30 October 2021

A Halloween frightener

The BIB editor writes:

This cover design from Alan Brown's book is as close as we could find to a Halloween bluegrass image; it certainly suggests an illustration of the Country Gentlemen's 1965 recording of 'Bringing Mary home'. The suitability of this song and other bluegrass songs for Halloween is masterfully discussed by Chris Jones on Bluegrass Today; this feature is warmly recommended to BIB readers.

But for something scary, the BIB will try to atone for treating National Hispanic Heritage Month perhaps too lightly, by giving this link to the Mexican jarocho song 'La bruja' ('The witch'), performed by Tlen Huicani, the magnificent string band and vocal group from Veracruz. In defence of this apparent jump to another genre of music, I refer to Henry Schmidt's article 'Huapango, or Mexican bluegrass' in Bluegrass Unlimited, vol. 3, no. 3 (Sept. 1968), p. 7. Jarocho music is the Veracruz brand of huapango.

© Richard Hawkins

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