Tomas Graves

On completion Tuning Up At Dawn achieved a lot of what I like from a book; it educates, enlightens and entertains. I say on completion because at around 100 pages I really wondered if the book would develop any cohesion. It's a challenging opening quarter of quickfire facts, anecdotes, and name dropping without having developed any real context. That all comes later and thank goodness I perservered, as the book then settles into a more engaging style and with developed themes which are very wide ranging. Graves ambitiously covers an immense amount of subject matter whilst using musical references to glue it all together.
I learned a lot about the end of the Franco era, its cultural impact, and the rapid changes in Spain and especially with reference to the fiercely independant region of Catalonia. I learned also about the close political and emotional ties between Majorca (Mallorca) and Catalonia, not least in the language, and the rather looser ties with other Balearic islands.
Deia is the Bohemian backdrop to Graves life and career as a bookbinder and then musician, and to his childhood as the son of the English poet and author Robert Graves. Many well known names pass through and many stay, some such as Robert Wyatt become an indelible part of the landscape. Artists as diverse as Paul Bowles, Spike Milligan, Kevin Ayres, and many local and visiting, and oft returning, heroes from the world of art whether painting, literary or musical, illuminate Graves' text.
I was enlightened by the connections made of Majorcan music to that of other lands though especially that of Cuba, and how folk music was such a discretely potent force for communciation of resistance and preservation of identity during times of dictatorship when every word was analysed and anything dissenting seized upon.
Also a recurring theme is that of the flamenco style of song and dance and its various and differing forms of expression not only within Spain but around the Spanish speaking world.
Graves entertains with stories from childhood and the family and social gatherings around his father and then through a tough but satisfying life in music. Graves is humble in describing his own ability to adapt to playing stringed instruments more than competently within almost any style of music from folk to punk, rock to flamenco, and is passionate about them all and reveres an impressive list of band mates. He understates his own stable presence around which the entire Majorcan music scene from Deia to Palma seems to revolve, and he imparts beautifully nights of music euphoria as well as near comical disaster which always seems to be averted through sheer desire to entertain and enjoy.
The book is thoroughly researched and needed to be to make the enormous amount of factual detail contained therein not to seem overpowering or unecessary, and carried through liberal use of connecting anecdotes of some major luminaries contrasting with small brushstrokes of Majorcan peasant life. Graves transcends the worlds of the internationally famous with the local legends who live on an island yet have never even seen the sea.
Had the book commenced at page 100 it woud be none the worse or less remarkable for it, so I would encourage other readers to dig deep to get their reward.… (mer)