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[by Ken Hunt, London] It’s one of those magnificently manipulative daughter-father lines. She is bending her father round her little finger. And both of them know it. Cyndi Lauper sings, “Oh daddy dear you know you’re still number one/But girls they want to have fun.” Girls Just Want To Have Fun became one of the most popular and most joyful English-language songs of 1983 and 1984. It appeared on Lauper’s She’s So Unusual (1983) and MTV picked up on its video to such an extent that it became their Video of the Year in 1984
11. 10. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] You could hardly find a more thoroughly Swiss or Swiss-German gentleman than the folk musician Rudolf ‘Ruedi’ Rymann who died on 10 September at his home in Giswil in the Swiss Canton of Obwalden. In the public eye he was a musician and sportsman and by trade he was a farmer and cheese-maker. In retirement he was also a huntsman. He epitomised Swissness
11. 10. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The Guinean saxophonist and clarinettist, gravely voiced singer and songwriter, Momo ‘Wandel’ Soumah died in his homeland’s capital, Conakry on 16 June 2003. Of Baga tribal stock, he survived the, at times, perilous crossing from colonial times (exemplified by stints in dance bands with names redolent of the period such as La Joviale Symphonie and La Douce Parisette) to independence. During the socialist years of Sékou Touré’s presidency, an Afro-centric sound was de rigueur.
11. 10. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] Peggy Seeger has sent a newsflash that she is happy for people to pass on. She and Jon Andrews have made a short video of her song Obama Is The One For Me. Grammy-winners Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer have donated the instrumentation, backing vocals and recording expertise. And just to make things clear, she sent a caution:
Beware: this YOUTUBE video contains pro-Obama Material.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9wgVznm9OU
Please send the url on to whomever you want for whatever purpose.
For updates and information about Peggy Seeger, visit http://www.pegseeger
1. 10. 2008 |
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“Here’s to the Ronnie, the voice we adore
Like coals from a coal bucket scraping the floor
Sing out his praises in music and malt
And if you’re not Irish, that isn’t your fault” – The Ballad of Ronnie Drew
[by Ken Hunt, London] In November 2006 An Post – Eire’s Post Office – issued a set of four commemorative stamps with portraits of The Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem, The Dubliners, The Chieftains and Altan on them. Each group added something special to Ireland’s appreciation of its own musical heritage and in turn to the wider world’s appreciation of Irish music. But there was never a folk band to compare to the Dubliners – the Chieftains were quite different – and in his prime Ronnie Drew’s voice was contender for the most distinctive in Irish music.
Born in Dún Laoghaire, Co.
2. 9. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] At the beginning of the 1960s a new kind of folk scene started to develop in the USA. Overall, the scene consisted very much of localised affairs. In Colorado, Boulder was separate from Denver. The US East Coast scene, notably based around Boston and Cambridge in Massachusetts and New York operated independently of each other. Gradually they made contacts and connections. The dots joined up. Some New York musicians such as David Grisman and Jody Stecher relocated to California, for example. Artie Traum was part of the New York scene but by the late 1960s he was part of the bigger picture.
Guitarist, singer-songwriter and composer Arthur Roy Traum was born in New York City on 3 April 1943, younger brother to Happy Traum by five years
15. 8. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The sixth London Mela returned to its spiritual homeland on the borders of Hounslow and Ealing to the west of London once again and once again it was a celebration cum fair, which is all mela means in several of the subcontinent’s languages. The blurb on the front of the programme proclaimed: “Eight zones with urban, classical and experimental music, DJs, circus, dance, visual arts, comedy, children’s area, food from around the world and a giant funfair.”
The clarinettist Arun Ghosh closed proceedings on the Indo Electronica stage with a set drawing mainly on his Northern Namaste (Camoci Records, 2008) album. This time he fronted a quartet with Pat Illingsworth on kit drums, Liran Donin on string bass and Nilesh Gulhane on tabla
15. 8. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] “There’s a lot of dancing in her music,” I say to the Hungarian dancer sitting next to me when the concert finishes. My observation about the performance has nothing to do with Beáta Palya as a dancer, little to do with her swaying or rockin’ in rhythm as she sings and everything to do with the way she sings. In a manner of speaking, Bea Palya sings from the haunches and the hips an awful lot. And what and how she sings is exceptional. The music she makes is Hungarian folk-crossed jazz or Hungarian jazz-crossed folk with other elements stirred in – chanson, for example, befitting her role in Tony Gatlif’s film Transylvania in which she plays the part of the cabaret chanteuse – that’s chantoozie in American-English.
27. 7. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] Peter Kameron was a man who straddled many fields of the arts and entertainment. He was born in New York City on 18 March 1921 and went on to become the personal manager for a number of US music acts in the 1950s and the 1960s, signally amongst them, the Weavers and the Modern Jazz Quartet.
He broadened his approach and built on his expertise and experience to become part of the management team around The Who. They were a rather promising rock group whose Pete Townshend nevertheless made no bones about pitching songs to the folk scene to. (Something forgotten in the accounts.) Kameron was there when The Who set about establishing Track Records (1967-1978), headed by Kit Lambert, Chris Stamp and Pete Townshend
19. 7. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] Don’t you just love the thrill of unpublicised gigs? So long, that is, that the act delivers music worthy of the buzz and you attend. This nicely semi-secret Green Ray gig ticked all the boxes and more. The Dog House announcement just promised “psychedelic West Coast sounds” and an unnamed “special guest guitarist – all the way from San Francisco, the man who played Monterrey and Wood Stock Festivals”. Yup, two spelling mistakes in 18 printed words. The Green Ray are still improvising and pursuing that ol’ psychedelic Grail. Were they an American band they’d probably get saddled with the description ‘jam band’.
To say that the gig was unpublicised is bending the truth. A little
26. 6. 2008 |
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