Path of Pain, Caife Records, Quito 1960-68 and Cantoras: Venezuelan country folk singer Honest Jon's Records/Odelia Records from 1972 to 1983 hide caption

Path of Pain, Caife Label, Quito 1960-68 and Cantoras: 1972-1983 Venezuelan country folk singer

While preparing for this week’s podcast, I was brought back in time. I spent a lot of time listening to the tracks from two new albums, which capture the very different histories of the two Latin American countries.

In 2016, I interviewed Daniel Lofredo Rota about a series of tapes he found in his grandfather's office. They eventually became the lost tape catalog of a small independent record company called Discos Caife that he ran in Quito, Ecuador. This year, Lofredo Rota released The Paths Of Pain, The Caife Label, Quito 1960-68, which is a collection of some of the new digital tapes. I encourage you to listen to the 2016 episode to understand the importance of follow-up this week.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to a seminar about this episode of Cantoras: The Second Compilation of Venezuelan Country Folk Singers from 1972 to 1983, which was produced by the archivist Oswaldo Lares (Oswaldo Lares) A collection of archive recordings of Venezuelan folk artists. His project partner, singer Betsayda Machado also performed for a Tiny Desk concert in 2018. Together they listened to thousands of recordings he made for little-known Venezuelan folk artists, and composed a batch of songs for their first editing.

You will be able to stream these two albums on various streaming services, but these versions have a lot of important history. I encourage you to visit the websites of the two record companies and read the historical facts listed in each album brochure.

You can buy Cantoras here: Venezuelan Country Folk Singer and Path of Pain from 1972-1983, label Caife, Quito here from 1960-68.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly named Daniel Lofredo Rota as Daniel Lofredo.