Mario Barradas and Son Jarocho

The major, yet under-recognized, musical figure Mario Barradas provides rich and ample grist for the documentation and exploration of the history of one of Mexico’s most prominent musical traditions, the Son Jarocho. The interviews with Barradas and the accompanying essays on his career are such an engaging and revelatory look at the music’s social and musical history that I couldn’t stop reading. Barradas’s life shaped the course of the Son Jarocho from rural Veracruz to Mexico City, and this book offers special insight into the dynamics of that history. Barradas's memories of the music from the 1930s, his key role in the evolution of the music as a professional Jarocho musician in Mexico City in the 1940s and beyond, his presence in the enormously impactful Golden Age of Mexican cinema, and his preeminence representingJarocho regional and cultural identity over many decades contribute greatly to our collective understanding of Mexico and its music, as well as to the music’s migration and enduring popularity in the US over a half century of evolution.

— Daniel Sheehy, Former director and curator of the Smithsonian Folkways Recording and Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

If the music of Son Jarocho begins, as some believe, in river waters, then this essential book is a winding riverbank soaked with memory, history, and cultural change. With the vital oral history of legendary harpist Mario Barradas at its center, it tracks tradition as much as change, from Indigenous roots to big screen cinema, from rural Veracruz and Oaxaca to the streets of Mexico City and East Los Angeles. This is a single life story that opens up into wider musical worlds.

— Josh Kun, University of Southern California, editor of The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles

An important anthology that documents the long life, legacy, and far-reaching transnational influence of a Son Jarocho giant, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the Son Jarocho music genre or Mexican music in general.

— Martha González, Scripps College, author of Chican@ Artivistas: Music, Community, and Transborder Tactics in East Los Angeles