As I sifted through the local bins at Folk Arts Rare Records, it was the cover art that first caught my eye. A picture of the San Diego skyline as seen from Shelter Island, but with noticeably fewer high-rises. The words “San Diego Vokas” in plain block letters stacked in the corner.
I could point out the County building and that classic circle hotel one sees exiting the northbound freeway into downtown and the Hotel Cortez virtually unshrouded.
As I flipped over the vinyl, I was met with a woman whose plastic smile surrounded by pale skin and hair felt even more bright in black and white. As I glanced at the track list I felt as if my eyes had to adjust going from a movie theater to a bright summer day. The language was both foreign and strangely familiar all at once. At first, I thought it could be Slovenian or Portuguese. The longer I looked at it the less I knew.
Turns out it was Esperanto, one of the world’s most widely spoken made-up languages.
It was invented in the late 1800s by a Polish eye doctor intent on bringing about world peace. That’s how the language got its name, “hope.” He wanted to invent a language that was relatively easy to learn and could bridge communication gaps across the world. It didn’t take off quite as much as he’d hoped, but hey, now, you can learn it on Duolingo.
The language also attracted one disciple, Alberta Casey, the woman beaming on the album’s back cover. She first encountered Esperanto while traveling in London in the early 1970s. By then, Casey, an accomplished violinist, was in her 40s, married to a lawyer and living in La Jolla.
Casey became so enamored with the idea of an international language that she recorded three albums singing in Esperanto. That’s three more albums than she recorded singing in English. “San Diego Vokas” is the second of these records. On it, she sings covers of songs translated into Esperanto with a charmingly genuine drawl that hints at her high society background.
Alberta Casey, “San Diego”: The final song on the album, “San Diego,” is track taken from the play, “My cousin Josefa.” The musical that dramatizes the true story of San Diego’s presumed first elopement between a native and a foreigner, written by the same guy who came up with San Diego State University’s “Hail Montezuma” song.
It carries a less jarring note than other vocals on the album, but with the same shrill, operatic intensity. The steady shake of a maraca gives the song a decidedly tropical vibe that fades to a lull, almost like those moments when the sun sets over a long day. The piano’s light, bouncy rhythm almost makes one forget this was recorded in the 1980s and not the ’50s.