Showing 1 - 10 of 38
Music for the soul
Life, John Clewley, Published on 29/08/2023
» Highlife was one of the first popular styles to emerge in post World War II sub-Saharan Africa. It came out of Ghana's clubs and bars in the 1950s, where big swing bands, pioneered by the "King of Highlife" ET Mensah, whipped up one of West Africa's best loved urban dance genres.
A woman in a man's world
Life, John Clewley, Published on 19/07/2022
» US R&B legend Big Mama Thornton is one of the forgotten "originators", to use Dr John's term for Professor Longhair, of rock'n'roll. The late Alabama native, who died almost exactly 38 years ago on July 25, 1984, recorded the first version of Leiber and Stoller's Hound Dog in 1952. After the record was released in 1953, it reached the top spot on Billboard's Rhythm & Blues Records Chart and sold 2 million copies. It was her biggest hit, but it paled in comparison to young Elvis Presley's version, which sold more than 10 million copies and helped propel Presley to global fame.
Saying goodbye to cultural giants
Life, John Clewley, Published on 18/01/2022
» The world of Thai country music (pleng luk thung) was reeling from news of the death of luk thung legend and National Artist Waipoj Phetsupan last Wednesday. Waipoj, 79, was one of the Big Four central Thai luk thung stars -- Chaichana Boonachote, Chai Muang Singh and Kwanjit Sriprachan, all National Artists, are the others -- all of whom are masters of all the central folk styles.
Tracing the roots of The Big Easy's groove
Life, John Clewley, Published on 23/11/2021
» In March 1947, pianist and singer Cecil Grant heard Roy Brown sing Good Rockin' Tonight during a break at a small club in New Orleans. He was so taken with the song, he called the owners of De Luxe Records and had Brown sing the song over the phone. Brown was quickly signed with the label and recorded the song at J&M Studio with producer Cosimo Matassa.
The ballad of Junior Parker
Life, John Clewley, Published on 06/07/2021
» Train I ride sixteen coaches long, Train I ride sixteen coaches long, Well, that long black train carries my baby home …
From sleepy Taunton to the world
Life, Tatat Bunnag, Published on 09/02/2021
» As the latest artist to be signed by Universal Music with hit songs topping the charts on both Spotify and Apple Music along with music videos with over 14 million views under his belt, Gen Z bedroom pop-star Finn Askew has just dropped his first major release, Peace EP, as he embarks on his break-out year.
Honouring a pioneer
Life, John Clewley, Published on 04/08/2020
» Sonia Pottinger was a trailblazing pioneer in Jamaica's male-dominated music industry as she played an important role in the development of popular music in the Caribbean island. She was the first female record producer in Jamaica and her pinnacle came during the 1960s, beginning with the ska era after which she made a transition to rocksteady and finally reggae.
Indie rock done right
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 09/02/2020
» "When I was 18/ Someone got stabbed in a church/ But I got used to it/ And forgave all the ways and the names/ It was so long ago, anyways," vocalist Jeremy Gaudet recounts on Murder In The Cathedral, the opening track to Kiwi Jr.'s debut album, Football Money. The vivid songwriting, buoyed by his bandmates' jangly instrumentation, is delivered with the kind of drawl that would have you thinking fondly of Pavement's Stephen Malkmus and The Strokes as well as the Modern Lovers' Jonathan Richman and Parquet Courts' Andrew Savage.
From Belize with love
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 26/05/2019
» Ariel Zetina may be best known as one of Chicago's fiercest DJs (the Mother of the Windy City Club Scene, as some have suitably appointed her), but she's more than meets the eye. Having come from a theatre and poetry background, the American-Belizean artist is well-versed in cutting-edge performance art. In fact, her first foray into music-making was born out of necessity, simply because she couldn't find a piece of music that would fit a show she was working on as part of collaborative performance art group Witch Hazel. After relocating to Chicago some years later, she finally found her place and essentially herself in the city's thriving queer/trans club scene, which provided her with the impetus to fuse house and techno sounds with her own multicultural flavours.
When sleaze gets slick
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 05/05/2019
» Fat White Family, for the uninitiated, are a South London group trading in all manners of classic punk depravities, rock'n'roll drug habits and songs with imaginatively risqué titles (Cream Of The Young, Is It Raining In Your Mouth?, Bomb Disneyland). Led by founding frontman Lias Saoudi, the band is notorious for their outrageous live gigs, where shocking antics and nudity are not uncommon. As a band, this collective transgression is the unique selling point upon which their 2013 debut album Champagne Holocaust and its follow-up Songs For Our Mothers hinged. It's also the very factor that contributed to "the sort of classic stereotypical drug meltdown", as Lias puts it in his recent interview with Noisey, which led to them getting dropped by US-based Fat Possum Records.