Around the World Preview – 5 & 7 December 2021
Each week (well … most weeks) I preview the coming Around the World and add a few notes and videos. You can find out more on my blog.
See last week’s running order is here (28 and 30 November). You can listen to Part 1 and Part 2 of last week’s show and all previous shows on Mixcloud here
Around the World is on Slice Audio, Ferry FM, and Radio Larne on Sundays at 10:00 pm to midnight. On Tuesdays at 7:00 pm the show is broadcast on Bangor FM, Lisburn’s 98FM and FM105 Down Community Radio.
Featured Album: Home In This World: Woody Guthrie’s Dustbowl Ballads. This is one of the best albums of the year and choosing only four tracks was quite a challenge. It was released in September but I’m only catching up with it now.
These songs of Woody Guthrie were first recorded in the 1940s but their impact and influence are still being felt. Guthrie influenced Bob Dylan and both effected the music of the following decades and still do now.
Rough Trade records explains, “The album features an all-star cast, assembled by Randall Poster, that interpret the songs on the only non-compilation album of Guthrie’s career, including everyone from Grammy Award winners Lee Ann Womack and John Paul White to poet laureate Mark Lanegan and country and Americana star Lillie Mae, Shovels and Rope, mandolinist Chris Thile, Colter Wall, Watkins Family Hour, Waxahatchee, Lost Dog Street Band, The Felice Brothers, Secret Sisters, Swamp Dogg, and Parker Millsap.
Wikipedia says about Guthrie’s recordings, “The original was released by Victor Records, in 1940. All the songs on the album deal with the Dust Bowl and its effects on the country and its people … It was Guthrie's first commercial recording and the most successful album of his career.
The Country, Americana and Roots website Holler: “Those 14 tracks have since been reissued and covered countless times, but the stunning Home in This World may be the first attempt at reimagining these songs collectively by contemporary artists who most, but not all, fall under the ambiguous Americana umbrella.”
A small selection of other music I’ll be playing:
We start with Cimafunk. “Singer, composer and producer, the young Cuban sensation offers a bold mix of funk with Cuban music and African rhythms, which is currently revolutionizing the island's music scene.”
The King of Gypsy Music or the King of Romani music Šaban Bajramović was Serbian by birth, and Serbia is where he lived and worked all his life. When he was 19, which would have been around 1955, he ran away from the Yugoslavian army where he was a conscript. When he was caught, he was sent to prison where he eventually became involved in the prison jazz band. And that’s where he started his career in music. He almost ended his life in poverty and obscurity. But in 2006 Dragi Šestić rediscovered him and recorded his final album with Mostar Sevdah Reunion.
Mólo Sâyat and a track from their new album ĦADÃEQ. This is from their PR release “Mólo Sâyat is the meeting of souls of the Lebanese singer Pôl Seif and some European instrumentalists. Their repertoire has established its base camp around the Mediterranean Sea without renouncing their sporadic visits deep inland. Lead by an ear craving the beauty of contradictions, the band compose songs in Arabic, Italian and Romani language. Voices and instruments rise up together to invoke a chimeric and colourful folklore and to transport the listeners into a voluptuous inner-world.”
Kandy Guira: Born in Côte d'Ivoire, later following her parents in Burkina Faso. She learned her art in the cabarets, releasing her debut album with the Kalianga group, then alongside Abdoulaye Cissé. Kandy’s website.
Saulo Duarte & Mauricio Tagliari: Saulo Duarte was Born in Belém and raised in Fortaleza. His guitar playing is rooted in the Country-style picking of ‘guitarrada’ music from the north of Brazil. Mauricio Tagliari musician and producer was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1961. Mauricio began learning music with his father, an amateur musician, when he was 11 years old. When he was 13, he started attending CLAM, a music school founded by the legendary bossa nova group "Zimbo Trio." He has a composed and produced number of TV and film soundtracks.
Yousef Kekhia is a singer-songwriter from Aleppo, now based in Berlin. By combining contemporary folk and electronic music with Arabic lyrics, he developed a singular style of sharing his intimate stories, making them direct and moving. I played a few tracks from his debut album “Monologue”, released December 2019. I’ll be playing some of his new music on the show and here is an exaple of what he’s doing now.
Ayoub Houmanna is a young Moroccan musician and founder of The Nomads Retreats at the foot of the Atlas Mountains where, they say, they connecting people by music with nature and adventure.
Ahhh, then there there is The Voice of Baceprot (VOB) who are on tour in Europe. They are an Indonesian all-female rock band formed in Garut, West Java in 2014. There’s more about them on this blog Hera Says.
Also mentioned on the show the Channel 4 series We Are Lady Parts
The Around the World archive on Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/davysims/
And on Radio Garden
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