Two sides of one tune

Latvian and Estonian musicians perform some shared Folk songs in the next Estonian Music Week Online Concert

VINCENT TEETSOV

An evergreen musical artist or band is one who can inhabit a diverse range of moods in their songs. They make the kind of music that you can leave playing for hours because the sentiments they communicate flow rapidly like our own. They show many states of mind. Musicians like these are even more timeless when the music they play speaks to people across linguistic or geographical boundaries.

On the 25th of March at 8:00 PM (EST), savour some evergreen music with the latest Estonian Music Week Memories of Home online concert, featuring performances by Linda Maruta Kronbergs, Roland Campbell, and Helmi and Merike Hess. You can access the concert on Estonian Music Week’s Facebook page (https:// www.facebook.com/Estonian­ MusicWeek) and VEMU’s YouTube channel (http://youtube.com/channel/UCT0mLjjfm8yceOr13rl-siw).

The evening will include a retrospective video and photo montage of Linda’s career and a conversation about some of the most memorable moments of her life as a musician. And I can confirm that she has many interesting anecdotes and concepts to share!

The music she has written, recorded, and performed as a solo artist, in bands, and in stage productions has connected to audiences all over. Her music and voice have made their way around Canada and the United States, but also to Latvia, where she periodically performs. Being Latvian-Canadian, there has always been a line running between her music and her ancestral home.

One occurrence early on that established that line was being recruited into the beloved Latvian folk band Čikāgas piecīšī (“Chicago Five”) in 1984, at the end of high school. For the second half of the group’s lifetime, she brought her skills as a sporadic session singer and instrumentalist to the studio for an album, and to the stage of Latvian festivals and events across North America.

When she joined, the band had been around for a while, having debuted at the 1961 Latvian Youth Days. In their shows, they stood in a line and filled venues with bold and sometimes jocose acoustic songs with guitar, banjo, harmonizing and alternating vocals, and rustling tambourine percussion.

Čikāgas piecīšī was a band that cracked jokes with their lyrics and stage banter, just as much as they sang songs of national pride (“Made in Latvia”) and soft ballads like Līgo dziesma (“Midsummer Song”). In any of these instances, their music had a fresh angle because it was written from the diaspora perspective, of being away from home.

However, they were about to uncover something unexpected about their musical legacy. Though Linda wasn’t personally there at the time, during their 1989 tour of Latvia, Čikāgas piecīšī became aware that their songs were hugely popular in Latvia. Even though they hadn’t ever played there before.

Sometime between their beginning in 1961 until their 1989 tour, clandestine recordings of the band’s music were distributed around homes and listened to secretly. During the tour, they noticed how the crowds knew the lyrics to their songs and sang along. Imagine writing and playing songs for 28 years to a select audience, and then crossing an ocean to find, unbeknownst to you, that a totally new audience loved your music. For Čikāgas piecīšī, this happened before any online music streaming platforms or viral video phenomena. As Linda continued to play in the group, including two tours in Latvia, the music she had been playing with them took on extra meaning.

In 2011, Čikāgas piecīšī came to an end after 50 years, bringing to rest a veritable cultural force in the lives of Latvians. At the 2019 edition of the Canadian Latvian Song and Dance Festival, four members of the band – Linda, Janīna Ankipāns, Armands Birkens, and Alnis Cers – were awarded Three Star Order medals from the ambassador of Latvia in Canada, for the accomplishments of Čikāgas piecīšī.

But this is just part of her career. As a solo artist, she released the pop rock album “Buttercup” in 2000, which she sang in English. As part of a larger collaboration with Latvian singer Igo, she played the songs through several Latvian tours. Her song “Crazy Feelin’” was included on Igo’s 2008 album Spēle (“The Game”), where her voice blends soulfully with his in a duet.

She performed in the musical Tas vakars piektdienā (“It’s Friday Night”). From 2004 to 2005, she played the lead role in the musical Eslingena, about Latvians in a displaced persons camp, which ran for a series of dates at the Latvian National Theatre in Riga.

She has a powerful voice, hitting notes with clarity and flourishes that establish a song’s strong hooks like robust steel. It will be interesting, then, to hear these qualities applied to the kind of music that ignited her musical path. For this upcoming concert, Linda will be performing traditional Latvian folk songs.

Some songs are common between Latvia and Estonia. Roland Campbell will sing two songs. Helmi and Merike Hess will bring their finely tuned harmonies to three songs. As part of her performance, Linda will sing three shared songs.

The Estonian Music Week team would like to thank Estonian-Latvian translator Rūta Karma, in Riga, for assembling a list of songs known to both Estonians and Latvians for this concert.

For all of the above, you’ll really want to hear for yourself the voices of these musicians on the night of the 25th! It’ll be a great event to connect once more with our fellow Baltic friends.

Poster created by Laani Heinar, using photos from Linda Maruta Kronbergs’ photo collection.