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ALBUMS
Wyclef Jean – The Carnival Volume 2 On paper this seems like an odd blend but with Wyclef as the common denominator bringing his soulful voice and funky guitar playing to the mix it works pretty good. Itís like a tour of the worldís musical styles in one album from the hard rocker of Riot to the ragga influenced Hollywood meets Bollywood. The stand out songs being the first single Sweetest Girl, the follow up to 911 featuring Mary J Blige’s tale of custody battles What About the Baby and the standout song on the album, the moving and emotional Fast Car (not Tracy Chapman’s) featuring Paul Simon.
BEST OF ETHIOPIQUES - WORLD MUSIC COLLECTION All tracks on this 2CD set are taken from the ‘ethiopiques’ series of albums compiled by Francis Falceto and released by Buda Musique. At the time of writing, the series comprises 21 releases and is still growing. The main body of Ethiopian vinyl was produced in less than one decade: from 1969 to 1978. The musicians, capturing this post-revolutionary spirit, can be heard playing, as it were, as if their lives depended on it. A new wave of music was to come through in the mid-1970’s when a particularly brutal military junta deposed Haile Sellasie, and censorship made for artistic decline. However, there was a lone producer nicknamed Ali Tango keeping the recordings alive, by publishing everything on audio-cassette. Sales of these music cassettes reached a dizzying level. The recordings were made with a minimum of technical equipment. A microphone for the singer, and another in the middle for the musicians; a two-track tape recorder, no re-recording or mixing, and usually recorded in clubs where, because of the curfew, the dinner bands performed in the early evenings. These gems are all the more precious for having been crafted in such difficult circumstances. With this collection, you can hear the stars of Ethiopian music at their most spirited. You can also hear all of the influences that they were absorbing, from the sound of an acoustic piano in the corner of a music hall, through to trance. This music transports you, creates a very cool mood and with its rhythms is great for dancing. Throughout this album, it was the vocals– ‘meditative, devotional or uplifting for some, mind blowing for others’– that got me!
‘Regardless of the words, itseems the melodic contour of the song describes the nature of the land over which the song passes.’ Bruce Chatwin, a world traveller, has written a work combining fiction and non-fiction about the Aboriginal trails which can only be travelled by knowing songs. The Songlines, or Dreamings, emerge as invisible pathways connecting up all over Australia: ancient tracks made up of songs which tell of the creation of the land. The book unfolds in the style of magic realism as the natives do what they want in their own land. As nomads, they must travel, and the Songlines provide a career of seasonal journeys on foot through blistering land of thorn-scrubs or desert. Their wandering may be seen as a form of aberrant behaviour, yet they still preserve the once universal concept: that wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. Songs that must be known by travellers have names such as Fire, Spider, Wind, Grass, Porcupine, Snake, Old Man and Two Dancing Women. There is even a Quantas Dreaming, which describes a trip taken to London on the national airline! Aboriginals, when tracing a Songline in the sand, will draw a series of lines with circles in between. The line represents a stage in the Ancestor’s journey. Each circle is a ‘stop’, ‘waterhole’, or one of the Ancestor’s campsites. The words may change but the melody remains the same. The first half of the book chronicles the main character’s travels through outback Australia and the second half is dedicated to Chatwin’s musings on the nature of man as traveller and city builder. The narrator has a real affection for the Aboriginals, believing that the world’s first languages were in song. Early man had learnt to speak by imitating the calls of animals and birds, and had lived in musical harmony with the rest of creation. ‘The Songlines’ is funny, insightful and well-written by Bruce Chatwin, and was first published in 1987 by Vintage Classics.
CHRISTIE HENNESSY
“The story goes that there was this man who lived in New York and he was a big businessman. Every day he was collected to go to work in a chauffeur-driven car. On one of these days he said ‘I think I’ll be like everyone else and take the train’, which was something he hadn’t done in years. “He didn’t go where he wanted to go, he got the wrong train and was shocked when he came to this remote village which was not where he intended to be. He sat there and asked himself ‘What the hell am I doing here? I’m miles away from where I should be’. “He got off the train and started to walk around the station and have a look around, still not knowing why he was there and he was actually late for work by now. “Standing on the corner was a little dishevelled girl. He looked at her and she was really out of place. She was wearing a dress that was too big for her and shoes that were too big for her. He went over to her and said ‘Are you waiting for somebody?’ and she said ‘Yes’ and he asked ‘Who?’ and she said ‘I don’t know’. “It turned out that he’d been there ten years before and had met a woman. This little girl had been coming back to the station for nine hours every day when she should have been at school and she had no idea why… and it turned out that that little girl was actually his daughter!” A native of Tralee, County Kerry, Christie’s strong accent never faltered, despite more than forty years in the UK. He was generally regarded as one of Ireland’s most prolific singer/ songwriters, having notched up four double platinum albums and five top ten singles. Christy had also produced, written and performed with a wide range of recording stars including Jools Holland, Christy Moore, Mary Black, Yazz, Aled Jones, Beverley Craven and Tanita Tikarim, while Frances Black, Eleanor Shanley, Clannad and Foster and Allen have all enjoyed great success with his songs. Having made his name as a songwriter Christy Hennessy became one of Ireland’s most popular personalities and his instant rapport with an audience drew sell-out crowds to his live gigs.
“I was looking for a change of direction when John Woods of PYE Records introduced me to Joy Nichols. She had this song ‘Make Me An Island’ and wanted me to record it. At first it didn’t strike me as having hit potential, but during the recording session it grew on me. When PYE Records released the song, Radio Luxembourg picked it as their ‘power play’ and within weeks it was racing up the charts in the UK, leading to a ‘Top Of The Pops’ appearance. “It made number three in the UK charts and almost immediately became a hit all over Europe, Australia, South Africa and Asia. “It was the key to appearances all over Europe and tours followed in Australia and South Africa. Thirty-odd years later I am still singing it , and it still makes my day!” Had the man in the white suit remained in his first job with the ‘Westmeath Examiner’, we might never have had the pleasure of uttering that immortal phrase– ‘there’s no show like a Joe show!’ Thankfully for his thousands of loyal fans worldwide, the young Joe Dolan’s stint in the newspaper business was not to be and he was soon making the headlines himself. After sensibly completing his apprenticeship with the newspaper Joe decided to embark on a full-time career in the music business and so the famous Drifters Showband was formed, with Joe as guitarist and Lead vocalist. The rest is history. Joe is the only Irish singer ever to have had top 10 hits in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
REMEMBERING CHRISTY HENNESSY AND JOE DOLAN Ireland lost two of its musical heroes as 2007 drew to a close and both contributed to my book prior to their deaths. In ‘The Singer and the Song’, the great and the good of Irish talent came together in aid of Brainwave– The Irish Epilepsy Association. In this unique collection, sixty musicians including the recently-deceased Christie Hennessy and Joe Dolan, explain the inspiration behind a favourite song they have composed or performed– giving us an insight into how classics such as Pete St John’s ‘The Fields of Athenry’ and Phil Coulter’s ‘The Town I Loved So Well’ were written. ‘The Singer and the Song’ also features contributions from Brian Kennedy, Paul Brady, Christy Moore, Charlie McGettigan, Paddy Cole, Liam Clancy, Mary Coughlan, Gemma Hayes, Eleanor McEvoy, Don Baker, Declan O’Rourke, John Spillane and many, many others. |
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Mary J Blige – Growing Pains
BRUCE CHATWIN'S 'SONGLINES'
“I’ve picked a song called ‘Mr. Blue’. I wrote it after I heard a very moving story on the radio one night. I didn’t get the full gist of what the man was saying but it seemed to be a very interesting story and over the next few days I started thinking about it and wrote this song.
JOE DOLAN