Los Hermanos Lovo, a family band based in northern Virginia, plays traditional Chanchona music
Los Hermanos Lovo, a family band based in northern Virginia, plays traditional Chanchona music. Smithsonian Folkways traveled to Guatajiagua, El Salvador, home of the Love patriarch. There, they met with family members who also play chanchona, and visited a radio station famous for promoting this regional music. When the family group Los Hermanos Lovo fled the civil war of the 1980s and 1990s, they took their homegrown music with them to Washington, D.C. There, the lively sounds of the cumbia, a dance rhythm rooted in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, are as much an invitation to dance as a way of creating a sense of "home" and cultural solidarity. www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=3361 This album is part of the Smithsonian Folkways Tradiciones/Traditions, a co-production with the Smithsonian Latino Center, showcasing the diverse musical heritage of the 50 million Latinos living in the USA. www.folkways.si.edu/find_recordings/Latino.aspx Director and curator Daniel E. Sheehy explains what makes for a good Smithsonian Folkways album: "My shortest answer is that I look for a recording that has both great music and a great story," Sheehy says. "The recording '¡Soy Salvadoreño! Chanchona Music from Eastern El Salvador by Los Hermanos Lovo' is a good example of what I mean by 'great music with a great story.'" Read more in the Fall 2011 edition of Smithsonian Folkways Magazine www.folkways.si.edu/magazine/2011_fall/cover_story-chanchona.aspx The content and comments posted here are subject to the Smithsonian Institution copyright and privacy policy (www.si.edu/copyright/ ). Smithsonian reserves the right in its sole discretion to remove any content at any time.
