Cucu Diamantes
Sonny Landreth?s slide guitar eerily evokes the human voice, as he acknowledged in an interview in New Orleans with ABQ Arts & Entertainment following his headlining performance at Jazz Fest.
?I grew up playing jazz trumpet. Then I became fascinated with delta blues and The Ventures? surf-rock and switched to guitar,? he said. ?I like to write and sing lyrics, but the slide guitar can reinforce emotional lines in a song, like the call and response of the blues.?
At Taos Solar Music Festival (TSMF) June 30-July 1, Landreth will showcase material from his newly released, all instrumental album, ?Elemental Journey,? and sing many of the socially- charged songs like ?Congo Square,? ?Blue Tarp Blues? and ?The Natural World,? which have highlighted his albums ?From the Reach,? ?Grant Street,? and others.
Landreth sees spiritual links between New Mexico and his southwest Louisiana home.
?There is a common quality, a shared feeling, that we are part of nature,? he said.
Having achieved superstar status in recent recording projects with Eric Clapton, Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson, Landreth treasures his roots in the Gulf Coast, which has survived both Hurricane Katrina and Rita, and the BP oil spill.
?It?s going to take a long time to heal,? he said. ?But I believe that community has strength to meet such challenges, even when politics fails us. I believe in grace in the face of adversity and I try to express that in my music.?
Also headlining TSMF is Cucu Diamantes, the Havana-born singer and co-founder of Afro-Latin band Yerba Buena, spoke with ABQ Arts & Entertainment a day before she and her musical partner, Andres Levin, departed for Cuba to perform at a gay and lesbian rights rally.
Cucu is hopeful about change in Cuba. ?It?s one small step at a time,? she said.
Besides performing on the TSMF stage, Cucu will screen ?Amor Cronico? during the festival. The film, which Diamantes describes as ?neo-realist,? documents her 2009 performance tour of Cuba, where according to Levin, ?Cucu played to an audience of more than one million in Havana.
Michael Franti is glad to be alive to play at TSMF this year. The 45-year-old leader of Spearhead tells ABQ Arts & Entertainment that, having survived a ?nearly fatal appendicitis,? he has a renewed sense of ?appreciating the simple things in life. I practice yoga and I run every day.?
?My life now is all about bringing the joys of music to other people. Folks just want to laugh, dance, feel the good music, even when they can?t understand the words you sing ? they don?t want to be reminded how difficult things can be,? said Franti. ?They want to feel the possibility of change.?
Franti is delighted to return to New Mexico. ?My adoptive parents used to bring me to Gallup and Santa Fe on vacations, and I recently discovered that my Native American blood is Seminole. That makes me so proud,? he said.
TSMF is a favorite of the Grammy-winning, Los Angeles, Chicano-roots rockers, Los Lobos. ?We love New Mexico, and this year we?re planning acoustic versions featuring David Hidalgo?s fiddle and accordion,? said Steve Berlin, member of Los Lobos. ?It?s always a treat for us to play that way and New Mexico fans seem to enjoy dancing to those gentler sounds.?
TSMF headliners also include bluegrass royalty, The Del McCoury Band, witty, Texas Grammy winner Lyle Lovett, and soulful Nashville songwriter Mat Kearney.
?I?ve experienced pain, but I still want to feel like that high school kid with butterflies in his stomach who loves life and has hope,? said Kearney.
There will also be surprises, including the winners of a competition among New Mexico bands to see who will grace the TSMF stage.
?Bill Nevins and Pia Gallegos
June 30-July 1, Saturday-Sunday
Taos Solar Music Festival
Kit Carson Memorial Park
Tickets $51-$91, free 12 and under; 211 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, Taos, 575.758.9191; solarmusicfest.com
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