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 San Francisco (California), USA - The latest release in the
Rough Guide series is
The Rough Guide to Yodel (GNET1174CD). It's a sad
coincidence that the album comes out right after the death of one of the best
American yodlers, Don Walser [Don
Walser, Country Music Yodler Dies at 72].
From its spiritual homes in the Alps and rural USA,
yodel’s influence can be
found in any country – from Hawaii to Cameroon – and in any type of music – from
techno to Bollywood.
The Rough Guide to Yodel aims to squash the clichés and invites the listeners
to open their
ears to the joy of
yodel.
Easily dismissed as a fun vocal gimmick,
The Rough Guide to Yodel brings the
surprising truth about the yodel. As compiler and proud champion of the
underdog, Bart Plantenga, states in his
sleeve notes for the album, ‘Everything you’ve heard about yodeling is wrong.’
Demonstrated most clearly by this Rough Guide is the extent to which
yodeling
has become a worldwide
phenomenon. The distinctive break between bass and falsetto that forms the yodel
has provided a way of
communicating over large distances, perhaps for as long as 10,000 years
appearing independently in Switzerland,
Africa, Russia, Mongolia and the far East before later spreading to the New
World via West African Slaves and
German Settlers.
The North American school of yodeling introduces the album with Cathy Fink’s
‘Yodeling Lesson’, a charming
summary of the basics. This is followed by Janet McBride’s ‘A Yodeling
Addiction’, an account of her lifelong
passion for the technique after she expressed her first spontaneous yodel in
1942. Other US contributions come
later on the album from the likes of Washington truck driver, Mike Johnson;
yodel legend, Kenny Roberts; and
Gillian Welch, modern country’s finest purveyor of poignant hillbilly.
From Switzerland there is Christine Lauterburg’s cut’n’paste/avante garde
‘Erika’s Alptraum’. Her techno-yodel
Echo der Zeit CD went top ten in Switzerland in 1994. This is followed by the
unadorned simplicity of Jodel Duo
Rosy and Paul Hirschi (the only artist present who could claim to be a genuine
hunter, farmer and herder as well
as a yodeler). More surprising contributions come in the form of the Ho’opi’i
Brothers’ ‘Hawaiian Cowboy’. The
brothers grew up on Maui and used the contours of the countryside as they learnt
their singing style.
 The Eastern limits of the yodeling globe brings Kishore Kumar, a legendary
vocal performer, actor, writer and
director in Bollywood cinema. Avant garde vocalist
Sainkho Namtchylak transforms
the great vocal traditions of
Tuva while Africa’s yodelers are represented by musicologist-composer Francis
Bebey and
Baka
Beyond, both
tracks featuring the Pygmy yodel style indigenous to Cameroon
This album contains a data track that includes an
interview with the compiler Bart Plantenga, novelist,
DJ and journalist, Plantenga is the author of
Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret
History of Yodeling Around the World . He is currently
working on a second volume, ‘Yodel In Hi-Fi’, as well as a yodel film
documentary.
Buy the CD and book:
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