The Tide Was Always High

Josh Kun

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780520294394
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520967533
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In 1980, the celebrated new wave band Blondie headed to Los Angeles to record a new album and along with it, the cover song "The Tide Is High, " originally written by Jamaican legend John Holt. Featuring percussion by Peruvian drummer and veteran LA session musician "Alex" Acuña, and with horns and violins that were pure LAmariachiby way of Mexico, "The Tide Is High" demonstrates just one of the ways in which Los Angeles and the music of Latin America have been intertwined since the birth of the city in the eighteenth century. The Tide Was Always High gathers together essays, interviews, and analysis from leading academics, artists, journalists, and iconic Latin American musicians to explore the vibrant connections between Los Angeles and Latin America. Published in conjunction with the Getty's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, the book shows how Latin American musicians and music have helped shape the city's culture—from Hollywood film sets to recording studios, from vaudeville theaters to Sunset Strip nightclubs, and from Carmen Miranda to Pérez Prado and Juan García Esquivel.

Table of contents

• Cover
• THE TIDE WAS ALWAYS HIGH
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Tide Was Always High
• 1. Mexican Musical Theater and Movie Palaces in Downtown Los Angeles before 1950
• 2. Rumba Emissaries
• 3. Doing the Samba on Sunset Boulevard: Carmen Miranda and the Hollywoodization of Latin American Music
• 4. Walt Disney’s Saludos Amigos: Hollywood and the Propaganda of Authenticity
• 5. A Century of Latin Music at the Hollywood Bowl
• 6. Voice of the Xtabay and Bullock’s Wilshire: Hearing Yma Sumac from Southern California
• 7. Musical Anthropology: A Conversation with Elisabeth Waldo
• 8. Esquivel!
• 9. Listening across Boundaries: Soundings from the Paramount Ballroom and Boyle Heights
• 10. Studio Stories: Interviews with Session Musicians
• 11. From Bahianas to the King of Pop . . . : A Speculative History of Brazilian Music into Los Angeles
• 12. Heroes and Saints
• 13. Staging the Dance of Coalition with Versa-Style and CONTRA-TIEMPO
• 14. Booming Bandas of Los Ángeles: Gender and the Practice of Transnational Zapotec Philharmonic Brass Bands
• 15. Caminos y Canciones en Los Angeles, CA
• List of Contributors
• Index