Showing 71 - 80 of 80
Ali's qawwali continuum
Life, John Clewley, Published on 03/02/2015
» The great Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a key figure in the emergence of qawwali music during the 1980s. Although the Sufi praise song tradition is over 700 years old, it was Khan who not only took the music to international audiences but also collaborated with artists from different musical backgrounds.
The Wild Sound of New Orleans
Life, John Clewley, Published on 26/08/2014
» Piano master, producer and arranger, composer and songwriter Allen Toussaint has done more than most to promote the musical legacy of New Orleans. With his partner Marshall Sehorn, he set up the Sansu label which brought the focus back to the city after musicians moved away in the 1960s, and proceeded to write and record hundreds of songs for such artists as Irma Thomas, Dr. John, Lee Dorsey and Ernie K-Doe. Later, he developed the New Orleans funk sound with the Meters, Dr. John and the Wild Tchoupitoulas, while rock'n'roll and pop stars from the Rolling Stones to The Searchers, The Hollies, Robert Palmer and even The Who covered his songs. He's also had a stellar solo career as well.
Rumba rock in the Congo
Life, John Clewley, Published on 24/06/2014
» Congo was the place to be in the late 1940s. On both sides of the Congo River, in Leopoldville (later renamed as Kinshasa) and Brazzaville, Congolese musicians began to develop a distinctive popular music based on their own tribal rhythms, Cuban music (popular at the time throughout Central and Western Africa), and Western jazz and pop. The music they developed was called rumba and in the following decades it would mature into Africa’s most potent dance music, spawning some of the greatest big bands and orchestras the continent has known.
Early 20th-century Southeast Asian recordings a real joy
Life, John Clewley, Published on 13/05/2014
» The US-based record label Dust-to-Digital has released a number of beautifully illustrated CD compilation packages that cover the earliest recorded music in places that have been ignored. Africa was one of the first releases and last October, the company released a wonderful eclectic four-CD compilation of vintage Southeast Asian music, Longing For The Past: The 78rpm Era In Southeast Asia.
From Phnom Penh to Detroit
Life, John Clewley, Published on 08/10/2013
» The Cambodian Space Project's eagerly awaited third album is "in the can", according to leader/guitarist Julien Poulson. The band spent part of the summer in Detroit and just finished recording the new album in the city that gave the world the "Motown Sound".
Feel good factor
Life, John Clewley, Published on 30/07/2013
» The European Broadcast Union's Top 20 World Music chart for July includes some fascinating recent releases. With the summer festival season in full swing in Europe and North America, lots of bands have put out their summer releases to coincide with live events they are playing. The premier "World music" festival, Womad UK, has just finished, with several chart-toppers like Rokia Traore (see her album Beautiful Africa below) headlining the event.
Photos evoke Chicago in its influential heyday
Life, John Clewley, Published on 04/06/2013
» Chicago was the birthplace of the electric, urban blues which became known as "rhythm and blues" or just plain "Chicago blues"; it was the precursor of rock 'n' roll. The blues may have come from the US south with the "great migration" of African-Americans that began in 1920 and gathered pace during and immediately after World War II, but it was transformed in the late 40s and early 50s into an electrified dance music in the north by Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Bo Diddley, Little Walter and their contemporaries, as well as by new labels like Chess Records.
While his lute gently weeps
Life, John Clewley, Published on 05/03/2013
» Malian maestro Bassekou Kouyate's second album, I Speak Fula, was one of the standout albums of 2009. Kouyate's music, driven by his astonishing virtuosity on the ancient ngoni lute, sounds both ancient and modern.
The sounds of Isan
Life, John Clewley, Published on 15/05/2012
» There are two broad fiddle traditions in northeastern music, one from molam, the music of ethnic Laotians and one from kantrum, the music of ethnic Khmers. The division is also neatly delineated geographically into molam in the upper and central parts of the Northeast and kantrum in the lower part, near the Cambodian border. As the late great kantrum singer Darkie noted in his anthem to northeastern music, Isan Samakhee (Northeast Unity): "Isan nua me molam, Isan tai me kantrum."
New angle on Angola
Life, John Clewley, Published on 03/04/2012
» They say that war is hell and for Angola the four decades of civil strife the Angolan people went through from the 1960s was horrific. After fighting for independence from Portugal, a civil war broke out and the various sides in the protracted conflict virtually destroyed the country. And yet while the fighting was going on, musicians were still playing and recording brilliant music.