Noticing xxvii - 1970s Chilean folk music

Driving home from the market today I was listening, as usual, to NPR, and they were broadcasting about the current civil unrest in Bolivia. In the background you could hear thousands of people yelling, "El pueblo unido jamás será vencido"—which took me right back to some music I enjoyed listening to in the 1970s, and haven't thought of for quite some time: the Chilean groups Quilapayún and Inti Illimani. Both had anthems for the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende (Inti Illimani's cover of "Venceremos" caused Allende to famously state, "There can be no revolution without song"), and both went into exile in Europe—France and Italy, respectively—after the 1973 coup. The two groups still exist, in somewhat different forms, for their long histories haven't been without strife. They were permitted to return to Chile after 1988 and Pinochet's ouster.

They and their music were part of a widespread movement called Nueva canción that also took in Argentina, Cuba, Spain, and other Spanish-speaking countries during that era of pro-democracy social upheaval.

Here is Quilapayún with a righteous "El pueblo unido" (1973), followed by the more recent incarnations of both groups coming together in 2010 on a classic, "La muralla." (They've also put out a two-volume live recording, Inti + Quil: Músicas en la memoria, juntos en Chile, a YouTube video of which concert can be seen here. It's lovely music.)