In Voices of Drought, Michael B. Silvers proposes a scholarship focused on environmental justice to understand key questions in the study of music and the environment. His ecomusicological perspective offers a fascinating approach to events in Ceará, a northeastern Brazilian state affected by devastating droughts. These crises have a profound impact on social difference and stratification, and thus on forró music in the sertão (backlands) of the region. At the same time, the complex interactions of popular music and social conditions also help create the environment.

Silvers offers case studies focused on the sertão that range from the Brazilian wax harvested in Ceará for use in early wax cylinder sound recordings to the drought- and austerity-related cancellation of Carnival celebrations in 2014-16. Unearthing links between music and the environmental and social costs of drought, his daring synthesis explores ecological exile, poverty, and unequal access to water resources alongside issues like corruption, prejudice, unbridled capitalism, and expanding neoliberalism.

| Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction CHAPTER 1. Hills, Dales, and the Jaguaribe Valley: Carnauba Wax at the Dawn of Recorded Sound CHAPTER 2. "Help Your Brother": Drought Songs as Protest CHAPTER 3. The Secret of the Sertanejo: Listening to Forró, Hearing Drought CHAPTER 4. Sounding the Real Backlands: Raimundo Fagner and the Soundscape of Orós CHAPTER 5. Real or Plastic Forró: Soundscapes of a Changing Economy CHAPTER 6. Forró, or Bread and Circuses: Carnival in Times of Drought Conclusion References Index |"This unique and timely work offers an important contribution to our understanding of how music and ecology are linked."—Jennifer C. Post, editor of Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader, Volume II
|Michael B. Silvers is an assistant professor of musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.