And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey through Global Music
And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey through Global Music
From the legendary producer of Nick Drake, R.E.M., Toots and the Maytals, and Pink Floyd and author of White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s comes a riveting, world-spanning tour de force illuminating the artists, histories, controversies, and collaborations that shaped global music.
Release: Sep 24, 2024
Hardcover ISBN: 9798988670025 • 960 pages • two 16-page full-color photo inserts
About the Book
“You haven’t heard this before!" the accordion flourish seemed to proclaim. Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that he immediately knew it would open Graceland, the multi-platinum album that helped usher in the 1980s “world music” boom. Yet that movement had roots extending back through the decades and across continents: tango on the eve of World War I, Latin dance across the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, reggae in the ’70s, pre-War samba and pre-Beatles bossa nova, Eastern European ensembles filling capitalist concert halls during the Cold War, Indian ragas changing rock and roll in the 1960s, the folk music–inspired classical composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.
In this sweeping history compiled from more than a decade of travel, research, interviews, and deep listening, Boyd sets out to explore centuries of fascinating backstories to these sounds. He shows how personalities, events, and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston, and Rio are as colorful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon, or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon. The one-of-a-kind result is And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a glorious, symphonic celebration of the music that shapes our world.
Praise for And the Roots of Rhythm Remain
“What an amazing book! Joe Boyd has distilled decades of experience and observation of how musical ideas interbreed, and how culture is formed, into a tumultuous, gripping and dramatic story. I doubt I’ll ever read a better account of the history and sociology of popular music than this one.”
—Brian Eno
“Joe Boyd [is] the Proust of music. The producer’s epic account of global music’s cross-pollination is an inspiring tale of seduction, expression and freedom from oppression . . . Having produced Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake etc, Boyd had turned his attention to music from over the horizon, derived from the rites and roots of those who make it. The culmination of Boyd’s lifelong journey in pursuit of such music is this vast volume, every paragraph packed with information and inspiration – but written with a refreshingly light touch . . . Boyd’s book is, accordingly, the Proust of music history – à la recherche of much music lost, here regained and affirmed in our present.”
—Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian
“Profound . . . and beyond.”
—Robert Plant
“Love this book. Joe has a great love for all this music but more than that he gives us the wider and deeper contexts that shaped the music to be what it is. Why certain strains of music became popular, how did audiences feel about it at the time, who made it sound the way it does. And, in many cases, he was there. It's a big one, but it's a page turner!”
—David Byrne
“The War and Peace of world music.”
—Jim Irvin, Mojo Magazine
“The noted record producer, sound engineer, and musicologist surveys the many sounds the world has to offer. Readers should prepare for a flood of disparate data that adds up to something more than trivia . . . much more. It’s a marvelous, sometimes careening adventure, as Boyd darts from one musical obsession to another. A grand treat for musicophiles and an entertaining walk through world music, leading readers to countless sounds and styles.”
“Joe Boyd has an acute ear for music and an astute eye for talent that has led him around the world, recording and returning with music that has been and will be an indelible and fascinating part of our culture. Here he reveals the searching intellect, the generous spirit, and the deep heart beneath his extraordinary life’s work.”
—T Bone Burnett
“An in-depth social history of the genre of world music . . . Boyd’s treasure trove of information about the global impact of world music (particularly on the United States) is a tour de force that will fascinate music lovers.
—Dr. Dave Szatmary, Library Journal, Starred Review
“One only hopes this can be taught in schools.”
—Ry Cooder
“A blockbuster . . . and just the thing for music lovers.”
—Gregory McNamee, Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer, known for his memoir, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s. Artists he has produced include Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., Taj Mahal, Fairport Convention, Richard and Linda Thompson, Maria Muldaur, Kate and Anna McGarrigle and 10,000 Maniacs among many over the course of a nearly sixty-year career. As a film producer, his credits include Amazing Grace, Scandal, and Jimi Hendrix.
After graduating from Harvard in 1964, he tour-managed Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, and others, then served as production manager for the 1965 Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. After Newport, he moved to London to open Elektra Records’ office there, then started the legendary UFO club, original home to Pink Floyd and Soft Machine and center of London’s psychedelic revolution. Through his work with the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, John and Beverley Martyn, and Sandy Denny, his production company, Witchseason, set a new course for folk and folk-rock music in Britain.
Boyd moved to Los Angeles in 1971 to become Director of Music Services for Warner Brothers Films, where he supervised scores for Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange and co-created the documentary Jimi Hendrix. In the mid-to-late ’70s, he produced records by Maria Muldaur (“Midnight at the Oasis”), Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Toots and the Maytals, and James Booker.
After spending 1979 in charge of Lorne Michaels’s start-up film production company, Broadway Pictures, he launched his own label, Hannibal Records, which he ran for twenty years. Hannibal released albums by a diverse mix of Anglo-American artists ranging from Defunkt and John Cale to Richard Thompson and Robert Wyatt. Joe and Hannibal were also at the forefront of independent labels bringing global artists to western audiences, including ¡Cubanismo! and Alfredo Rodriguez, Toumani Diabaté and Ali Farka Touré, Virginia Rodrigues and Moreno Veloso, Trio Bulgarka and Ivo Papasov, Muzsikás and Márta Sebestyén, Ketama and Songhai.
He left Hannibal in 2001 and wrote White Bicycles. Since its publication, he has traveled widely, lecturing, reading, and performing in a double-act with singer Robyn Hitchcock.
During the years spent writing And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, he has co-produced records with his wife, Andrea Goertler, by Albanian group Saz’iso and sevdah artist Damir Imamović. His popular podcast, Joe Boyd’s A-Z, takes listeners on musical adventures from around the world. In 2019, he completed unfinished business from his time at Warner Brothers Films by serving as Executive Producer on Amazing Grace, Alan Elliott’s acclaimed film of Aretha Franklin’s 1972 recording session which had lain unseen in the vaults for forty-seven years. A gifted raconteur, he appears frequently on the BBC and other global radio and television outlets.
