Libby Harding
Conjunto Jardin
Folk Alliance, February 1999
I'm talking to Libby Harding here...you do Mexican music mostly? That's what I'm doing right now, I've had a history of doing all sorts of different kinds of music, but right now, we're playing music from Veracruz, Mexico; it's called jarocho music and we're having a lot of fun with it. Its actually a style of music that I started playing as a little kid, learning from my father and my sister and I learned to play this style, and my father plays jarocho, the Veracruz harp, and my sister learned to play the raquinto which is a 4 stringed instrument you pick..plays melodies, sort of a lead guitar and I play a jarana, which is sort of a strummed guitar, and we played this as kids with my father, played it all the time with him but then went into many other styles, wrote our own songs, played styles from all over Latin America but about a year and a half ago decided to have our own jarocho group and do it our own way and take it more seriously as opposed to something we just did with our own family. You were telling me you grew up in Brownsville. My mother's from Brownsville. Your mother's from Brownsville... But I've been there quite a bit. So you're from California... Yes. Okay. Now how did you get this influence as a child? You don't look like you're... Yes, I'm gringa! With somewhat light colored hair...Well, my father is a professor of Latin American studies and a musician and he traveled throughout Mexico learning many styles of American music, and he's Anglo too, so there's no genetic reason we're playing this music. He actually started to play this music because he met somebody who said, hey there's this harpis who's really poor and can't make his rent, why don't you take lessons from him. My father said sure...this was Mexico City, so he went to meet this maestro and started taking lessons and it took him quite a journey. My father learned to make all the instruments, learned to play the harp, play the jarano, play the raquinta, make the instruments, and then traveled throughout the state of Veracruz accompanying him and learning all about this style, and then my father just taught us. That's a neat story. It's kind of a weird one but...it was economics that got my father into it. And you started out...did you start out with Sabia or did you start out just playing. As a kid we started out playing...at street fairs, we were always playing jarocho music. It just seemed like something I grew up with. And then my sister went to Brown University and started Sabia...and that was in '76 if you can believe that one. Who is your sister? My sister's Cindy Harding. And she is in Conjunto Jardin with us. And she...when Sabia moved from the East Coast to the West Coast they moved into the house I was living in and I joined the group because it just seemed the thing to do. And they were already performing my songs...I was writing songs in Spanish at a pretty young age.and then I got involved in that...and then Sabia toured throughout the US and Canada and the US throughout the 80s doing Central American Solidarity work. So they were playing what kind of music? Nueva cancion...New Song from Latin America...political conscience music, also mostly by and about women in Latin America, that was sort of a subset of what we did, but all sorts of styles from Latin America, including some jarocho music which is the specific style we are playing now, some Venezuelan songs, along with my own original songs in Spanish. The when that group broke up in '89, although it...I say we broke up but we stopped touring heavily, we stopped being a full time touring band, we continued to be Sabia still...if someone calls us to do a benefit, there we are. Can't really say we disbanded. But Word Of Mouth started in about 1989, '90 and that was singing more in English, mostly original.music including some covers...a Woody Guthrie one. That was the one that went over so big. It was...yeh. It was somewhat popular, and we sang "Pastures of Plenty,"" Deportees" and "The Times Are A Changing," a Dylan song. We sang a medley of those that seemedto catch on with some people. Uh-huh. And yes, Word Of Mouth did some touring, mostly in the southwest and we put out one album,. We still play in Los Angeles and Word Of Mouth. I don't know, I just decided to start a new group called Conjunto Jardin. So who is in... your sister? My sister and my husband...whose name is Gary Johnson and who is also in Sabia and in Word of Mouth, he's a keyboard player and we have two other Word Of Mouth members in Conjunto Jardin... Ha! Sounds like its almost the same group. It is, except the style is different. But yeh, its hard to figure out who's who, so we just have to go by the name, but we have a West African percussionist Marcel Adjibi and Rick Moors on bass...its note even very traditional instrumentation for the style. I was going to ask you that. How does that differ from... Well, my sister and I are playing traditional instruments, although I have a pick up on my jarana which already takes it a little bit out of the realm. And what is that now? A jarana is an 8 stringed small guitar....stummed guitar...and they come in all different sizes, kind of a highest sound. My sister plays raquinta, the 4 stringed instrument that she plays with a pick. And those are the traditional instruments. The other traditional instrument is the harp...a diatonic acoustic harp What does diatonic mean? It means it plays in one key, for example they're tuned in the key of C and a relative minor. If you want to play in another key you have to retune. In specific notes. And the strange thing about our group is that we don't have a harp, and the harp parts are played on a keyboard, which freaks out the traditionalists which we kind of enjoy. He makes the sound of the harp on the keyboard and a lot of people hear it and don't realize that it's a keyboard and other people think its perfectly normal to do that so...its just sort of a thing we do. And we added the electric bass which is kind of ..it reinforces the bass notes of the harp and the persussion is totally added...we added a hi hat cause we sort of wanted to give it an agressive edge. So where is Veracruz? Veracruz is on the eastern shore of Mexico on the Gulf Coast. And is there things in common...that are common all over Mexico. I had had a discussion with someone who really didnt want to hear tejano music...he was from Mexico and he didnt feel very close to that at all. Well, there are so many regional styles in Mexico and they are all very different and unique. There are similarities. Jarocho music is more...being from the coast its more of a pirate culture, it's a lot of African influence being on the coast and in the port that was the entry for many different cultures, including French people came there and Africans were brought there as slaves so that there are a lot of different influences in jarocho music and you can definately hear the influence in the syncopations and the call and response style in the singing and certain other musical structures. Now when you listen to music, what kind of music do you listen to? A lot of different kinds. I certainly am a total fan of jarocho music.and many styles of Mexican music, but I listen to African music, both Afro-Pop and more traditional stuff stuff...I listen to singer-songwriters...I listen to all different styles of music. Just sort of depends on what I'm interested in. I have real broad taste in music. Thats what everyone says. Really? Yeh. That's a good musician. That must mean something! But you bring stuff in, listening to all that stuff. Absolutely. Are you touring around? Mostly in California right now., though we're making so many great contacts here at this meeting at Albuquerque I'm sure we're going to be traveling more, in concentric circles sort of.growing. Where do you play? Do you play for Mexican people at all? We do, we do in Los Angeles. Word Of Mouth did not have a following with the Latino community in LA but Conjunto Jardin does. Which is an interesting thing because none of us in the group are Latinos but there's a heartwarming acceptance of what we do. The general reaction is Wow you're gringos playing this music, you must think its good and it must make people feel good about their own music. What's happening with Latinos in Los Angeles, do they play that kind of music? There's nobody playing jarocho music, but there is certainly some banda, Tex-Mex, there's all sorts of different styles and lots of mariachis. What exactly is mariachi? Mariachi is another regional style, it's a larger band and its from the Guadalajara area, its just another style and very...certainly a well known style from Mexico.