Around the World – 10 & 12 July 2022 - Preview
40 years after the first WOMAD
On 16 July 1982, the first WOMAD festival was held. It was in Shepton Mallet in England. World Music had arrived. Peter Gabriel, of course was the Godfather.
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Also on the bill were The Beat, Don Cherry, Drummers of Burundi, Echo & The Bunnymen, Imrat Khan, Prince Nico Mbarga, Simple Minds, Suns of Arqa, The Chieftains and Ekome National Dance Company.
Listen to last week’s show and see the running order on DavySims.com and find out more about the show. You can also listen to Part 1 and Part 2 on Mixcloud.
Album of the Week
I’ll be playing some of those artists from Live At WOMAD 1982 released on 16 July this year. It’s the album of the week.
“In July 1982, the Royal Bath and West Showground near Shepton Mallet, Somerset was the chosen location for what the organisers called ‘a World of Music, Arts and Dance’ (WOMAD for short) — 5 stages, with 60 bands from over 20 countries. The intention behind the festival was to acknowledge the influence of non-Western music on successful Western bands and musicians, and to create a wider audience for that music by combining both in the same event — a festival celebrating music as a universal language.” Read more about it here and hear four tracks on this week’s show.
Sometime, I must tell you the story about the day Peter Gabriel walked into my office in Broadcasting House in London. “Davy, Peter Gabriel’s here for you.”
Hear the show on the web on Sundays at 10:00 pm to midnight:
Slice Audio, Ferry FM, and Armagh City Radio .
And on Tuesdays at 7:00 pm on the radio and web
Bangor FM 107.9: http://radio.garden/listen/bangor-fm-107-9/IycUhUbT
Lisburn’s 98FM: http://radio.garden/listen/facebook/ASeqAEl8
FM105 Down Community Radio: http://radio.garden/listen/fm-105-down-community-radio/K8lBDGFf
Also on the show
Currently one of the most interesting albums around is from a project called “Sowal Diabi (From Kaboul to Bamako)”. Kaboul to Bamako is an old Silk Road1 route. “Sowal” means “question” in Persian (Kaboul is in the part of Persia which is now in Afghanistan), “diabi” means “answer” in Bambara the language spoken in Bamako.
This project was first envisaged more than two years ago as a response to the plight of refugees. Sowal Diabi brought together on the same stage artists that have all experienced exile, physical or cultural: Malian singer Mamani Keita, Iranian singer Aïda Nosrat, her compatriot Sogol Mirzaei playing the târ (lute), the Afghan tabla-player Siar Hashimi, and the Kurdish singer Ruşan Filiztek along with the French Ethio-jazz group Arat Kilo.
Gonora Sounds are a family band that has been busking on the streets of Zimbabwe since 2004. They are led by the blind singer/songwriter and guitarist Daniel Gonora with his teenage son Isaac. From Hard Times Never Kill is their current album.
And more from Niteworks’ album A' Ghrian. Electronic dance music meets Scottish Gaelic music and culture.
Also on the show: Adrian Quesada & iLe, Africa Negra, Alena Murang, Annbjørg Lien, Bergå Folk Project, Bonga, Cimarron, Cláudio Jorge, Gaye Su Akyol, Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble, Hudaki Village Band, Ibrahima Cissokho & Mandingue Foly, Inni-K, Lous and The Yakuza, Maija Kauhanen, Marjan Vahdat, Riley Family Band, Salsa de Hoy, Sidi Abdallah Oumbadougou, Sonoras Mil, The Beat, The Chieftains.
Off topic slightly, but there is a fantastic book about the Silk Road routes: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
Now about that Peter Gabriele story ...