Lila Downs
One of Mexico's most internationally recognised singers, Lila Downs has fused an impassioned delivery of Mexican ranchera, ballad and coastal songs with a growing willingness to take traditional compositions and metamorphose them them into something rich, layered and multi genre encompassing. Over the last fourteen years her albums have grown progressively more adventurous, wrapping, jazz, blues, ska and electronic sounds around her many voices with range from the purest sweetest soprano to the deep throated aching lament of a village girl moarning her lost lovbe, with every thing in between.
Born in 1968 to a Mixtec mother and a US filmaker from Colorado Springs, her childhood was spent between Tlaxiaco and St Paul Minnesota. She attended high school in Oaxaca city, also studying voice at Bellas Artes (the countries most prostigious arts establishment) in Mexico City.
She continued her studies in music and anthropology at the university of Minnesota, although she dropped out for a period in which she says she "Began writing songs about Mixtec immigrants who go to the U.S: to work in the fields and the kitchens". Other accounts also tell of her spending this time following the Grateful Dead around the country in a VW van, dissilusioned with singing and earning money by making and selling jewellery.
It was during this tumultuous time that she met Paul Cohen, a US jazz musician who became her musical collaborater and eventual husband. The two began writing songs together and and Downs rediscovered her enthusiasm both for singing and her Mixtecan heritage.
It was La Sadunga's (19997) mixture of folkloric songs underpinned by subtle jazz stylings that began to garner the singer widespread attention. Cohens arrangements showcased the voice of Downs, an instrument that could mutate from a full throated organ of lament through to a perfectly pitched lovers whisper, transforming itself into rthe excuberant whoop of the Oaxacan village gossip along the way. The majority of the songs were traditional compositions from Mexico, including the anthem of the Mixtec and the great Oaxaqueñan composer Alvaro Carrillo's "Sabor a mí".
The tree of Life, released in 2000 was inspired by zapotec and mixtec codices and was also recorded in Oaxaca. Subsequent albums Border (2001) and una sangre (2004), contained more self penned songs together with an ampification of themes, dealing with Mexicans immigrating into the states and national political issues. For La Cantina (2006) Down and Cohen widened the trajectory of the music even more, introducing overdubbed beats and electronic touches to an already full pallette.
The current album "Shake Away" has won positive reviews from the national and international press (see links) for its riotous collection of styles and it's variety of collaborators, from Enrique Bunburry to legendary Argentinian singer Mercedes Sasa. With her international reputation continuing to expand, Downs recently toured Europe supporting the record.
By John Holman
Other sites of interest:
Official Lila Downs website
* http://www.liladowns.com/liladaSite/inicio.html
Lila Downs Myspace
* http://www.myspace.com/liladowns
articles in the New York Times
* http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=lila+downs&srchst=cse
AMG biography and disc reviews
* http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:kxfpxqqkld6e
Guardian Shake Away review
* http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/oct/03/folkreview.liladowns