Showing 1-10 of 251 results
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Get the party going
Life, John Clewley, Published on 03/01/2012
» In 1987, I bought a Charley label reissue called Soul Mine, a double vinyl LP that featured some of the hits of the New Orleans-born R'n'B and soul singer Lee Dorsey. I was interested in the album because I'd read in John Broven's wonderful book, Walking to New Orleans: The Story of New Orleans Rhythm & Blues (Flyright, UK/Blues Unlimited, USA, 1974), that Dorsey recorded many of his best tracks not only with my favourite New Orleans funk band, The Meters, but also with producer and piano virtuoso Alan Toussaint.
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Lost souls
Life, John Clewley, Published on 31/01/2012
» Two giants of popular music in the US, bandleader, drummer, disc jockey and talent scout Johnny Otis and singer Etta James, passed away recently, Otis at 90 and James in her eighties. Both were colossal figures in the development of r'n'b and soul music and both crossed over to international fame and, late though it came for James, success.
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Reviving a legend
Life, John Clewley, Published on 21/02/2012
» It's been a hectic year for local DJ and Zundrangma Records label owner Maft Sai. He's been on successful overseas tours to Europe and Japan with his partner DJ Chris Menist and the pair has put together two excellent internationally released compilations of Thai luk thung music, The Sound of Siam (Soundway, UK) and Thai? Dai! (Finders Keepers, UK). Never still for a moment, the duo's popular "Bangkok Paradise" night returns this month with a one-off concert by the legendary Wong Dontri Molam Theppabutr band to celebrate the event's third anniversary.
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Molam Theppabutr Band &Okinawan show
Life, John Clewley, Published on 06/03/2012
» The last week of February was truly memorable for music fans in Bangkok with not one but two great gigs: the Wong Dontri Molam Theppabutr (Theppabutr Molam Band) gig at Sonic Ekamai on Sat and Kanako Horiuchi's set of Okinawan songs at Kinjo Restaurant on Wed.
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In praise of dangdut royalty
Life, John Clewley, Published on 20/03/2012
» Travel anywhere in Indonesia and pretty soon you'll hear the catchy rhythms of dangdut music, which is popular right across the country. Current dangdut stars like Inul Daratista sell millions of CDs, cassettes and VCDs and perform glitzy shows in front of huge crowds.
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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.
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Cool Colombian compilation
Life, John Clewley, Published on 01/05/2012
» Colombia has produced some memorable music and musicians over the past hundred years; it is certainly one of Latin music's powerhouses. Blessed with a unique geography _ Atlantic coast, savannah, Andean mountains and the lush Pacific coast _ and a mixed population of native Indians, Spanish, Africans and Caribbean immigrants, the country has a vast array of different musical styles from bambuco on the Atlantic coast to the savannah-based harp music llanera to the Afro-Colombian sounds of champeta and currulao from the Pacific coast to salsa and all kinds of Spanish-language pop.
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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."
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Cambodian retro
Life, John Clewley, Published on 29/05/2012
» The Cambodian Space Project burst on to the scene with a maxi-single vinyl release, I'm Unsatisfied, Cambodia's first vinyl for 30 years, in 2010.
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Taylor-made sounds of Ghana
Life, John Clewley, Published on 12/06/2012
» In 1986, I went on a trip to China and stopped in Macau to visit a friend. He introduced me to an American teacher who had spent 15 years teaching in Ghana and Nigeria. Over dinner, he casually said that he'd picked up a "few records" while he was in West Africa and that I could make some cassette tapes if I wanted to.
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