of the underdog, Bart Plantenga, states in his sleeve notes for the album, ‘Everything you’ve heard about yodeling is wrong.’ Read more at WMC News Dept. Read even more in my Guardian article "High on a Hill" From the liner notes: I hope this collection will go some way toward exploding any remaining yodeling clichés that my book, Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo, left standing: That it’s just a Swiss thing; not true. Yodeling exists in Austria and Germany but also France (Edgar Detrait), the UK (Frank Ifield), the Lowlands (Olga Lowina, Bobbejaan Schoepen), Spain, Italy (Tusacany’s Gardellini del Fontanino), Western Africa, South Africa, Iran, India, Vietnam (the Hmong), Russia (Lioudmilla Khandi), Japan (Takeo Ischi) Korea, Solomon Islands, New Zealand (Topp Twins), Australia, Hawaii, South and North America. Basically, everywhere but Antarctica….
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Track listing
1. CATHY FINK: Yodeling Lesson / Grandma Slid Down the Mountain. Washington-based folk singer & Grammy-Award winning writer-performer.
2. JANET MCBRIDE: A Yodeling Addiction / CD 50 Years of Yodeling. McBride is Patsy Montana’s main disciple and one of the great living yodel advocates.
3.SHELLEY HIRSCH & DAVID WEINSTEIN: Haiku Lingo / Haiku Lingo. Avant garde vocalist Hirsch learned to yodel as a child by imitating old Swiss folk LPs.
4. CHRISTINE LAUTERBURG: Erika’s Alptraum / CD Tanz Tanz. Swiss Miss enfant terrible simultaneously endears pop fans and pisses off traditionalists.
5. JODEL DUO RÖSY & PAUL HIRSCHI: 's Schäferlied / album Ur-Musig. Paul was a real farmer, herder and yodeler. Widow Rösy still lives in Marbach.
6. ALPEN DUB vs DUBTRONIK: Jaga Ode Mix01 Deliriously earnest (and exclusive) mix fuses dub and yodeling.
7. HO'OPI'I BROTHERS: Hawaiian Cowboy / CD Na Mele Henoheno. Combined traditional island chants, Christian hymns and paniolo songs.
8. TRIO LOS CAMPEROS DE VALLES: La Rosa / compilation La Huasteca Danses Et Huapangos. Trio from Mexico’s rural Huasteca region.
9. KISHORE KUMAR: Main Hoon Jhumroo / film Jhumroo. Kumar’s levity obscured the depth of Bollywood actor, writer, director, composer.
10. SAINKHO NAMTCHYLAK: Inuit Wedding / CD Naked Spirit. Sainkho’s evanescent extended vocals, Mongolian overtone singing & yodeling.
11. CAROLINA COTTON: Nola / CD Yodeling Blonde Bombshell. Cotton's trademark fetching upbeat charm & effervescent yodeling.
12. LAURA LOVE: Anyway / CD The Laura Love Collection. Nebraskan singer-musician Love performs a distinctively ‘Afro-celtic hip-alacian’ music.
13. GILLIAN WELCH: My Morphine / Hell Among the Yearlings. Welch is serious, hip, but her training does not get in the way of soul.
14. MIKE JOHNSON: Yeah, I'm A Cowboy / CD Black Yodel no. 1. Washington-area truck driver wrote his first yodeling song in the early 1970s.
15. KENNY ROBERTS: Just A Yodel For Me / collection of Kenny Roberts. Legend Roberts’ is the yodeling bridge between country and rockabilly.
16. ED SANDERS: Yodeling Robot / LP Beercans on the Moon. Sanders, is the legendary iconclast, poet, activist, author, & singer-lyricist with the Fugs.
17. FRANCIS BEBEY: Pygmy Divorce / album Pygmy Love Song. Bebey’s yodeling is Pygmy in style. Inspired line: ‘I was the tallest pygmy in this life’.
18. BAKA BEYOND: Call of the Forest / CD Rhythm Tree. They create a convincing concoction of Cameroonian rhythms & Celtic, Gaelic, & Breton influences.
* Enhanced Added Value: This album contains a data track that includes an interview with the compiler Bart Plantenga.
REVIEWS
Yahoo! Music: In Cool Stuff by Dave DiMartino: A collection of yodeling CD that manages to do the unthinkable and removed the yodel from its hicks/sticks environs and position it as the art you perhaps never thought it was…
Psychedelic Folk: A very rewarding compilation, which works very much like an introduction documentary radioshow. All tracks are interesting, several tracks are even essential.
Birmingham Post: WORLD CD OF THE WEEK — Julian Clary is a great fan of yodelling -- He will be swooning over this compilation which shows just how limited is our view of the singing style.
Het Parool, Amsterdam: Plantenga wrote about his yodel obsession in Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo ... This CD is a nice addition to the book.
ABC, Australian Public Radio Brent Clough: takes you into a vast and wonderful realm where dancing tonsils are the true stars.”
Plato Mania: from a historical perspective, a welcome addition to the rarities collection…
Egea Music: The first compilation of high quality dedicated to Yodel. Great appreciation goes to the inventor of this CD: it has opened up a new musical world.
Global Village Idiot Jim Gill: It is without a doubt the coolest compilation of the year…. It's fun, very hip in its own way, and delightfully iconoclastic.
Seattle News: The pleasures to be reaped from this eclectic collection are not so much in the variety of yodels on display but in the astonishing diversity of the music incorporating the hiccupped octave jump.
TerraSonic: The Rough Guide to Yodel… reveals itself in a remarkably broad range of musical styles and traditions, as it turns out.”
Musikbüro: a witty, intelligent and hip album. [In German]
KGNU Sam Fuqua, News Director, KGNU, 88.5 FM Boulder: Rough Guide to Yodel stayed in the KGNU top ten for many weeks!
Amazon.com Christina Roden: With his fabulous track selections and engaging liner notes, compiler Plantenga is more than equal to the task of opening ears and minds.
Volkskrant, Ariejan Korteweg: Plantenga, with this CD, is definitely the man who has made yodeling acceptable, even hip, again.
Pop Matters, Deanne Sole: This is a happy album, but it’s not likely to convince you that yodelling is cool… There’s nothing wrong with that, though. We can’t all be hip. We shouldn’t all be hip. It would be so boring.
KZSU: Hear musicians from Hawaii to Cameroon curl their throats around everything from traditional folk to techno. Varied, fun – surprisingly, I liked it all.
Il Popolo del Blues: It is a very intelligent product… it is made with the intention of inviting listeners to open their ears, hearts and minds to the joys of yodeling and join the chorus. [In Italian]
Froots Albums of 2006, 20th Annual fRoots Poll, and the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music — Runner up: Various The Rough Guide To Yodel
Reno Gazette Journal: a hoot of an album. The liner notes list far more musical styles that yodel than are included on the disc.
Music & Words: No, don’t just flip to the next title. This is a very strange compilation, compiled by Plantenga who several years ago wrote a very well-received book about yodeling.
Fashion Tribes: The Rough Guide to Yodel is Kitschy, Fabulous Fun for your iPod or Next Party.
Canadian Broadcasting Company, Roots & Wings Program Best of 2006: #3 among Compilations or re-issues, VARIOUS: "The Rough Guide to Yodel"
petroushka's miscellany : On Human Ingenuity: Dutch radio DJ Bart Plantenga has made a CD called ‘The Rough Guide to Yodel’. Apparently yodeling is a much more widespread art form than we knew. It’s common from the Arctic to Bollywood, from the Hmong farmlands of Wisconsin to the dances of Mexico. It is not, as we previously suspected, the sole province of Alpine mountains with frisking goats and men in lederhosen. The thing all yodelers have in common, apparently, is that they celebrate the transition from the ‘chest voice’ to the ‘head voice’, whereas other singers try to hide it. For those interested more in details than divas, he also wrote a book: Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World. These are essential gifts for the Christmas season.
1. CATHY FINK: Yodeling Lesson / Grandma Slid Down the Mountain. Washington-based folk singer & Grammy-Award winning writer-performer.
2. JANET MCBRIDE: A Yodeling Addiction / CD 50 Years of Yodeling. McBride is Patsy Montana’s main disciple and one of the great living yodel advocates.
3.SHELLEY HIRSCH & DAVID WEINSTEIN: Haiku Lingo / Haiku Lingo. Avant garde vocalist Hirsch learned to yodel as a child by imitating old Swiss folk LPs.
4. CHRISTINE LAUTERBURG: Erika’s Alptraum / CD Tanz Tanz. Swiss Miss enfant terrible simultaneously endears pop fans and pisses off traditionalists.
5. JODEL DUO RÖSY & PAUL HIRSCHI: 's Schäferlied / album Ur-Musig. Paul was a real farmer, herder and yodeler. Widow Rösy still lives in Marbach.
6. ALPEN DUB vs DUBTRONIK: Jaga Ode Mix01 Deliriously earnest (and exclusive) mix fuses dub and yodeling.
7. HO'OPI'I BROTHERS: Hawaiian Cowboy / CD Na Mele Henoheno. Combined traditional island chants, Christian hymns and paniolo songs.
8. TRIO LOS CAMPEROS DE VALLES: La Rosa / compilation La Huasteca Danses Et Huapangos. Trio from Mexico’s rural Huasteca region.
9. KISHORE KUMAR: Main Hoon Jhumroo / film Jhumroo. Kumar’s levity obscured the depth of Bollywood actor, writer, director, composer.
10. SAINKHO NAMTCHYLAK: Inuit Wedding / CD Naked Spirit. Sainkho’s evanescent extended vocals, Mongolian overtone singing & yodeling.
11. CAROLINA COTTON: Nola / CD Yodeling Blonde Bombshell. Cotton's trademark fetching upbeat charm & effervescent yodeling.
12. LAURA LOVE: Anyway / CD The Laura Love Collection. Nebraskan singer-musician Love performs a distinctively ‘Afro-celtic hip-alacian’ music.
13. GILLIAN WELCH: My Morphine / Hell Among the Yearlings. Welch is serious, hip, but her training does not get in the way of soul.
14. MIKE JOHNSON: Yeah, I'm A Cowboy / CD Black Yodel no. 1. Washington-area truck driver wrote his first yodeling song in the early 1970s.
15. KENNY ROBERTS: Just A Yodel For Me / collection of Kenny Roberts. Legend Roberts’ is the yodeling bridge between country and rockabilly.
16. ED SANDERS: Yodeling Robot / LP Beercans on the Moon. Sanders, is the legendary iconclast, poet, activist, author, & singer-lyricist with the Fugs.
17. FRANCIS BEBEY: Pygmy Divorce / album Pygmy Love Song. Bebey’s yodeling is Pygmy in style. Inspired line: ‘I was the tallest pygmy in this life’.
18. BAKA BEYOND: Call of the Forest / CD Rhythm Tree. They create a convincing concoction of Cameroonian rhythms & Celtic, Gaelic, & Breton influences.
* Enhanced Added Value: This album contains a data track that includes an interview with the compiler Bart Plantenga.
REVIEWS
Yahoo! Music: In Cool Stuff by Dave DiMartino: A collection of yodeling CD that manages to do the unthinkable and removed the yodel from its hicks/sticks environs and position it as the art you perhaps never thought it was…
Psychedelic Folk: A very rewarding compilation, which works very much like an introduction documentary radioshow. All tracks are interesting, several tracks are even essential.
Birmingham Post: WORLD CD OF THE WEEK — Julian Clary is a great fan of yodelling -- He will be swooning over this compilation which shows just how limited is our view of the singing style.
Het Parool, Amsterdam: Plantenga wrote about his yodel obsession in Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo ... This CD is a nice addition to the book.
ABC, Australian Public Radio Brent Clough: takes you into a vast and wonderful realm where dancing tonsils are the true stars.”
Plato Mania: from a historical perspective, a welcome addition to the rarities collection…
Egea Music: The first compilation of high quality dedicated to Yodel. Great appreciation goes to the inventor of this CD: it has opened up a new musical world.
Global Village Idiot Jim Gill: It is without a doubt the coolest compilation of the year…. It's fun, very hip in its own way, and delightfully iconoclastic.
Seattle News: The pleasures to be reaped from this eclectic collection are not so much in the variety of yodels on display but in the astonishing diversity of the music incorporating the hiccupped octave jump.
TerraSonic: The Rough Guide to Yodel… reveals itself in a remarkably broad range of musical styles and traditions, as it turns out.”
Musikbüro: a witty, intelligent and hip album. [In German]
KGNU Sam Fuqua, News Director, KGNU, 88.5 FM Boulder: Rough Guide to Yodel stayed in the KGNU top ten for many weeks!
Amazon.com Christina Roden: With his fabulous track selections and engaging liner notes, compiler Plantenga is more than equal to the task of opening ears and minds.
Volkskrant, Ariejan Korteweg: Plantenga, with this CD, is definitely the man who has made yodeling acceptable, even hip, again.
Pop Matters, Deanne Sole: This is a happy album, but it’s not likely to convince you that yodelling is cool… There’s nothing wrong with that, though. We can’t all be hip. We shouldn’t all be hip. It would be so boring.
KZSU: Hear musicians from Hawaii to Cameroon curl their throats around everything from traditional folk to techno. Varied, fun – surprisingly, I liked it all.
Il Popolo del Blues: It is a very intelligent product… it is made with the intention of inviting listeners to open their ears, hearts and minds to the joys of yodeling and join the chorus. [In Italian]
Froots Albums of 2006, 20th Annual fRoots Poll, and the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music — Runner up: Various The Rough Guide To Yodel
Reno Gazette Journal: a hoot of an album. The liner notes list far more musical styles that yodel than are included on the disc.
Music & Words: No, don’t just flip to the next title. This is a very strange compilation, compiled by Plantenga who several years ago wrote a very well-received book about yodeling.
Fashion Tribes: The Rough Guide to Yodel is Kitschy, Fabulous Fun for your iPod or Next Party.
Canadian Broadcasting Company, Roots & Wings Program Best of 2006: #3 among Compilations or re-issues, VARIOUS: "The Rough Guide to Yodel"
petroushka's miscellany : On Human Ingenuity: Dutch radio DJ Bart Plantenga has made a CD called ‘The Rough Guide to Yodel’. Apparently yodeling is a much more widespread art form than we knew. It’s common from the Arctic to Bollywood, from the Hmong farmlands of Wisconsin to the dances of Mexico. It is not, as we previously suspected, the sole province of Alpine mountains with frisking goats and men in lederhosen. The thing all yodelers have in common, apparently, is that they celebrate the transition from the ‘chest voice’ to the ‘head voice’, whereas other singers try to hide it. For those interested more in details than divas, he also wrote a book: Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World. These are essential gifts for the Christmas season.
