Wow: We have gone full circle regarding the music of the world:
Years ago, when I first moved to the Hudson Valley, I met a old singer from the 50s Roy Godes: Roy played and sang beautifully. He had a duet with Leon Bibb back in the day.
Besides doing Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and Josh White tunes, Roy sang many songs from many lands in quite a few languages. He could sing in Spanish, French, Hebrew and Yiddish. I was fascinated. He reminded me that in the 50's kind of Pre Bob Dylan, folk singers were expected to sing in several languages. Well it got me going back to to Leon Bibb,
Theodore Bikel, Harry Belafonte and Paul Robeson and yes, they were all multi-lingual and multi-cultural before the term existed.
Today we have the Putamayo Label and its radio station; the Buena Vista Social Club, Nuevo Flamenco,Congolese Rumba, Cuban Guarilo, Klezma, jibaro de puerto rico , Mexican Ranchero Portuguese Fado I can go on and on and on~ Does anyone stop and realize how much wonderful music exists in the world and much of it is not sung in English! Even though I am based in the Blues, my other guitarist is trying to mix Latin and Spanish tinge to our music.
I play a lot of 12 string guitar and I love double string instruments
The Cuban Laud, the Purto Rican Cuarto Arabic and Turkish Lutes they all sound incredible.
So in a way we are back to where we came from. Raul Robeson would be proud