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aging prize, perhaps more so than for the music. A collaboration between Daniel Ho, a winner of many Grammy awards for Hawai- ian music and the Taiwanese producer Judy Wu, this album is probably more notable for the artists it introduces than for any overall merit per se. Ho has assembled a large group of musicians from the steppes: mainly Mon- golian throat-singers and instrumentalists, but also the fine Manchurian singer Bayin- hehe and Qiqigema, a singer from Anda Union. There are some nice tunes and decent khoomii (Borjigin Hasibatu and Tamir Har- gana) but Ho occasionally adds tenor ukulele and piano. He has already collaborated on the underwhelming Our World In Song album with Wu Man and Luis Conte, and while this is better, he’s in danger of becom- ing another Yo-Yo Ma. But some of the cho- sen guests definitely deserve wider attention.
The lively Buryat singer Namgar (Nam- gar Lkhasaranova) isn’t a throat-singer either, but has a well-projected voice, plays yataga (zither) and dabbles in several styles, from a rocky full-band mode to a more restrained duo. On the smaller dates she is often accom- panied by a chanza player (a kind of banjo- style lute) and in 2014 teamed up with the Sami singer Niillas Holmberg to form Nordic Namgar. Albums are a little hard to find, but there are clips on YouTube. Not so well known outside Russia, she does occasion- ally pop up at other festivals.
One compilation we’re rather late in reviewing doesn’t feature any form of throat- singing either. Chants De L’ours, Harpes & Lyres De Rives De L’ob (Buda Music 2799097) contains field recordings of the indigenous Khanty and Mansi peoples, who speak Finno-Ugric languages and live around the river Ob, north-east of the Urals. ‘L’ours’ is the French word for bear and many of the songs and tunes are derived from the ani- mistic ‘game of the bear’, a ceremony banned during Soviet times, although in the final analysis the dance tunes and songs from this ceremony do rather dominate. Many of the informants are old – one old reindeer herder sings in a dialect they failed to translate – but there are some good songs on more standard folk themes. The instrumental tunes are often sedate, occasionally complex and make a good contrast.
Henri Lecomte also produced the excel- lent two-CD Siberian anthology The Spirits Are Listening (Buda Records 3773176) which begins with three recordings (but only three) from the above CD. It is a much more varied set in terms of material and peoples. Two quite different styles generally referred to as ‘throat-singing’ are recorded. One in the style we associate with Inuit people: from the Koriak people higher up the Kamatchka peninsular, and several in the khoomii style from the Altai. Nearly twenty peoples are represented, from the Nenets to the Buryats and several people bordering on the Arctic Sea. There is much to recommend. Instrumental selections from the Nivkh peo- ple (fiddle playing, three women beating out rhythms from the bear celebration on a log and a long tubular ‘voice modifier’). The vocal selections are enlivened by a quartet of Altai women, a Buryat Buddhist ritual (rather unusual to my Tibetan-tuned ears) and an old Tchouktche reindeer herder singing a song called, appropriately, Born In The Tun- dra. The spirits should be well pleased.
Phil Wilson
www.folkways.si.edu www.budamusique.com www.arcmusic.co.uk www.windmusic.com.tw/en
Smithsonian and Buda are distributed in the UK by Discovery Records
www.discovery-records.com
extraordinarily atmospheric footage on the Lomax trip, about which no spoilers: let’s just say hurrah to Lottie Maddox.
I almost regret now that we vetoed them filming Shirley and Linda Thompson duetting on Blind Willie Johnson’s Soul Of A Man with all-star accompaniment at the Bob Copper centenary day at Cecil Sharp House!
SHIRLEY COLLINS The Ballad Of Shirley Collins Earth CD029
Technically this is billed as a CD with a DVD, but unlike most of those sorts of things where the DVD largely goes unwatched, it’s the film which everybody will buy this for. And it comes in a handsome DVD-sized hardback digipack so it’s quite clear which shelves it fits.
If you haven’t been in range of one of the numerous independent cinema and film festival showings of the Tim Plester/ Rob Curry directed Shirley Collins tribute docu- mentary, you’re in for a massive treat.
Filming commenced sometime after the dust had settled on that team’s rightfully cel- ebrated The Way Of The Morris film, but before the stirrings in the walls that resulted in her triumphant return to recording and subsequent lap of honour with live touring. And then things evolved.
So it shimmers and timeslips between Shirley revisiting her childhood, her America Over The Water expedition to late 1950s southern states USA with Alan Lomax, her earlier career (the archive voice of John Peel introduces a vintage radio session with sister Dolly while Shirley-now prepares to take to the streets of Lewes on its traditional bonfire night revels), getting down with the bosky people at Hastings Jack In The Green, and then slowly gathering together in her cot- tage with Ian Kearey, Ossian Brown and the gang to create what would become Lodestar.
Usual suspects Stewart Lee and David
Tibet pay their respects, as do younger singers Sam Amidon and Elle Osborne, and she’s taken on nostalgia-gathering visits to the old family home in Hastings and the ghost of the Troubadour. There’s archive film from long-ago black & white TV appearances and colour from the last days of her first time round, at the National Theatre. And some
Shirley Collins
The CD is the ‘Soundtrack Album’. It includes plenty of tracks from her Lomax trip recordings (though strangely not the Fred McDowell one which had people visibly gasp- ing when it came roaring out of the big cine- ma speakers the first time I saw it). Some of the unedited tapes rather surprisingly reveal the quintessentially southern English young Shirley falling into local accents when talking with the subjects: it’s easily done! There are also snippets from the film sound and archive recordings of her. You have to pause the cred- its at the end of of the film to work out their provenance as the sources aren’t credited in the nice package. The latter, however, includes good intro pieces from Tim Plester, the Lomax Archives’ Nathan Salsburg and Linda Thompson (the shortest but sweetest!) plus atmospheric stills. Good work!
shirleycollinsmovie.com Ian Anderson
MUDDY WATERS Live At Rockpalast (MIG 90782)
This set contains two CDs and two DVDs: the CDs replicate the music programme of the DVDs. CD/DVD 1 contains the 60-minute set that the Muddy Waters Band, on superb form, performed in December 1978 at the Westfalenhalle Concert Hall in Dortmund, Germany, for TV programme Rockpalast. Lis- tening to the CD is fine but watching the DVD is far better as you can see Muddy’s expressions, the interaction between the band musicians, and the audience response to the great music they are hearing. Muddy’s touring band at this time featured Pinetop Perkins on piano, Luther ‘Guitar’ Johnson and Bob Margolin on guitars, Jerry Portnoy on harmonica, Calvin ‘Fuzz’ Jones on bass, and the brilliant Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith keep- ing magnificent time on the drums. The recording captures the full band sound, espe- cially Muddy’s masterful vocal performance and, on the DVD, the camera work and edit- ing are first rate too.
The second CD/DVD features The Muddy
Waters Tribute Band performing a seventy minute set for Rockpalast in an outdoor set- ting in Loreley, Germany, in June, 1996. This one is rather disappointing in comparison with the first set, as without the voice of Muddy here is simply not the fire power, con- trol and leadership at the front. Luther ‘Gui- tar’ Johnson, Carey Bell, and Bob Margolin all try hard and do their best with their respec- tive vocals: even Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith gets to sing lead on Hard Hard Way and I’m You’re Hoochie Coochie Man, but none can match the charismatic power of their former boss. A guest appearance of Levon Helm swapping vocals with Bob Margolin on Gone To Main Street is a surprise highlight of the set.
Pinetop Perkins is not part of The Tribute Band and Carey Bell has replaced Jerry Port- noy on harmonica. Carey blows up quite a storm, but the loud, squealing feedback from his handheld harmonica microphone keeps spoiling the recorded sound, especially on the CD when you’re only listening. The music played is still strong as these guys all really know what they are doing, but this package is mostly worth getting for the first CD/DVD that showcases the great, and irreplaceable, Muddy Waters.
mig-music.de Dave Peabody
Photo: Eva Vermandel
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