Author Archive
[by Ken Hunt, London] Vienna is a hothouse of regional musical idioms. And Trude Mally, who died on 4 June 2009, aged 81 in the Austrian capital, mastered two of the Vienna region’s three principal indigenous and typically Viennese folk forms. She sang Weanalieder (Wienerlieder in standard German, literally ‘Viennese Songs’ or songs sung in Viennese dialect) and Dudler, namely, the Viennese variant of yodelling. The third form, incidentally, is Schrammelmusik, an instrumental and vocal form named after the family that originated it.
She was born Gertrud Barbara Mally on 21 January 1928 in Neukettenhof – nowadays absorbed into Vienna’s southeastern suburban sprawl – and took to singing and playing the piano whilst still a child
25. 1. 2010 |
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The “greatest sarod maker” – sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan
[by Ken Hunt, London] The Indian instrument maker and repairer Hemendra Chandra Sen died at his south Kolkata (Calcutta) home on 2 January 2009 at the age of 87. From apprentice to master craftsman, over the course of more than sixty years he made tanpuras, sitars and sarods for many of the most illustrious Hindustani instrumentalists of the age. He also bridged the generations. Although a sitar player himself, he became especially associated with the sarod, the short-necked, fretted lute
12. 1. 2010 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] Who said most months’ Giant Donut Discs reflect deadlines and commissions with a pinch of music for pleasure? This month’s reflects twinges of pain as well. A little pain goes a long way. This time around, we feast on Davy Graham, Wenzel, Llio Rhydderch and (Fernhill’s) Tomas Williams, Achim Reichel, Sonu Nigham & Madhushree, Billie Holiday, The Fisher Family, Los Lobos, Shirley Collins and Big Brother & The Holding Company.
She Moved Thru’ The Bizarre/Blue Raga – Davy Graham
Davey Graham died on 15 December 2008, days before I was due to journey to India. That was why I missed his funeral. He would have approved of that – an excursion trip to India trumping a funeral trip. In the days before travelling I wrote his obituary for The Scotsman
2. 1. 2010 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The doom and gloom of recession and depression, inflation and deflation affected people’s lives enormously during 2009. Some say it put dampeners on life. Musically though, on balance it was a year of hope, despite losses
2. 1. 2010 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] Most months’ choices reflect work. This is no exception. As ever, there is no particular order. These selections lodged in the cranium for various reasons. In the main, they reflect events and associations. Inara George came from nowhere. Matt Turner, Peg Carrothers & Bill Carrothers came from reviewing and talking to Patrick Humphries about a BBC radio programme. Mhuri yekwa Muchena and Louis Killen came from continually looking to where we come from as opposed to not looking back – and Griselda Sanderson from cross-connecting. Tom Constanten and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt came from concerts. Robb Johnson came from winter tales of the Hounslow expatriate kind. But they all join together here
5. 12. 2009 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] In 1959 the impresario Albert Grossman told the journalist Robert Shelton, “The American public is like Sleeping Beauty, waiting to be kissed awake by the prince of folk music.” Who he meant if not himself is moot. That year the black folk-blues artist Josh White terminated his management contract with Grossman. Bob Dylan, whom he managed from 1962, was still stuck in Minnesota with the Minneapolis blues, yet Grossman was set on changing things in the folk business. A few years on, Grossman had his fingers stuck in many pies, folk, blues and beyond.
Months before contractually adding Peter, Paul and Mary – Peter Yarrow, Noel ‘Stook’ Stookey and Mary Travis – to his roster in January 1962, he predicted they were going to be “one of the top commercial groups”
3. 12. 2009 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] On 6 October 2009 Punjab’s Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal announced that the State Government would pay for the medical expenses of the Punjabi poet, lyricist, singer and man of letters Inderjit Singh Hassanpuri. It is a feature of the Indian state’s policy of recognising people who have made outstanding contributions towards the promotion of Punjabi culture. In Hassanpuri’s case, it was for his contributions to language and literature in particular. Two days later, on 8 October 2009, he died in the Ludhiana hospital to which he had been admitted
2. 11. 2009 |
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“When a society is afraid of its poets, it is afraid of itself. A society afraid of itself stands as another definition of hell.” – Lenore Kandel
[by Ken Hunt, London] The Beat poet and counter-culture activist Lenore Kandel died on 18 October 2009 aged 77 in her adopted home town of San Francisco. There is a lazy default setting to think of the Beat movement as being primarily a male preserve. Yet women were also actively involved not only as muses but also as writers and activists. Kandel was doubly important in that regard because she was part of California’s Beat movement and its hippie movement.
She was born in New York City on 14 January 1932; she was taken as a babe-in-arms to California where her writer father busied himself writing fiction and Hollywood screenplays
2. 11. 2009 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] An Echo of Hooves represented a career milestone for the English folksinger June Tabor. In February 2004 its Hughie Graeme was named ‘Best Traditional Track’ and she received the accolade of ‘Singer of the Year’ in the BBC Radio 2 Awards. That though is transitory, foreign stuff, for her album An Echo of Hooves was a summation of decades spent learning how to work with, and work out the emotions contained in Anglo-Scottish balladry.
An Echo of Hooves was a culmination of decades of running ballads through the filter of her grey cells. “I’ve been singing ballads ever since I discovered traditional music,” she says. “You’ll find ballads, even if it’s just one, on most of the albums
2. 11. 2009 |
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Most months’ choices reflect deadlines and commissions with a pinch of music for pleasure. This month’s choices are Wenzel & Band, Martin Carthy, Javed Bashir, Sophie Harris and Ian Belton, Carol Grimes, Bob Dylan, Wasifuddin Dagar and Bahauddin Dagar, Alistair Anderson, Kaushiki Chakrabarty and Jackson Browne. As ever, they are in no particular order. Their only link is that none of them would go away. This month’s selections deliberately sidestep the Best of 2009 polls, even though it is that time of the year for such musings for December and January titles
2. 11. 2009 |
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