Album of the week : Amadou and Mariam - Welcome to Mali ( Because Records)
Following the news of Miriam Makeba's death at the weekend we open the show with a couple of her songs including her international breakthrough song, penned by Dorothy Masuka, Pata Pata. Jackie Patel (a.k.a ) joins me as my live studio guest in the second half. She is the lead vocalist with Leeds based Sex Patels who are appearing at the Boardwalk on Thursday. A woman with a heck of a voice, she brings in some of her favourite vocalists to share with us, one of whom is the late great Miriam Makeba.
One of the nice things about having a studio guest and asking them to chose the music to play is that you get to hear or are reminded of music that either you haven't heard before or had forgotten about. It also keeps me on my toes, I had no idea that Mahalia Jackson, legendary gospel singer, vowed never to sing a secular song in her professional career. So strong was she on this point, that when her husband put her under pressure to do the contrary, she divorced him. I didn't know either that she was the first gospel singer to win a Grammy and that Miriem Makeba was the first African to win a Grammy. Both women sung for President Kennedy and Mahalia Jackson who moved to Chicago in the great migration was present when Martin Luther King made his famous, "I Had A Dream Speech", its a shame she did not live to see Barack Obama's election victory in her adopted home state....and Tania Maria, I hadn't heard of her until today but a complete legend in the jazz field, playing at virtually every jazz festival around the globe.
Our where in the World track comes courtesy of a tape lent to me for rather a long time by Norman - it was the tape issued free with the NME back in October 1987 to promote "word music" - The World at One. I was rather talen by the Albanian Dance Duo, Sadik Diko and Reshit Shehu from an archive recording on Topic Records dating back to 1966 ...fabulous pipe and percussion.
Plus some new releases and artists new to Gondwanasound such as Crooked Still, Ras Nas, Siba e a Fuloresta...hope you hear something you enjoy.
