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Post by percythewonderant on Jun 25, 2009 9:56:38 GMT
This isn't reso based but .......... Earlier in the year I saw Justin Adams perform at the Wychwood Festival with a guy called & Juldeh Camara. They have a CD out called ‘Tell No Lies’.
Justin Adams plays really solid electric blues guitar, And Juldeh Camara plays a Ritti - a bowed one string instrument, a sort of cross between a banjo and a fiddle, and a Kolong - a two string banjo. All to a very funky rhythm, It really is Chicago meets Dessert Blues.
I got my copy of the album signed and being a bit of a nerd told Mr Adams that I thought his tone was great! It was, but I shouldn't get so excited.
I've bought a couple more Justin Adam's albums and they are all good, but if you can - get to see them live. Nothing beats it. As I told the man his self 'Great tone'.
IMO well worth checking out. I'd love to hear what anyone else thinks.
Percy
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Post by Michael Messer on Jun 25, 2009 12:25:00 GMT
Hi Percy, This forum is not just about resonator guitars, it is about music and related subjects......and lots of resonators I have seen Justin Adams play a few times over the years. He plays well and has interesting ideas. The first time I heard his playing was in Robert Plant's band. He has also produced some albums by one of my favourite North African bands, Tinariwen. Justin Adams' music is not far from some of the stuff I have done over the years, mixing blues & country with hi-life, reggae, hip-hop and other styles. My favourite of the North African musicians is Ali Farka Towre. Sadly he is no longer with us, but he did make some wonderful albums while he was here. I saw him play a few times and would definitely put him up there as one of THE great musicians of our time. Oh...by the way Percy....according to Wikipedia a DESSERT is a course that typically comes at the end of a meal, usually consisting of sweet food but sometimes of a strongly-flavored one, such as some cheeses......I think you meant DESERT!!! Shine On Michael.
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Post by percythewonderant on Jun 25, 2009 13:07:06 GMT
Hi Michael , Sorry for that slip I'm a big bloke and food is never far from my sub conscious. I couldn't agree more about Ali Farke Toure. His death was announced on 'PM' on Radio 4 whilst I was driving and I had to pull over for a while. The mayor of Niafunke is greatly missed.
By hanging about in those lamented S/H Jazz and Blues Vinyl and Book shops around Cambridge Circus I heard an Ali Farka Toure album in the late 70's and began an infatuation with the desert blues from Mali. It took me awhile but eventually I worked out that high bass G tuning that he used. Never truly mastered it though.
Probably the most blissful moment of my life happened one morning at a Womad festival in Bracknall. I was eating my cornflakes and sipping coffee on the lawn when Taj Mahal and Ali Farke Toure tuned up and Jammed together about 10 feet from where I sat.
Ali Farke Toure opened up my ears to so much desert music and via him the music of the whole african continent .
His son is doing some interesting things though.
Percy
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Post by wolvoboy on Jun 25, 2009 13:54:16 GMT
Hi guys thought you might like to listen to this on you tube Justin Adams and juldeh Camara,you are right percythewonderant they are really good.
wolvoboy
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Post by andys on Jun 25, 2009 14:53:08 GMT
Oh dont get me started on Ali Farke Toure.
OK I will....
One of my all time favorite musicians not just for his music but for what he and his music represented.
The link between Africa and the blues is embodied in Ali Farke Toures music IMO. His guitar playing, his vocal phrasing were nothing less than sublime.
The album he did with Ry Cooder, Talking Timbuktu is one of my all time favorite recordings. Also Niafunke was recorded at Ali's own home, as he was too busy farming and working to travel across the globe to record like he had done in the past. So they brought the studio to him, and recorded it around HIS schedule.
I used to be a partner in a world music shop in the late 80s/early 90s. One year WOMAD had an area at the Roskilde festival in Denmark. Anyone who knows this festival will realise that it is largely an excuse for Scandinavians to get as inebriated as possible to a heavy rock soundtrack. WOMAD was a peaceful, multicultural enclave in the middle of alcoholic carnage IMO.
Well we had a stall there, which took little money, but all the WOMAD acts tended to stay on the WOMAD field, so it was a feast of seeing performers that you had witnessed on stage, also wandering round the music and food stalls. Ali Farke Toure came up to our stall, he bowed and smiled, picked up a small kalimba, and played it beautifully for about quarter of an hour. He then bowed again, smiled and walked away.
An hour later he was up on stage playing his gorgeous music.
He also played a very rare electric guitar, which I have never seen another one like it. It was a Seiwa, who were a Japanese maker in the 70s, who mainly produced copies. However his was one with a built in speaker and amp, which although he never used live, was obviously what he used to play in places without a mains power supply. Sort of like a full bodied Pignose guitar. Never seen another one like it again.
He got a beautiful tone out of that guitar and a Roland Jazz Chorus.
Ali Farke Toure was a musical giant as far as I am concerned.
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Post by Michael Messer on Jun 25, 2009 15:13:53 GMT
Percy, you might be interested to know that I recorded the Bracknell WOMAD Ali Farka Towre & Taj Mahal concert. It was a wondeful moment on a hot Sunday morning back in 1989. I played at that festival too. The recording I have is pretty good, it is a mic recording on to a Sony Professional Walkman Cassette machine. I gave a copy to Taj Mahal a few years ago.
Those WOMAD festivals at South Hill Park in Bracknell were amazing. I saw and met numerous stars of world music there. Nusrat Ali Fatah Khan, Flaco Jiminez, Baaba Maal....and many more. There was a blues festival too, the WOMAD blues festival, does anyone remember that? Buddy Guy & Junior Wells, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, it was a great weekend. WOMAD are a great organization, probably my favourite festivals to play at in the UK.
Shine On Michael.
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Post by percythewonderant on Jun 25, 2009 15:57:47 GMT
Michael thats amazing! There were so few people there it is wonderful that you recorded it. Is there any chance of posting that tape on here? I would love to hear it. I'm sure everyone else would too. I just hope I wasn't clattering my spoon or slurping the milk from my bowl too loud.
He was a master indeed. And a snappy dresser! You have to be a big man to carry off a Zebra stripe zoot suit.
The Blues weekend was a great weekend indeed. My wife who had been driving and was very tired propped herself up against a marquee pole, to one side of the stage, and fell asleep during the original 'Blues Brothers' set.
Seeing a damsel in distress Buddy Guy ordered 'someone out there' to cover her up' before I got over there some other gallant soul had put his jacket over her.
I think that the venue is being used again this year for a festival. A great setting.
I'm off for a few days but Iv'e been all over this site like a rash since I signed in so you can all rest easy until next time.
Regards to all Percy
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Post by Michael Messer on Jun 25, 2009 16:53:41 GMT
Hi Percy,
I cannot post the recording on here for all to download. There are copyright issues. So it does exist, but it is only for private use. For me to break that rule would not make sense, because it is largely due to publishing of material that I feed my family. I would post it, but not without permission from the publishers.
It was a wonderful show and if you lived round the corner, I would drop a copy through your door. But I cannot post it on the Internet. It is against my principles.
It was a great festival and it is a shame they don't do much there anymore. There is a kind of festival, but it ain't like WOMAD or the jazz festivals that were held there.
Shine On Michael.
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Post by andys on Jun 26, 2009 8:03:41 GMT
Ah memories...
Our world music shop, Knock on Wood (still in existence if anyone wants to check them out) was there at Bracknell in 1989 too. We had our stall there, I seem to remember there were all kinds of acts on and it was a great weekend.
They were the golden days of WOMAD as far as I was concerned. They seemed to choose all kinds of different venues and have incredibly diverse acts as well. The best one IMO was when they first started having ones in Morecambe by the sea. They had different venues across this slightly backwater seaside town, and to call it a culture shock would possibly be an understatement. Coupled with the diverse acts, and the fact that many people could stay in very cheap B & Bs made for a very unusual event. So you had The Mekons playing at the railway station, Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan on a stage in front of the old pavilion on the seafront, and Davy Spillane and James playing in the marquee next to the fairground. All this while there were folk having their seaside break as well.
The line up at the first Morecambe WOMAD was trully astounding, and by some accounts it made a big loss as well. Ive sort of lost touch with what WOMAD are doing, as I left Knock on Wood back in 1991, and stopped going to those festivals, but as Michael says the early WOMADs were amazing and truly pioneering in world music. The St Austell ones were out of this world when the weather was kind.
And the cultures mixed brilliantly as well. Two members of Thomas Mapfumos band came to our stall, and both were eating candy floss at the time!
Nostalgia. It isn't what it used to be......!
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Post by Michael Messer on Jun 26, 2009 8:24:34 GMT
It was a great time and those early WOMADs were wonderful. Andy, so you were at the Bracknell festivals too! I played at all of the Bracknell WOMADs. I haven't heard Thomas Mapfumo's name in a long time either. I remember your shop, Knock on Wood. It is a small world. I have many wondeful memories of those festivals; meeting Taj Mahal for the first time, Remy Ongala's band, S.E.Rogie (who became a close friend), Jo Ann Kelly, Youssou N'Dour, Dembo Konte & Kausu Kuyateh, Buddy Guy & Junior Wells,..... A good thread Shine On Michael.
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Post by toom on Jun 26, 2009 17:49:55 GMT
"Oh...by the way Percy....according to Wikipedia a DESSERT is a course that typically comes at the end of a meal, usually consisting of sweet food but sometimes of a strongly-flavored one, such as some cheeses......I think you meant DESERT!!!"
Jelly Roll Morton is my favourite dessert blues player!!! Sorry! I love Ali Farka Towre as well.
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Post by percythewonderant on Jul 1, 2009 13:17:17 GMT
Hi Michael. I can fully understand your position re your posting self recorded material. It was worth a try though. It may actually be worth starting a thread on copyright infringement. It is an interesting subject ande has arguments for and against. lots of pitfalls too.
Sadly I live too far away for you to drop it round but if you ever play in Norfolk again I would appreciate it if you would start your show by playing a bit of the tape as it would serve to calm the surging hordes before you come on! I can pretty much guarantee that I will be there.
I've been thinking about the Bracknell festivals and remembered an outstanding performance by Barrence Whitfield whose 'Stop Twisting My Arm' was always a favourite of mine. His lively stage show caused him to have to lie down during some numbers but didn't stop him dancing while he rested! This ties into a broader world music theme as the last time I heard anything by Barrence Whitfield was a CD I bought of him collaborating with Tom Russell called 'Cowboy Mambo'. As well as name checking every great player in the roots genre the title track contains the immortal line "When King Sunny Ade first came to New York, Politically correct man poked him with a fork".
toom.
With regard to dessert blues I couldn't think past Mango Reinhardt but I do love Jelly Roll, especially the Library of Congress recordings (I love all those band tracks too). I am a big fan of a lot of blues and early jazz piano players. Players like James P Johnson, Tuts Washington, Prof. Longhair and Jimmy Yancy have been huge influences on me, as one of the first people I ever played with in public was an excellent boogieist of an earlier generation. He taught me a lot.
Percy
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Post by Michael Messer on Jul 1, 2009 13:44:44 GMT
Hi Percy,
The Barrence Whitfield & Tom Russell record is an excellent one. Here we go again....somewhere I have a recording of them in session together at BBC GLR as it was then. Probably on the Mary Costello Show. They played at The Weavers at Stoke Newington on that trip. Tom still comes to the UK, but I haven't seen him for many years.
RE - the Taj & Ali recording; I would make a copy for an individual, but I will not put it on the Internet for anyone to grab.
I do not believe there are an argument about whether copyright infringement has any fors or againsts. If it is 'copyright infringement' it is basically theft from the owners of the copyrighted material. We have had conversations about this subject before, but it is not easy explaining to people who are not professional published artists that 'professional published artists ' put food on the table by earning income from their published material. Making that work available on the Internet for all to download, is theft, unless it has been set up by the publisher & artist.
It is easy to sit on the fence and have liberal viewpoints about publishing and ownership if you are not earning your living from published material. If anybody thinks I am being too snappy about this subject, perhaps they would like to work hard at their job and not get paid!
Percy, I am not having a go at you - it is just that publishing, ownership of material, performing rights payments, You Tube anarchy.....and earning ones living from being a professional artist, is a subject that I am 'quite' passionate about!
Having said that; I am interested to hear your 'fors againsts and pitfalls of the world of published material?
Percy, have we ever met at any of the Bracknell festivals, or my trips to Norfolk?
Shine On Michael;.
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Post by Michael Messer on Jul 1, 2009 13:45:19 GMT
....these threads twist & turn don't they!!!!
Dessert Blues.....
....Shine On Michael
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Post by Gerry C on Jul 1, 2009 15:10:01 GMT
I fully agree with you, Michael, about the copyright issue as it affects people ( and their proper descendants) being duly and fairly rewarded for their work and not having it nicked off them - which is what illegal downloading, photocopying etc amounts to. As far as I'm concerned the only grey area would come where copyrights of deceased artists with no known descendants (eg Blind Arthur Blake) are held by some vast and anonymous corporation which actually prevents the music being heard (when performed by other artists) under threat of litigation. (For the record, I have no idea who holds Blake's copyrights or even if there are any - he was just the first name that came to mind!) I'm really happy, for example, that the descendants of Robert Johnson were found and are now reaping the rewards of his work, instead of money going to the publishing companies of certain rock stars who already have too much money and too little conscience... (And I don't mean EC, who coughed up gladly when approached!)
As for the dessert blues: anyone tried a slice of Blind Boy Fuller's "I-Want-Some-of-Your Pie"? Or a dish of Butterbeans and Susie? Try the Orange Blossom Special, sir? Or a Georgia Peach?
I'll get me coat...
Cheerily,
Gerry C
AndyS - is that your Knock On Wood shop in Leeds? I got my mate a really nice set of bongos in there a couple of years ago for his 60th. The world keeps on getting smaller...
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