• LIFE

  The beat goes on

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 19/12/2023

  » Molam continues to evolve with time. Musicians, especially from Isan, are experimenting with new musical combinations, creating new hybrids and sounds.

• LIFE

  Lift up your voice

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 10/10/2023

  » South Africa has a long tradition of harmony singing, stretching back to Soloman Linda's famous 1933 song Mbube, which created a genre of its own to isicathamiya folk singing that led to one of the country's most potent popular genres, mbaqanga and on to gospel choirs.

• LIFE

  Stories of migration and hope

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 12/09/2023

  » In 2016, the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto invited musicians, mainly immigrant musicians, to audition for a new global orchestra.

• LIFE

  Holy trinity

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 14/02/2023

  » The banjo is a key instrument in Western folk music -- from US bluegrass to Irish trad -- and over the past 20 years, research into the roots of this three-stringed instrument have revealed its west African lute origins, with two instruments, the ngoni and the ekonting, now understood to be the closest ancestors to the banjo.

• 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

  Tunes for the chill season

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 09/11/2022

  » The music scene has been given a boost this year with the return of tourists and the reopening of entertainment venues. Festivals are returning to the provinces this month and the local circuits for rock and luk thung are back, too. The summer festival season in Europe, Japan and North America also returned and coincided with lots of summer and now winter music releases. The World Beat desk is groaning under the weight of new music.

• LIFE

  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.

• LIFE

  Nora dance gets Unesco nod

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 21/12/2021

  » Nora, a traditional folk dance-drama from southern Thailand, was awarded intangible cultural heritage status by Unesco last week. The distinctive dance form joins khon and Thai traditional massage on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

• LIFE

  Queen of Molam honoured

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 28/09/2021

  » The late National Artist Bunpheng Faiphiuchai featured on Google Doodle last week, as the search engine celebrated what would have been her 89th birthday on Sept 22. She was one of the most influential molam performers of her generation, and a pioneer in the recording of molam on vinyl. According to Google Doodle's blurb, by 1955 she had recorded "more full-length albums than any other woman in the genre" and that is why she was the first molam to be given the title "Queen Of Molam".

• LIFE

  A smoother blue from North Mississippi Allstars

  Life, John Clewley, Published on 13/04/2021

  » In 2014, I wrote a review about the unique sound of blues rockers North Mississippi Allstars (NMA), whose music is rooted in the "fife and drum" culture of North Mississippi. Unlike in the Mississippi delta, which has a distinctive brand of guitar-driven blues, North Mississippi African-American hill country musicians use fifes (a small shrill flute used in 19th-century military bands), fiddles, banjos, tambourines, snare drums and a huge bass drum to create their local sound.

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