Ned Sublette (born 1951) is an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

, record producer,

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

, historian, and author. Sublette studied Spanish

Classical Guitar The classical guitar, also known as Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string (music), string instrument with strings made of catgut, gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the ...

with Hector Garcia at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; ) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1889 by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, it is the state's second oldest university, a flagship university in th ...

and with Emilio Pujol in Spain. He studied

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

with

Kenneth Gaburo Kenneth Louis Gaburo (July 5, 1926 – January 26, 1993) was an American composer. Life Gaburo was born in Somerville, New Jersey. He served as a professor of music at the University of Illinois, the University of California, San Diego, and the Un ...

at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

. He grew up in

Portales, New Mexico Portales () is a city in and the county seat of Roosevelt County, New Mexico, United States. Its population was 12,280 at the 2010 census. Portales is located near the larger city of Clovis, and Cannon Air Force Base, a major contributor to ...

, moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in 1976, and has worked with

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

, LaMonte Young,

Glenn Branca Glenn Branca (October 6, 1948 – May 13, 2018) was an American avant-garde music, avant-garde composer, guitarist, and luthier. Known for his use of volume, scordatura, alternative guitar tunings, minimal music, repetition, drone (music), dronin ...

, David Van Tieghem, Peter Gordon, and Pauline Oliveros.

Music performance

As a performer, Sublette is probably best known for fusing country-western and Afro-Caribbean styles including salsa,

cumbia Cumbia refers to a number of musical rhythms and folk dance traditions of Latin America, generally involving musical and cultural elements from American Indigenous peoples, Europeans, and Africans during colonial times. Cumbia is said to have com ...

and rumba, as reflected on the 1999 album "Cowboy Rumba", as well as his 2012 second album ''Kiss You Down South''. He is also a leading scholar of

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

n music. His label Qbadisc releases Cuban music in the United States and he has released music by Latin musicians including Ritmo Oriental and Issac Delgado and has co-produced Public Radio International's "Afropop Worldwide" show. During the 1980s, he led the Ned Sublette Band, which played country with Cuban stylings. His "Cowboy Rumba" reached number one on World Music Charts Europe during December, 1999. Sublette also performed an experimental radio "mash-up" in 1984 for the "Art on the Beach" series and performs in the

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

br>''Agamemnon''
(1993) with singers Vera Beren and

Arto Lindsay Arthur Morgan "Arto" Lindsay (born May 28, 1953) is an American guitarist, singer, record producer and experimental composer. He was a member of the pioneering 1970s no wave group DNA, which featured on the 1978 compilation '' No New York''. In ...

. In 2006,

Willie Nelson Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and activist. He was one of the main figures of the outlaw country subgenre that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restr ...

released Sublette's song " Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other" in the wake of the success of ''

Brokeback Mountain ''Brokeback Mountain'' is a 2005 American neo-Western romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee and produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus. Adapted from Brokeback Mountain (short story), the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx, the screenplay ...

''.

Writing

His book on Cuban music, ''Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo'' () was published in 2004. ''The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square,'' () was published in 2008 by Lawrence Hill Books. ''The Year Before the Flood: A Story of New Orleans'' () published in 2009 by Lawrence Hill Books continues the history of New Orleans cultures and music.

Awards

Sublette is a 2005

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated d ...

. In 2012 he was a Knight-Luce Fellow for Reporting on Global Religion at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

. He did research in

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

, which resulted in a four-episode ''Hip Deep Angola'' radio series, produced for the public radio program ''Afropop Worldwide''.

Other works

Sublette starred in ''Vidas Perfectas'', a Spanish-language version of Robert Ashley's 1983 "television opera" ''Perfect Lives'', which premiered on stage at Irondale Theater, Brooklyn in December 2011, and which was to be shot for television in 2012.About
, vidasperfectas.org. Accessed online 2 April 2012. In October 2015, Sublette and his wife Constance published ''The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry'' (), a comprehensive history of slave trading in the southern colonies and states.

Discography

*''Western Classics'', as Ned Sublette and the Southwesterners ( Lovely Music, 1980) *''Ships at Sea, Sailors and Shoes'' (Excellent, 1993) *''Monsters from the Deep'' (Excellent, 1997) *''Cowboy Rumba'' ( Palm Pictures, 1999) *''Kiss You Down South'' (Postmambo, 2012)

References

External links

* *
Interview with Ned Sublette on Cuban music

WNYC WNYC is an audio service brand, under the control of New York Public Radio, a non-profit organization. Radio and other audio programming is primarily provided by a pair of nonprofit, noncommercial, public radio stations: WNYC (AM) and WNYC- ...

, January 2009
Interview with Ned Sublette
by Prof.

Joseph Roach Joseph Roach is an American theater historian and scholar, a Sterling Professor emeritus at Yale University, and also a published author. He was also given an honorary Doctor of Letters by University of Warwick. References

Year of birth ...

of Yale University, 2005
Interview with Ned Sublette
by Prof. Vicki Mayer of Tulane University, 2005
Interview with Ned Sublette
by Garnette Cadogan in ''

Bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...

'', Summer 2009, on New Orleans music, Mardi Gras, and history
Ned Sublette performs songs at The Kitchen in New York City, June, 2006

Review of ''The Year Before the Flood'' by Ingrid Norton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sublette, Ned 1951 births American country singer-songwriters Musicians from Lubbock, Texas Living people People from Portales, New Mexico Singer-songwriters from Texas Songwriters from New Mexico American Book Award winners Country musicians from Texas Love of Life Orchestra members