Random Global Music Sundays

[Lat-Literal]

I have posted Bezawork's "Tizita" several times but the inclusion of other clips are more than merited. There is just something about this singer - her voice and the accompaniments are like being in a warm bath that encapsulates the best of all of the past. How music from such a different culture can so evoke nostalgia I don't know but it is always hypnotic.

The arrangement and production on this are excellent:

Bezawork Asfaw - Lemenor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8CwYvAsP4k

A trawl through Ethiopian releases in 2017 reveals the usual pop music that is not quite pop music, often formulaic and with degrees of autotune, but somehow all of that is more acceptable and even more charming than any equivalent elsewhere because the music has always straddled the boundary between the traditional and the commercial. Fereheiwot Hailemichael is definitely a pop singer but she shows signs of embracing the traditional. She is possibly an international World Music artist in the making given the right management:

Fereheiwot Hailemichael - Tizita - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCUMytTaR-Y

[johncorrigan]

Something for Zimbabweans everywhere - hope it truly a new dawn for the country and its people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEiFIIHVASo

[Lat-Literal]

Something for Zimbabweans everywhere - hope it truly a new dawn for the country and its people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEiFIIHVASo

That is extremely good. Oddly, as Salif Keita is from Mali, the backing vocals remind me of those on "Yada". I'm guessing that the album was released at a similar time - very late 1980s - but I could be wrong. Re the mbira, I was wondering what it was that was playing in the background in the introduction to RM's rambling speech though I doubt that I will ever find out.

I've heard a couple of things re African music on 5 Live this weekend from Dotun Adebayo. One, on the ubiquitous nature of Prince Nico's "Sweet Mother" - he reckons it will be heard anywhere one travels on that continent - and two, a revisiting of Bob Marley's concert in Zimbabwe in 1980. The suggestion was that few in the audience would have been aware of Marley until the event and that many were helped to learn the new name for Rhodesia from his song. It was, by all accounts, mayhem with possibly a million in attendance. Rumours that there was celebratory or other gunfire appear to have been false. The police, worried by a unit of ZANLA troops demanding to be allowed into the stadium, set off teargas canisters!

Bob Marley - Zimbabwe - 17th April 1980 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnpBtRlfdjc

[johncorrigan]

I've heard a couple of things re African music on 5 Live this weekend from Dotun Adebayo. One, on the ubiquitous nature of Prince Nico's "Sweet Mother" - he reckons it will be heard anywhere one travels on that continent - and two, a revisiting of Bob Marley's concert in Zimbabwe in 1980. The suggestion was that few in the audience would have been aware of Marley until the event and that many were helped to learn the new name for Rhodesia from his song. It was, by all accounts, mayhem with possibly a million in attendance. Rumours that there was celebratory or other gunfire appear to have been false. The police, worried by a unit of ZANLA troops demanding to be allowed into the stadium, set off teargas canisters!

Bob Marley - Zimbabwe - 17th April 1980 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnpBtRlfdjc

Thanks Lat, I hadn't heard that before...actually Bob turned up at the end of one of Neil MacGregor's 'Living with the Gods' this week, where us listeners got a potted history of St George and Ethiopia, and then we proceeded to the Lion of Judah. Always fascinating.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09fzmjm

[Lat-Literal]

Thanks Lat, I hadn't heard that before...actually Bob turned up at the end of one of Neil MacGregor's 'Living with the Gods' this week, where us listeners got a potted history of St George and Ethiopia, and then we proceeded to the Lion of Judah. Always fascinating.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09fzmjm

Thank you JC. I will listen to it.

Re Ethiopia, I am just reading up on Teddy Afro. This is an artist who I find very difficult to assess. There's a lot of very poppy material in his catalogue, inevitably with autotune. A singer or a playboy? An internationalist in his own mind or to some extent in reality? Often called "controversial". But "400 Fikir" which is on a Nahom disc I purchased and carries a parental guidance sticker has for a long time been one of my favourite Tizeta or Tezeta style recordings - in fact I really love it - and it is one of the most modern. I have only just discovered that the extraordinary voice that accompanies in it belongs to Shishig Chekol from three decades earlier. It will probably be impossible finding a recording from that artist but I'd be fascinated to know the extent to which it has been manipulated electronically or not. As for Afro himself, I think I am on balance a fan after reading this somewhat unusual article:

http://debirhan.com/2012/04/the-teddy-afro-phenomenon-an-analysis/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQB0X873Zfo

[johncorrigan]

Heard a brief clip of this on 'Music matters' today...don't come more random than this. Jingle all the way!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgnud6S5m9A

[Globaltruth]

Heard a brief clip of this on 'Music matters' today...don't come more random than this. Jingle all the way!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgnud6S5m9A

Those deadpan Tuvan boys like a bit of trad Xmas it seems. I guess Bela Fleck had the idea...

[Lat-Literal]

A very unusual combination!

[johncorrigan]

Kate Rusby's 'Holly and the Ivy'...Happy World Music Christmas Eve Sunday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETe6jOt6BnI

[Globaltruth]

Christmas Champions...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyfpzCozR80

and from me too.

[johncorrigan]

Christmas Champions...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyfpzCozR80

and from me too.

Thanks for the reminder, Global. I loved it last time I listened...and it reminded me...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc_OXXt9PeE

Happy Days!

[johncorrigan]

I have the young Master C to thank for this one. It turns up in a rather excellent compilation that he gave me for Christmas.
A.A. Gray & Seven-Foot Dilly - The Old Ark's A'Moving

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoo7Te6snrQ

Can't help thinkin' I've been doing a good job.

[Globaltruth]

For those of you with both Spotify, here's a monthly playlist of the World Music Monthly Charts - complied from 24 European countries (not 27? or 26?)

https://open.spotify.com/user/worldmusicnetwork/playlist/5CFfIm0KLqWgyJJy4y25lb?si=CdomtqgkQXGqggM7S5T3Vw

[johncorrigan]

For a random world music Sunday, a bit of Beatles' outtake to celebrate what would have been George Harrison's 75th birthday. 'Within You, Without You' is considered by many as one of the pivotal World Music pieces. Here's the version without lyrics from the 'Love' album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdcIKV9iS94

Thanks George.

[Lat-Literal]

For a random world music Sunday, a bit of Beatles' outtake to celebrate what would have been George Harrison's 75th birthday. 'Within You, Without You' is considered by many as one of the pivotal World Music pieces. Here's the version without lyrics from the 'Love' album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdcIKV9iS94

Thanks George.

That is just staggering - the fact that George Harrison would have been only 75. Of course, it makes sense when taking into account McCartney, Starr, Dylan, Morrison etc but it seems so long ago that he died and also that the years have passed by quickly. I can't quite get my head around it. It means that Lennon would have been 77 and a very similar sort of thought applies. There was a time when it would have been impossible to think of The Beatles being as advanced as in their 70s but now I'm thinking that the two of them could have made so much music in the interim and might still have been makng music today. I feel the world would have felt rather different. The what if is almost the topic for a potential play.