Lives
[by Ken Hunt, London] The sitarist, composer and teacher Shashi Mohan Bhatt began what might be called a family tradition: that of taking Pandit Ravi Shankar as their guru. His son Krishna Mohan Bhatt and his sister Manju Mehta (her married name) – both of whom played sitar – and his younger brother Vishwa Mohan Bhatt – who played a modified acoustic guitar he named Mohan vina player – would all go on to study with the sitar maestro Ravi Shankar. Shashi Mohan Bhatt, however, was one of Shankar’s first shishyas (pupil-disciples). Nobody was quite sure, least of all Ravi Shankar, but Shashi Mohan Bhatt was definitely one of the first three
4. 5. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] On 15 April 2008 Mahinarangi Tocker, the Maori musician, songwriter, feminist, gay and lesbian rights activist and political campaigner, died in Auckland, New Zealand. She was one of New Zealand’s most conspicuous song-makers and bore comparison with Joan Armatrading and Tracy Chapman. Born in 1956, she was of mixed bloodlines. She was of Ngati Maniapoto, Ngati Raukawa and Ngati Tuwharetoa – Ngati is a Maori tribal prefix -, Jewish and European stock, hence the title of one of her albums..
19. 4. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] Ola Brunkert is probably the strongest contender for the drummer you’ve heard the most whose name you don’t know. The Swedish drummer played on nearly every Abba recording from 1972 to their dissolution in 1982. Born in Örebro in Sweden on 15 September 1946, Brunkert’s musical background was primarily blues and jazz.
2. 4. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The Jamaican musician, record producer, DJ and broadcaster died 15 March 2008
2. 4. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The folklorist, folk and ethnic music collector, author, radio broadcaster and producer Henrietta Yurchenco died in Manhattan on 10 December 2007 at the age of 91. She was one of the great links between the racially integrated and progressive-minded US folk scene of the 1930s and 1940s and the folk boom of the 1950s and 1960s, Over the course of her long life in music – the title of her autobiography Around the World in 80 Years (2003) was apt – she was a shaping influence in what people understood by folk music and a kingpin of ethnomusicology and world music.
Born Henrietta Weiss in New Haven, Connecticut on 22 March 1916, her parents – Yitzak (Edward) and Rebecca Weiss – were immigrants from the Ukraine
14. 3. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] Buddy Miles was best known as a powerhouse drummer, most famously for his work with Jimi Hendrix on Band of Gypsies – the ensemble with bassist Billy Cox – that followed the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was a short-lived band and the 1970 album, drawing on a New Year’s live set recorded on the cusp of 1969-1970, polarised opinion. The memory most people will have of him was his sound-turned-machine drumming on Machine Gun on Band of Gypsies. Thanks to Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, the sound of helicopter rotor blades..
29. 2. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The Australian folklorist, illustrator, author and one of the pioneers of the Australian Folksong Revival Ron Edwards died on 5 January 2008. He wrote and published extensively over his lifetime on folksong, bushcraft, story telling and linguistics. Simply put, he was a hugely important and influential figure for Australian folk music and anthropology. From 1984 until 2007 he was president of the Australian Folklore Society and edited the Australian Folklore Society Journal. He also wrote widely about Australian folkways, whether Australian folksong, bushcraft or the aboriginal cultures of Australia and the Torres Straits. A skilled painter, he illustrated many of his books himself
Edwards was born in Geelong, Victoria on 10 October 1930
21. 2. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] A native Californian, the singer and songwriter and one-time member of the Kingston Trio folk group, John Stewart was born in San Diego on 5 September 1939. Stewart’s album California Bloodlines (1969) and Cannons in the Rain (1973) were major additions to a literature of America in song. Major milestones too. His Mother Country typifies the reflective nature of his finest songs. Like the work of the Canadian songwriter Ian Tyson, Mother Country..
27. 1. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The Telugu singer, dancer-choreographer and actress Tangutoori Surya Kumari – also rendered Suryakumari – was born in Rajamundry in November 1925. She became part of the Raj-era independence movement against the British that eventually triumphed with the end of colonial rule in 1947. She was a child-actress in Telugu films as early as 1937 when a part was written for her in Vipranarayana. Thereafter she juggled cinematic acting and playback singing roles..
8. 1. 2008 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] Back in the 1960s, our understanding of the world’s varied musical traditions was woefully ignorant by today’s standards. If buying American blues or bluegrass albums was an expensive undertaking involving the adventure of a day’s expedition to nearest big city or crossing fingers or sending money to a mail order specialist, maybe in another country, then tracking down what was then called “International folk” – like Japonese court music – was similar to shopping on the moon. It could take decades to track down some choice morsel
8. 1. 2008 |
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