Platina Polka - echo of a broken generation.
It was in the aftermath of the Anglo-Boer War. The children of the Boers who had survived the most violent war since the Mfecane genocide of Shaka the Zulu, were for the most part impoverished.
After the pyritic ore crisis of the early 90's, the ensuing worldwide economic semi-depression, the utterly devastating runderpest of 1896 with its accompanying drought, the war in which over 27,000 women and children were exterminated in the concentration camps and over 30,000 farms were burnt down, the drought that followed immediately when the war ended, the ravages of the First World War, and the death angel's even deadlier sweep during the Spanish flu of 1918, many of the Boer families were precariously balanced on one leg.
And then followed the Great Depression of the 1930's with the greatest drought in living memory. And that wiped out many Afrikaner families and after decades of constant misfortune, drove them to final pauperdom.
Some lost hope and faded away into deadly obscurity. A few survived and found ways to flourish. But in-between, there were those who suffered all the hardships you could name, but never lost the sweetness of their souls.
And they were the ones who made music. During this very time, the music of four of these die-hards of the new generation was recorded. They were Chris Chomse, Klaas Erasmus, Baba Wintterbach and Chris Winterbach. And they called themselves the Lydenburg Vastrappers - the Lydenburg quicksteppers.
None of them had music education. Music lessons weren't affordable back then. But music makes itself if you want it badly enough, and they had simply taught themselves.
It was a time during which both America and South Africa made similar kinds of music. It was music without pretentiousness because it was forged during hard times, for bruised and wounded souls. America had its Carter Family and other groups who played out the dust bowl years. South Africa had the Vos Brothers, the Grobler brothers, Silver de Lange and his orchestra, Die Vyf Dagbrekers, die Vier Transvalers - and - the Lydenburg Vastrappers.
During this time, music on both sides of the Atlantic tended to be characteristically sad and melancholy. But not always. Sometimes it was bright and jolly - and when you listen to such recordings, you begin to understand why this broken generation prevailed after all.
Perhaps they never knew any easy times in their own lives. But they lived through it all and made it possible for the generation after them to know exceedingly prosperous years. They left us their wisdom, their experience and the treasure of their music that was born when days were dark, and friends were few, but when there was just enough of a glimmer of the hope upon the horizon, to believe that dawn would break in due time after all.
Негізгі бет Die Lydenburgse Vastrappers - Platina Polka
Пікірлер: 3