Joe Boyd’s revered productions of artists ranging from Pink Floyd, The Incredible String Band and Nick Drake had been widely-circulated and universally-acclaimed. He had worked with Stanley Kubrick at Warner Bros to assemble the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange. He founded the UFO Club which featured avant-garde artists like Soft Machine — which became his house band — and Yoko Ono. Productions of R.E.M., Billy Bragg, 10,000 Maniacs, Fairport Convention and Richard and Linda Thompson followed. He directed Jimi Hendrix, the eponymous documentary. But if you were paying attention, you would have made note of the through-line running through Joe’s prolific output — World Music. His productions of artists such as Dagmar Krause, Nazakat & Salamat Ali, the Trio Bulgarka, ¡Cubanismo!, Virginia Rodrigues, Damir Imamović and several others demonstrated his versatility to trancend not only genre, but also language and culture. Joe’s vibrant musical output eclipsed what we thought was possible in the art and science of music. His latest book, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, examines the origins, impact and cultural undertones which define world music through his lens. In our conversation, we discussed the roots of his latest masterpiece; political-songwriting through shifting of culture; categorization as a benefit toward creativity; and musical and storytelling experiences with Brian Eno, David Bryne, Bob Dylan, Mike Heron and others.
Opening Credits: 1st Contact - Just Quickly I CC BY-SA; Ahmadreza Safarian - Forgotten Corpses I CC BY-NC-SA. Closing Credits: Till Paradiso - Here the Stars for You (TP 063) - CC BY-NC-SA.