Chavez, Alt Primera and Venezuela: The Politics of Music in Latin America.

• Author: Mcsherry, J. Patrice
• Position: LATIN AMERICA - Book review

Marsh, Hazel. Hugo Chavez, Alt Primera and Venezuela: The Politics of Music in Latin America. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Hazel Marsh has written a thought-provoking and original analysis of how popular song and folk musicians can generate unforeseen and rippling impacts for years to come in the politics of a changing country. Her case study centers on Ali Primera, a musician, best known for his song "Cardboard Houses," who was an integral part of the Nueva Cancion [New Song] movement in Venezuela. Primera died in 1985, long before Hugo Chavez emerged as a central political actor in the country, yet the singer's musical legacy reverberated among the poor and excluded sectors [el pueblo] and subsequently was incorporated within Chavez's political campaigns in the 1990s. Marsh's work demonstrates how cantautores [singer-songwriters] can become symbolic and beloved figures when they challenge unjust social hierarchies and defend the interests of the dispossessed.

La Nueva Cancion was a continental movement. In many countries across the region in the 1960s a new generation was politicized by the Cold War, the Cuban revolution, United States intervention, and national struggles for liberation. Tired of...