- Release Info -------------------------------------------------------------- -
Artist: Lila Downs
Album: Shake Away
Label: Manhattan
Playtime: 54:55 min
Genre: Latin
URL:
Rip date: 2008-08-23
Street date: 2008-09-02
Size: 78.00 MB
Type: Advance
Quality: 188 kbps / 4410kHz / Joint Stereo
- Release Notes ------------------------------------------------------------- -
Singer Lila Downs grew up with the culture of her father, a professor from
the United States, but eventually turned her back on it to explore the
tradition of her mother, a Mixteca Indian from Mexico. In doing so, she has
created a very individual strain of song that has indigenous Mexican roots
and North American sonorities. Born in 1968, she spent her early years in
Mexico, but after her parents split up, she was shuffled off to live with a
relative in California. She grew to love music, specifically classical and
opera, and began studying those in college. After two years, however, she
experienced a crisis, questioning why she was singing and dropping out to
become a Deadhead, following the Grateful Dead around the country in a VW bus
and earning money by making and selling jewelry, and not singing at all.
Although not particularly moved by the Dead's music, she enjoyed the
lifestyle for a short time, before heading back to college in Minnesota,
where her father lived. When she finally graduated, it was with a double
degree, in anthropology and voice, and a renewed enthusiasm for both her
Mexican heritage and singing. Settling in her mother's hometown of Oaxaca,
she began vocalizing again, and exploring her roots, while realizing that she
was still half Yankee. She met up with Philadelphia-based jazz pianist Paul
Cohen, and the pair began a professional and personal relationship whose
first fruit was the self-released, cassette-only Ofrenda in 1994. That was
followed two years later by another cassette, the live Azulßo: En Vivo con
Lida Downs, one of whose songs won Best Original Latin Jazz composition in a
Philadelphia poll.
Along with jazz, she was slowly developing a more intense, folkloric style
that began to rear its head on 1997's La Sandunga (released in the U.S. on
BMG in 1999), whose title track and "La Llorana" offered a hearty passion not
to be heard on her jazzier efforts. That vocal promise was fulfilled in 2000
with the release of Tree of Life, the lyrics of which were largely derived
from the religious codices of the Mixteca and Zapotec people. The album was
recorded in Oaxaca, where Downs and Cohen were sustained by a foundation
grant, although their home base remains Mexico City. The next year, Downs
issued Border (La Linea). In 2004 Una Sangre (One Blood) was released,
followed by 2006's La Cantina, whose song "La Cumbia del Mole" presented the
singer the opportunity to make her first-ever music video.
- Track List ---------------------------------------------------------------- -
01. Little Man ( 3:44)
02. Ojo de Culebra (feat. La Mari de Chambao) ( 4:02)
03. Perro Negro (feat. Ixaya Mazatin Tieyotl) ( 2:59)
04. Yo Envidio El Viento ( 3:42)
05. Skeleton ( 3:00)
06. Black Magic Woman (feat. Raul Midon) ( 3:09)
07. I Would Never ( 4:41)
08. Justicia (feat. Enrique Bunbury) ( 3:50)
09. Taco del Palabras ( 3:02)
10. Los Pollos (feat. Gilberto Gutlerrez) ( 3:14)
11. Tierra de Luz (feat. Mercedes Sosa) ( 3:37)
12. Silent Thunder ( 4:41)
13. Shake Away ( 3:41)
14. I Envy the Wind ( 3:42)
15. Nothing but the Truth ( 3:51)
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