Joe Boyd, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain

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Purchase And the Roots of Rhythm Remain (hardcover, $40) from CW here or call the store to order (505) 988-4226.

About the Book

Paul Simon told Joe Boyd that when he first heard the accordion flourish that would open his multi-platinum album Graceland, it seemed to proclaim, “You haven’t heard this before!” Yet the 1980s “world music” boom that Simon’s album helped usher in had roots that extended 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.

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.

About AMP Concerts

AMP Concerts offers innovative and inspiring arts programming throughout New Mexico. A portion of all AMP ticket sales goes to fund free community concerts, workshops, school programs & artist residencies.