Ned Sublette (born 1951) is an Americancomposer,musician, record producer,musicologist, historian, and author. Sublette studied SpanishClassical Guitar withHector Garcia at theUniversity of New Mexico and withEmilio Pujol in Spain. He studiedcomposition withKenneth Gaburo at theUniversity of California, San Diego. He grew up inPortales, New Mexico, moved toNew York City in 1976, and has worked withJohn Cage,LaMonte Young,Glenn Branca,David Van Tieghem,Peter Gordon, andPauline Oliveros.
As a performer, Sublette is probably best known for fusing country-western and Afro-Caribbean styles includingsalsa,cumbia andrumba,[1] as reflected on the 1999 album "Cowboy Rumba", as well as his 2012 second albumKiss You Down South. He is also a leading scholar ofCuban music. His label Qbadisc releases Cuban music in the United States and he has released music by Latin musicians includingRitmo Oriental andIssac Delgado and has co-produced Public Radio International's "Afropop Worldwide" show.[citation needed]
During the 1980s, he led the Ned Sublette Band, which played country with Cuban stylings. His "Cowboy Rumba" reached number one on World Music Charts Europe during December, 1999.[2] Sublette also performed an experimental radio "mash-up" in 1984 for the "Art on the Beach" series[3] and performs in theoperaAgamemnon (1993) with singers Vera Beren andArto Lindsay.In 2006,Willie Nelson released Sublette's song "Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other" in the wake of the success ofBrokeback Mountain.[4]
His book on Cuban music,Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo (ISBN 1-55652-516-8) was published in 2004.[5]The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square, (ISBN 9781556527302) was published in 2008 by Lawrence Hill Books.[6]The Year Before the Flood: A Story of New Orleans (ISBN 9781556528248) published in 2009 by Lawrence Hill Books continues the history of New Orleans cultures and music.
Sublette is a 2005Guggenheim Fellow. In 2012 he was a Knight-Luce Fellow for Reporting on Global Religion at theUniversity of Southern California. He did research inAngola, which resulted in a four-episodeHip Deep Angola radio series, produced for the public radio programAfropop Worldwide.[7]
Sublette starred inVidas Perfectas, a Spanish-language version ofRobert Ashley's 1983 "television opera"Perfect Lives, which premiered on stage at Irondale Theater, Brooklyn in December 2011, and which was to be shot for television in 2012.[8]
In October 2015, Sublette and his wife Constance publishedThe American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry (ISBN 978-1-61374-820-6), a comprehensive history of slave trading in the southern colonies and states.
