and a Bottle of Rum: The Playlist

A number of months ago, I read Wayne Curtis' superb and immensely enjoyable and a Bottle of Rum:  A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails.  It's all here really:  Rum, history, pirates, the Royal Navy, old Havana, Tiki bars, anthropology, and even recipes.  As I was reading--and drinking--my way through Curtis' socio-historical tale of the New World's definitive tipple, I also started thinking of music.  Keep in mind that the real Lou, besides playing a pirate, is a Doctoral Candidate in Ethnomusicology (the anthropology of music) and a former public radio DJ.  So, when I finished Curtis' book, I went back and figured out how to make a sort of soundtrack to it.  Some of the tunes I already had, others I quickly snatched from iTunes.  At Pauline's request (it didn't take much urging, really), I have posted the annotated playlist here.  Consider this music not just to drink by but to contemplate by...a playlist for the thoughtful rumpot.  We start, in time, at the beginning...

Chapter One:  Kill-Devil
The simplest definition of rum is distilled sugar cane juice.  Whether it comes directly from the cane, from sugar, or from molasses is just one of the variables that make the many varieties of rum different.  Sugar was, with a due nod to historian Sidney Mintz, along with tobacco, the foundation of North American economics, the goods that made the Colonies profitable.  Someone, perhaps in Barbados, figured out that what Curtis calls the "industrial waste" of the sugar plantation could be made into alcohol, and so not only did North America have a native booze but also another tidy means of making cash.  Some called it "rumbullion," meaning "tumult," while others called it "kill-devil."  Let's just say that the earliest rum was hard and rough, the moonshine of the Caribbean.

I lead my playlist with a sort of theme song, performed by my favorite folk trio led by Gordon Bok, Maine's premier maritime folk singer.  "My Images Come" is an ode to to the many inspirations of the songwriter, with "a bottle of rum" a constant in every verse.  It seemed appropriate to acknowledge the slaves that worked the plantations and may in fact have invented rum themselves.  For this I turned, naturally, to possibly the best songcatcher in Ethnomusicology, Alan Lomax, but unable to locate anything from Barbados I instead found a couple good songs from Grenada...

1.  "My Images Come" by Bok, Muir and Trickett from The First Fifteen Years - Volume II -->

2.  "Work Song" by Norman Miller from The Alan Lomax Collection: Caribbean Voyage - Grenada Creole and Yoruba Voices

3.  "Roll, Roll, Roll and Go" by Irene McQueen from The Alan Lomax Collection: Caribbean Voyage - Grenada Creole and Yoruba Voices