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  • News & article

    Remembering an icon

    Life, John Clewley, Published on 01/08/2023

    » On July 13, luk thung singer, actor, movie/TV producer and label owner Phanom Nopporn passed away in hospital at the age of 77. One of the giants of the "country music" genre, fans and stars of the luk thung industry attended his funeral on July 18 at Wat Bang Rak Noi Ban Sai in Nonthaburi.

  • News & article

    The sounds of Africa

    Life, John Clewley, Published on 09/05/2023

    » The Malian singer/songwriter and guitarist Fatoumata Diawara emerged in 2011 with the EP Kanou and quickly after came her debut and breakthrough release Fatou (Nonesuch, World Circuit). Fatou, which features Diawara's self-penned songs and electric guitar playing (which she claims was a first for a Malian woman) catapulted her to international fame. She has a unique sound, created out of her Southern Malian wassollou roots and Western music she learned growing up in Paris.

  • News & article

    Suave guitar grooves

    Life, John Clewley, Published on 28/03/2023

    » The late Malian singer and guitarist Ali Farka Toure took his music on the road, travelling from his beloved farm in Niafunke, in northwestern Mali, to thrill audiences around the globe, until his untimely death in 2006.

  • News & article

    Country comes to the city

    Life, John Clewley, Published on 31/01/2023

    » The All-Thidsa Molam Band was in Bangkok this past weekend to perform at the Thailand International Jazz Conference. World Beat caught up with band last Friday when they played two sets at Isan Spicy BBQ, a rooftop bar at the Jim Thompson Art Center.

  • News & article

    Tale of the tape

    Life, John Clewley, Published on 30/03/2021

    » Lou Ottens, inventor of the humble cassette tape, died on March 11. He was 94. Ottens was a Dutch design engineer who worked as a product development officer for Philips. Before the cassette tape, he created the company's first portable tape recorder (reel-to-reel) and it was his irritation with the lack portability and clumsiness of reel-to-reel tape recorders that led him onto a path to the cassette tape. From 1963 to the late 1980s, 100 billion cassette tapes were sold.

  • News & article

    Amid chaos, world music still rocks

    Life, John Clewley, Published on 19/01/2021

    » Riding high at the top of this month's Transglobal World Music Chart is the Isreali-Persian singer, songwriter and social activist Liraz Charhi.

  • News & article

    Tracing the roots of zouk

    Life, John Clewley, Published on 08/12/2020

    » In 1983, Kassav', a band from the Antilles in the Caribbean, released Zouk La Se Sel Medikamen Non Ni (Zouk Is The Only Medicine We Have). It became the first Antillean record to sell 100,000 copies. Kassav' went on to top the French pop charts with a string of gold albums, drew bigger crowds at their concerts than Prince and put Antillean music firmly on the international musical map.

  • News & article

    808s in Tamil Nadu state

    Life, John Clewley, Published on 10/11/2020

    » This month's Transglobal World Music chart has an Asian flavour with an Arabic twist as Ammar 808 took the top spot with a fusion of South Indian music from Tamil Nadu state that has been through an Arabic blender.

  • News & article

    Look for the light

    Life, John Clewley, Published on 01/09/2020

    » Record Store Day arrived on Saturday a little more subdued than in previous years. The one-day event, which began in 2008, normally drops on a Saturday in April but with the Covid-19 pandemic the date was delayed; two further dates -- Sept 26 and Oct 24 have been added so that independent record stores can generate some much-needed revenue.

  • News & article

    Ry Cooder returns to gospel roots

    Life, John Clewley, Published on 16/10/2018

    » American guitarist Ry Cooder released his first studio album for six years recently. The Prodigal Son (Fantasy Recordings, USA) has put aside his more politically engaged music -- as heard on a series of albums, Chavez Ravine (2005), My Name Is Buddy (2007), Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down (2011) and Election Special (2012) and returned to a more-gospel oriented sound that he created on his early albums.

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