Ned Sublette

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ned Sublette (born 1951 in Lubbock, Texas) is an American composer, musician, and musicologist. He is a classically trained guitarist, and studied composition with Kenneth Gaburo at the University of California, San Diego. He grew up in Portales, New Mexico, moved to New York City in 1976, and has worked with John Cage, LaMonte Young, Glenn Branca, and Peter Gordon.

He is well known as a country music singer and is leading scholar of Cuban music. His label Qbadisc releases Cuban music in the United States and he has produced Latin musicians including Ritmo Oriental and Isaac Delgado and has co-produced Public Radio International's "Afropop Worldwide" show.

During the nineteen eighties, he led the Ned Sublette Band, which played country with Cuban stylings. In 2006, Willie Nelson released Sublette's song "Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other" in the wake of the success of Brokeback Mountain. His albums include 1999's Latin country Cowboy Rumba. He began his book on Cuban music, Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo (ISBN 1-55652-516-8), in 1999 and it was published in 2004.

Sublette is a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow.