• LIFE

  A timeless musician

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 26/09/2023

  » Eliades Ochoa was a key member of the legendary Buena Vista Social Club, which was established in 1996 and organised into a stellar ensemble of Cuban musicians, many of whom performed Cuban music of the 1940s and 1950s -- bolero, son and danzon. An album was released to great acclaim and a film documentary of the group garnered an Academy Award for director Wim Wenders.

• LIFE

  Independent in Indonesia

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 21/12/2022

  » Interest in recorded music, led by DJs and "crate-diggers", has shone a light on some fascinating popular music genres over the past 20-odd years. Soundway Records, set up by Miles Claret in the UK, released its first compilation in 2002 on Afrobeat, funk and fusion from Ghana in the 1970s, and since then has released compilations on African, Caribbean, Latin and Asian music (mainly focusing on the period from 1950s to 1980s, when popular genres were being created by newly independent countries).

• LIFE

  House of the rising Son

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 27/09/2022

  » Son House is regarded as one of the greats of early blues, along with early recording stars like Charley Patton and Robert Johnson. He made 78rpm records in the 1930s but a spell in penitentiary halted his career and by the 1940s he had abandoned recording. It wasn't until 1964 that Nick Perls, Dick Waterman and Phil Spiro "rediscovered" him working at a gas station. He was completely unaware of the interest in folk blues at the time (Skip James and Bukka White were already playing crossover folk clubs).

• LIFE

  Documenting a documentarian

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 14/09/2021

  » Alan Lomax, who died in 2002 at the age of 87, wore many hats. In his long life, which spanned much of the 20th century, he worked as a folklorist, archivist, producer, writer, scholar, oral historian and filmmaker. He was also a musician and producer who played a key role in researching and preserving folk traditions, particularly in the US and England (spurring the folk revivals in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s in both countries).

• LIFE

  Bringing' it all back home

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 24/11/2020

  » Recent compilations on popular music genres in Africa have revealed an astonishing range of local styles across the continent. Popular music from West Africa, South Africa and Central Africa featured in the first compilations, along with North Africa. Then producers focused on individual countries and guitar-based styles, so we enjoyed terrific compilations from Kenya and Madagascar, and even Benin.

• LIFE

  Heart of music beats on

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 27/10/2020

  » British documentary filmmaker Jeremy Marre, who died aged 76 in April this year, made films for television on popular music from all corners of the planet. From his breakthrough TV film Root Rock Reggae in 1977, to his last film, a documentary on jazz great Count Basie in 2019, Marre was in a class of his own.

• LIFE

  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.

• LIFE

  The day the music died

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 09/07/2019

  » The legendary leader of the famous and influential Petch Phin Thong Band, Noppadon Duangporn, died last week at the age of 77. He was well known across the country, not just as the founder of one of Isan's biggest bands but also as a comedian, radio DJ and movie actor.

• LIFE

  Revolutionary's road

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 02/04/2019

  » Poet, novelist, piano player. And that was before Gil Scott-Heron had reached 20. He wrote and recorded his best known song, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, in 1971, and from then on produced a unique and polemical body of prose, poetry and music that led him to be dubbed the "Father of Political Rap", the originator of "nu soul" and many more titles. He preferred being called a "bluesologist".

• LIFE

  Beating the rainy-season blues

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 04/09/2018

  » The rainy season is upon us. The clouds roll in and a murky gloom descends; floods in the provinces, traffic jams in Bangkok. And, as we get to the months that often have the most rainfall -- September and October -- many here in the capital wonder if it will be as bad as the catastrophic floods of 2011.

1 2 3 Next Last