Lydia Mendoza
Lydia Mendoza is one of the most important people in the history of Tejano music, the
wild, vibrant music of the US-Mexico borderlands. A woman performing in a style historically
dominated by men, Mendoza made popular and influential recordings from the 1920's until
her retirement from performing in the late 1980's. Her artistry is the blossoming of a
folk tradition preserved and developed over generations by a family matriarchy beginning
with Lydia's great-grandmother, who sang and played guitar. Many of these old songs
became the basic repertoire of the Mendoza family and would sustain the family through
the Great Depression and beyond.
Lydia was born in 1916 in Houston, Texas to parents who had fled from Monterrey, Mexico
to the United States to escape the chaos and violence of the Mexican Revolution. The
family was a musical one; at an early age, Lydia learned not only to sing but to play
the guitar, mandolin and violin. By the mid-20s, Lydia, her parents and sister were
roaming the lower Rio Grande Valley as itinerant musicians, supplementing their
performance income with farm work. In 1928, after responding to an ad in a Spanish
language paper seeking local talent, they made a series of recordings (from a hotel
room in San Antonio), which helped them develop enough of a name to make performing
their primary source of income. Eventually, Lydia was able to launch herself as a solo
performer, skillfully accompanying her rich, passionate voice on the bajo sexto, a rare
instrument for a Mexican woman at that time. Her hit song "Mal
Hombre", which she first
recorded in 1934 at age 18, and her own composition "Amor Bonito" (which was covered by
many other artists) brought her fame in Hispanic communities from Texas to California
and south into Mexico and Latin America. Lydia became known as La Alondra de la Frontera,
"The Meadowlark of the Border," and La Cancionera de los Pobres, "The Songstress of the
Poor."
From the early 1950s - when she had already been famous for over two decades - into the
1980s, Lydia recorded, either solo or with her sisters as "Las Hermanas Mendoza", well
over 1,000 songs for a variety of labels. By the 1970's, audiences outside of her
Mexican-American base began to discover her artistry. She recorded several albums for
Chris Strachwitz's Arhoolie label, appeared at the Smithsonian's Festival of American
Folklife and performed before President Jimmy Carter. In 1982, Lydia was among the first
performers to receive the prestigious National Heritage Award from the National Endowment
for the Arts. She retired from performing in 1988, and was presented with the President's
National Medal of Arts in 1999. In 1993, the award-winning book, "Lydia Mendoza: A Family
Autobiography," a series of reminiscences compiled by Chris Strachwitz, was published to
critical acclaim. Today, Lydia Mendoza lives in retirement in Texas. She is considered
the leading pioneer Tejano recording artist and the most enduring performer in the
history of Mexican-American music.
(photo courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folk Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution)
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Ralph Rinzler
Ralph Rinzler was a performer, scholar, writer, and a tireless advocate for traditional
music in the United States. Both as director of the Field Research Programs at the Newport Folk
Foundation '63-'67, and at the Smithsonian, Rinzler worked hard to document, preserve and present
the traditional arts of North American communities both to those communities themselves and to
the wider American culture.
Rinzler took up the banjo as a student at Swarthmore college in the early 1950's, inspired
by a Pete Seeger performance. Soon afterwards, he discovered Harry Smith's Anthology
of American Folk Music and began to explore rural American music. He was one of several
young musicians travelling to country music shows in Maryland and Pennsylvania, hearing
artists like Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, Don Reno and Grandpa Jones. Rinzler
noticed not only the music, but also the people at the event itself, how they talked,
what they talked about, what they ate and wore and how they interacted. Rinzler would
become an advocate for these communities, serving them for the remainder of his life.
In 1960 Ralph joined The Greenbriar Boys, a New York City bluegrass band. The group
traveled to the Union Grove Fiddlers Contest in North Carolina and entered the band
contest. The judges, allegedly impressed by the fact that the band had traveled all the
way from New York to enter the competition, awarded them first place. While at Union
Grove, Rinzler met Clarence Ashley, one of the musicians immortalized on the Anthology
of American Folk Music. Rinzler, who had recently helped to organize the Friends of Old
Time Music in New York City, recorded Ashley and a young local guitarist named
Doc Watson and arranged for Ashley to perform in New York. The Friends of Old Time
Music presented a wide array of traditional artists, among them The Balfa Brothers, Bessie Jones &
the Georgia Sea Island Singers, Gus Cannon & the Memphis Jug Stompers, Ed Young & The Fife & Drum
Corps, and Roscoe Holcomb, to an urban audience for the first time.
In 1962 and 1963 Rinzler worked closely with Bill Monroe, serving
as his manager and documenting his role as the founder of Bluegrass music. At first
distant, Monroe eventually became convinced of Rinzler's knowledge and sincerity and
gave him a great deal of information on the early days of bluegrass. In return, Rinzler's
work both opened up new folk revival venues to Monroe, who was struggling at the time,
and introduced Monroe to talented urban musicians who would serve in Monroe's band. From
1963 to 1967 Rinzler worked for the Newport Folk Foundation, travelling throughout the US,
meeting and recording artists and arranging appearances at the Newport Folk Festival.
Among those who performed at Newport at the urging of Rinzler was cajun fiddler
Dewey Balfa. Balfa's appearance at the Newport Folk Festival started a revival in
Cajun music and culture that continues to this day.
In 1967 Rinzler came to the Smithsonian Institution to organize a festival on the National
Mall. The Festival of American Folklife, as the event is called, focuses on the
traditional arts of two or three particular communities each year, presenting crafts,
food ways, occupational stories and lore and other traditions in addition to music.
During his tenure at the festival, Rinzler booked very few stars into the festival,
preferring to present outstanding artists closely tied to their communities, a policy
the festival still follows.
Rinzler remained at the Smithsonian for the rest of his life, organizing the festival
and establishing the office of Folklife programs. He was instrumental in the Smithsonian's
acquisition of Folkways Records following the death of Moe Asch,
organizing a television special and Grammy award-winning record album, "Tribute to Woody
Guthrie and Leadbelly," to fund the purchase. Smithsonian/Folkways Records maintains the
availability of the 2,000 titles in the original catalog, and commissions new projects to
carry on the tradition. Through his tireless efforts, Ralph Rinzler insured that
traditional folk music and folk art will be part of the fabric of our official national
life.
Ralph Rinzler died in 1994. He is honored each year with a memorial concert held during
the Folklife Festival.
(photo by Syo Smith, courtesy of the Center for
Black Music Research, Columbia College, Chicago.)
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Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson was a magnificent concert singer, an acclaimed stage and screen actor, an
athletic champion, a tireless worker for social justice, an internationalist, and a
revolutionary artist. He was widely praised for his performing skills, yet saw his
career derailed and his name vilified for radical political views.
Robeson was born in 1898. His father had, at the age of 15, escaped from slavery, later
earning a degree in theology from Lincoln University. Robeson's father (his mother died
when he was six) raised Robeson firmly and instilled in the young Robeson a strong
commitment to social justice. Raised in Princeton and Somerville New Jersey, Robeson
matriculated at Princeton where he won honors as both a scholar (Phi Beta Kappa and
Valedictorian) and athlete (Named twice to Walter Camp's All-America Football Team, he
was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995.) Following his graduation from
Princeton, Robeson attended Columbia Law School, supplementing his income by playing pro
football.
Robeson's law career lasted very briefly, he resigned from the first law firm that hired
him when a white secretary refused to take dictation from him. At the time of his
resignation, Robeson had been acting professionally for a few years and he decided to
pursue a career as a performing artist. In 1924 he made his singing debut in Boston,
appeared in his first film, Oscar Michaux's Body and Soul, and made headlines appearing
on Broadway opposite white actress Mary Blair in Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got
Wings. By 1930, Robeson had toured the US and Europe performing lack spirituals and had
appeared in Othello and in his signature role as Joe in Show Boat. While on
a European tour in 1929, Robeson discovered the folk music of Central Europe and noticed
similarities between African American music and the folk music of other places. From then
on, folk songs from all around the world would be a staple of Robeson's concert performances.
Through the 1930's, Robeson became more politically outspoken. Visiting the Soviet Union
in 1934 as a guest of film director Sergei Eisenstein, Robeson was immediately taken with
the socialist dream and began to study communist literature and history. He traveled
twice more to the Soviet Union and to Spain to sing for the Republicans in the Civil War.
By 1941, he was working to end segregation in the U.S. and was under surveillance by the
FBI.
By the end of World War II Robeson had seemingly combined his performing career with his
work as an activist, singing both at rallies and at major concert halls. However, in the
increasingly anti-Communist atmosphere of post-war America, Robeson found it difficult to
get work and was faced with physical violence. In 1947, someone loosened lug nuts on the
front tire of his car, causing an accident and in 1949 a mob attacked a Robeson concert
in Peekskill, New York, injuring 150.
The state department revoked Robeson's passport in 1950. Unable to tour internationally,
and blacklisted at home, Robeson performed where he could, including a memorable concert
for 40,000 people at the Peace Arch on the US/Canada border, and a concert-by-phone for
Welsh miners. He formed his own record company and he continued to work for justice at
home and abroad, championing the African National Council and African independence
movements and working for civil rights domestically. As the most outspoken and openly
communist black man in America at the time, Robeson was called before the House
un-American Activities committee three times and was under constant surveillance by the
FBI.
After an eight year battle in the courts, Robeson's passport was returned to him in 1958.
In that same year, he published his autobiography, Here I Stand, and toured US concert
halls for the first time in a decade. Following the return of his passport, Robeson
traveled to the Soviet Union and to England. He spent his next five years in Europe.
His decade long battle with the government had sapped a great deal of Robeson's strength
and he began to suffer health problems, including depression, exhaustion, and a bone
disease. He staged his final concert tour, covering Australia and New Zealand, in 1960.
Following the death of Essie, his wife of 45 years, in 1965. He moved in with his sister
in Philadelphia, who cared for him until his death in 1976.
During his career, Robeson received academic honors and was decorated by many governments,
starred in 11 films and many highly acclaimed stage roles, and made Black spirituals, and
songs of struggle like "Joe Hill" and "The Peat Bog Soldiers," known all over the world.
Robeson was a hero to many in the developing world. Famed folk music producer Harold
Leventhal recalls being introduced to Gandhi while serving in India with the US Signal
Corps during WW2. Gandhi's first words were: "How is Paul Robeson doing?" Robeson was
honored in India with a "Paul Robeson Day" in 1958 and in 1978, the United Nations
honored him posthumously for his work in the battle against apartheid.
In a speech in 1997, singer Harry Belafonte recalled a visit he made to Robeson shortly
before the great artist's death: "...I looked at this giant of a man who was…frail in
body but still strong in spirit. And through all that had engulfed him - McCarthyism,
the difficult times that he faced...because of his beliefs, because of his resistance to
oppression - I looked at him and I said: 'Paul, was all that you have gone through,
really worth it?' ...And he said, 'Harry, make no mistake: there is no aspect of what I
have done that wasn't worth it. Although we may not have achieved all the...victories
and goals we set for ourselves, beyond the victory itself, infinitely more important,
was the journey.'" Paul Robeson and his great struggle have become a symbol of strength
and of the struggle for freedom of all oppressed peoples - a folksinger in the classic
and universal connotation of the term.
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