Flowers of Our Lost Romance — Recording
Los californios® have
recorded their first album, which includes
60 minutes of beautiful early California dances
and songs sung in the original archaic Spanish.
 Two
pieces from this CD are part of the
music used in The
Remuda, a DVD film by J & S
Productions about the evolution of
the buckaroo beginning in California
over 200 years ago. Other musicians
featured in this movie include Pedro
Marquez, Ian Tyson and Dave Stamey.
For a video clip produced by the Lively Arts
History Association using this recording for
the audio, click
here.
Music from this CD was also used
for a Latino USA program reporting on the descendents
of Spanish and Mexican-era Californians and their
efforts to preserve agenealogical identity.
Click
here for music samples, album notes and
words for the songs.
Sheet Music Transcriptions and Books
Music of Early California | Songs
from Rancho Camulos | El
ciego Melquíades Rodríguez
 Music
of Early California — Songs and Dance Tunes
Research by Los californios® has
resulted in a growing number of original transcriptions
and arrangements of songs and dance tunes, many
from the Edison wax cylindersrecorded by Charles
Fletcher Lummis. This is available as a comb-bound
book containing 402 pages of music transcribed
over a period of ten years, mostly from primary
sources, and arranged with chord indications
in common folk music keys. Lead and harmony lines
(segunda) are included for most pieces in the
traditional style, and an index to the pieces
is included. Most of these pieces have not been
readily available to a general audience for over
a hundred years. These transcriptions finally
make this music once again accessible and available
for performers and scholars.
Click
here for specific titles.
Songs from
Rancho Camulos
Just released, this publication
focuses on the repertoire of the del Valle family
of Rancho Camulos, located near Magic Mountain,
north of Los Angeles. This is the first segment
of the tunes in our larger work to be broken
out by the area where they were collected.
Click
here for more information.
El ciego Melquíades
 The
Fiddle Tunes of Melquíades Rodríguez,
a tejano fiddler of yesterday
This Texas-Mexican fiddler recorded
in San Antonio, Texas from 1935 until about 1950.
His popular and lively style fiddle-based dance
music was about to succumb to the post World
War II trend for louder and flashier sounds.
As the fiddle was replaced by the accordion in
Tex-Mex music, these fiddle tunes faded from
the popular scene.
Discover for yourself the delights
of playing the repertoire of this Mexican and
tejano heritage.
Click
here for further description and specific
titles.
The San Diego Friends of Old-Time Music Store
Books on Folk Arts, Native American and Folk
Arts
Check out the gift shop on your
way out, and discover some amazing reading on
such things as New Mexican folk culture, an historic
edition of Walter Starkie’s classic two-volume
work on Spanish music (including the rare accompanying
recordings), and Polly Schaafsma’s authoritative
and delightful 1994 book: Kachinas in the Pueblo
World. And, as if that weren’t enough to
encourage you to linger, take a peek at the folk
art artifects (Lummis’ preferred spelling)
including Hopi Kachina dolls and other native
American folk art.
Click
here to enter gift shop.
Los
californios® is
a registered service mark belonging to San
Diego Friends of Old-Time Music, Inc., a
California non-profit corporation.
Contact Los
californios® at info@loscalifornios.com
© Vykki Mende Gray, 2008,
All rights reserved. Revised January 31, 2009
by Ellen Wallace
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