No-No Boy – 1975

No-No Boy is the musical project of Vietnamese American singer and scholar Julian Saporiti. On his Smithsonian Folkways debut 1975, named after the year Saigon fell, Saporiti investigates his own family heritage as well as life in WWII Japanese internment camps, immigrant detention centers and refugee camps in 2020, and other stories of immigration that illustrate the complexities of becoming American. His songs are the epitome of folk storytelling in the modern era, as he interweaves histories with field recordings from the sites of collective trauma and fragments of Asian American musical tradition, from jazz to rock, to choral music. With his plaintive, direct voice, he takes listeners on a deeply human journey through the Asian American experience in the US.

1. St. Denis or Bangkok, from a Hotel Balcony
2. Imperial Twist
3. The Best God Damn Band in Wyoming
4. Gimme Chills
5. Close Your Eyes and Dream of Flowers
6. Honouliuli
7. Pilgrims
8. Where the Sand Creek Meets the Arkansas River
9. Tell Hanoi I Love Her
10. Khmerica
11. Miss Burma
12. Tony Ramone

Label: Smithsonian Folkways

Catalog: 40592

Genre: Rock