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Legends in their Own Country
Seq - Artist - Song Title - Album - Country - Label - Cat no
1 - Atahualpa Yupanqui - El Aromo - La Musica, La Cancion Y La Palabra - Argentina - Nuevos Media - NM 15 909 CD
2 - Woody Guthrie - This Land is Your Land - My Dusty Road - USA - Rounder - CDROUN1162 / 011661116221
3 - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Allah Hoo Allah Hoo - The King of Sufi Qawwali - Pakistan - Manteca - MANTDBL511
4 - E T Mensah - John B Calypso - All For You - Ghana - RetroAfric - RETRO1XCD
5 - Franco - Mabele (feat Sam Mangwana) - Francophonic Vol 1 - Congo - Sterns - STCD3042
------------------------------
Sometimes a programme theme can spring out of just one album, but
in this case the trigger was the more or less simultaneous arrival of
new albums by Atahualpa Yupanqui and Woody Guthrie. Their biographies
have several parallels.
Guiltily, I admit to raiding Wikipedia for the basic storyline of
the life of Atahualpa Yupanqui (31 January 1908 - 23 May 1992) the
singer, songwriter, guitarist, and writer considered to be the most
important Argentine folk musician of the 20th century.
'Yupanqui was born Héctor Roberto Chavero Aramburo in Pergamino
(Buenos Aires Province), in the Argentine pampas, about 200 kilometers
away from Buenos Aires. His family moved to Tucumán when he was ten. In
a bow to two legendary Incan kings, he adopted the stage name Atahualpa
Yupanqui, which became famous the world over. In his early years,
Yupanqui travelled extensively through the northwest of Argentina and
the Altiplano studying the indigenous culture. He also became
radicalized and joined the Communist Party of Argentina. In 1935,
Yupanqui paid his first visit to Buenos Aires, where his compositions
were growing in popularity, and he was invited to perform on the radio.
Soon he made the acquaintance of pianist Antonieta Paula Pepin
Fitzpatrick, nicknamed "Nenette", who became his lifelong companion and
musical collaborator under the pseudonym "Pablo Del Cerro".'
Atahualpa Yupanqui
'Because of his Communist Party affiliation (which lasted until
1952), his work suffered from censorship during Juan Perón's
presidency, when he was detained and incarcerated several times. He
left for Europe in 1949. Édith Piaf invited him to perform in Paris on
7 July, 1950. He immediately signed contract with Chant Du Monde, the
recording company that published his first LP in Europe, “Miner I am”.
He subsequently toured extensively throughout Europe. In 1952, Yupanqui
returned to Buenos Aires. He broke with the Communist Party, which made
it easier for him to book radio performances. Yupanqui died in Nimes,
France in 1992 at the age of 84.'
Atahualpa Yupanqui
Having started, why stop now? Another Wiki entry:
'Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967)
is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose
musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and
children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed
with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar.
His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land", which is regularly
sung in American schools. Many of his recorded songs are archived in
the Library of Congress. Guthrie travelled with migrant workers from
Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs.
Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during
the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl
Troubadour" Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United
States communist groups, though he was never an actual member of any.
Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including
American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. Guthrie died from complications of
Huntington's disease, a progressive genetic neurological disorder.
During his later years, in spite of his illness, Guthrie served as a
figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation
of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin'
Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan.'
Woody Guthrie
In contrast to these radicals, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a
devotional religious singer, born on October 13, 1948 in the city of
Faisalabad, Pakistan. He was the fifth child and first son of Ustad
Fateh Ali Khan, a musicologist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and Qawwal.
Khan began by learning to play tabla alongside his father before
progressing to learn Raag Vidya and Bolbandish. He then went on to
learn to sing within the classical framework of khayal. Khan's training
with his father was cut short when his father died in 1964, leaving
Khan's paternal uncles, Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan and Ustad Salamat Ali
Khan, to complete his training.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
His first performance was at a traditional graveside ceremony for
his father, known as chehlum, which took place forty days after his
father's death. In 1971, after the death of Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan,
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan became the official leader of the family Qawwali
party and the party became known as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Mujahid
Mubarak Ali Khan & Party. Khan's first public performance as the
leader of the Qawwali party was at a studio recording broadcast as part
of an annual music festival organised by Radio Pakistan, known as
Jashn-e-Baharan. Khan sang mainly in Urdu and Punjabi and occasionally
in Persian, Brajbhasha and Hindi. His first major hit in Pakistan was
the song Haq Ali Ali, which was performed in a traditional style and
with traditional instrumentation. The song featured restrained use of
Nusrat's sargam improvisations.
Early in his career, Khan was signed up by Oriental Star Agencies
[OSA] of Birmingham UK to their Star Cassette Label. OSA sponsored
regular concert tours by Nusrat to the U.K. from the early '80s
onwards, and released much of this live material on cassette, CD,
videotape and DVD. In 1983, Khan was featured at WOMAD and soon began a
parallel recording career for Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records.
Various collaborations and film soundtracks extended the range of his
audience, but Nusrat remained commitment to his Pakistani followers
around the world.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Photograph: AFP
The Ghanaian trumpeter, saxophonist and bandleader E T Mensah is
widely credited with inventing Highlife music in the 1950s, adding
horns and electric guitar to a style that had previously been played on
acoustic guitar.
E T Mensah
 E T Mensah by thomaskcollins
Having begun his career in the mid-1950s, in the country that was
at the time called the Belgian Congo, bandleader Franco steadily built
a reputation as the continent’s most popular song writer, documented in
the impressive recent collection of two double CDs, collectively called
Francophonic.
Franco photographed at 18
Volume Two brings the story through to Franco’s untimely death in
1989, but as I wait for that to arrive I have returned to the
impressive Volume One, which includes the impassioned ‘Mabele’, sung by
the young Sam Mangwana. The impeccable sleeve note by Ken Braun tells
us who did what, where and when, and what each song is about. If only
we had known some of this when the vinyl records were first released.
But it’s never too late to learn and enjoy.
Franco
Sam Mangwana with Franco
3:23 PM
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