[FA Worldmusic] Remembering Andy Palacio

[cafeint at aol.com]

It seems like yesterday when I first met Andy Palacio at WOMEX b97 in 
Marseilles, France.  Andy wasnbt performing that year, he was there 
simply as a delegate to promote Garifuna culture.

When I bumped into Andy, he captivated me with the amazing story of how 
the Garifuna are descendants of escaped slaves who survived from a 
crashed slave ship near St. Vincent, and after a battle with England, 
the 2,000 survivors were deported to Central America.    We stayed up 
until 5 a.m. chatting about Garifuna music, their culture, how they 
make their own instruments, how their language and culture was severely 
threatened (Garifuna is a blend of Arawak and several African tongues, 
and is the only language spoken by Blacks in the Americas that isnbt 
based on a European tongue).  Promoting his own recording wasnbt his 
primary mission (and I would soon learn, that his recordings were 
magnificent).  What Andy cared about was the culture of his people, the 
culture of an ethnic group that had resisted slavery. His goal was to 
use music as tool for cultural preservation.

Two months later, I bought a plane ticket to Central America.  Upon 
arriving in Belize, Andy and his producer Ivan Duran were giddy with 
excitement about the new recording called Paranda they were working on. 
  It featured elderly Garifuna guitarists that Andy had found in rural 
communities in Honduras, Guatemala and Belize.  It sounded like Cuban 
son, American blues, with African percussion all rolled into one. Five 
minutes later, I was giddy too, and decided to change my plane ticket 
so I could spend 3 extra weeks in Belize, traveling dirt roads, water 
taxis, spending hours, sometimes days getting to remote villages along 
the Caribbean coast to get to the remote villages where these elderly 
Garifuna guitarists lived to share their stories on the radio program 
Afropop Worldwide.

I ended up spending much of the next two years going back and forth to 
Belize, and in the end, we managed to get that CD of Garifuna guitar 
music released by a major label, Warner Brothers.  Sadly, their 
division that agreed to put out the CD, folded right around the time 
the Paranda CD was released.   We soon learned that a major label had 
not interest in selling 5-10 thousand copies of magnificent (and 
threatened) music.  To them, it was peanuts.  We took solace in that 
although it never reached the commercial success we had dreamed of, it 
was a small step to help put Garifuna music on the global map.

Andy Palacio and Ivan Duran went back to Belize and began working on 
what would become Palaciobs masterpiece, Watina.  It drew upon the 
complete spectrum of Garifuna rhythms, it was impeccably produced.  The 
songs were passionate, such as b
Amzyengub
 which asked questions like, 
b
Who will I speak my own Garifuna language to when I get old?b
  These 
were questions that went to my soul, who as a Jewish kid growing up in 
Pittsburgh wondered who, after my grandparents and great-grandparents 
passed on, would be left to speak and sing in Yiddish.

Watina was released in 2007 by an independent label Cumbancha, headed 
by Jacob Edgar, who shares Duranbs and Palaciobs passion for Garifuna 
music, and it deservedly won nearly every prize in what we call b
world 
musicb
 (including the WOMEX and UNESCO Artist for Peace awards).

Still, despite the accolades, what Andy cared about was promoting his 
culture.  He had the emotion of a new father seeing his kids take their 
first steps when one of his mentors, Paul Nabor (now nearly 80 years 
old) took the stage with him last year.  Andy wasnbt just the 
Garifunabs greatest musician.  He was one of the worldbs leading 
cultural ambassadors for threatened music.

When I head that Andy Palacio passed away from a massive stroke this 
past weekend, I was immediately stricken with grief.  Who can fill his 
shoes?  Who will have the passion to continue the fight for Garifuna 
music against the massive forces of cultural imperialism?  Who will 
sing these songs?  Who will create new ones?

Fortunately, in Andybs short life, he answered those questions.  .He 
lived just 47 years, and in that time, completely rescued the Garifuna 
culture. There already is a new generation of young Garifuna who are 
growing up knowing that there is a future for their music and culture 
with new-found pride.

For generations, people will be speaking to you Andy, and singing to 
you, in Garifuna.

We miss you terribly.

-Dan Rosenberg

www.danrosenberg.net





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