Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic
Thanks to my neighbor and good friend, Paul – who hails from the UK – I have had the opportunity to take in the annual spectacle known as the Eurovision Song Contest, something I’ve read about for years in British music publications. Most of the offerings, unfortunately, are fairly forgettable,
“Look Up In The Sky” is a commanding slab of 1977 West African funk that was recorded in Paris and voiced by 7-year-old Francis “The Great” Mbarga: Francis the Great “Look Up In The Sky” (1977) I wonder if the person who paid $750 last September for the original 1977
Liz Damon and the Orient Express Band were once the house band at the Hilton Hawaiian Village whose debut album, At the Garden Bar, Hilton Hawaiian Village, was originally issued on local label, Makaha, in 1970. Enter White Whale, the indie label that likely released surf music’s final first-wave recording
Café Paris, the aforementioned budget-priced 3-CD set that Whole Foods is pushing on its hipster demographic, also includes an engaging piece of garage punk (or, as it is more formally known, French Freakbeat) – “J’ai Mis Un Tigre Dans Ma Guitare” from the 1966 ‘Maxi Disque‘ of Jacques Dutronc. Subsequently,
I recently made my first ever musical purchase at Whole Foods — a budget-priced three-disc set entitled, Café Paris: 42 Classic Songs from France. One track from 1967 tickled my ear – Brigitte Bardot’s “Oh, Qu’il Est Vilain” – with its spryly humorous organ, naive recorder lines, and cuckoo chorus:
Victor Uwaifo‘s double-neck “magic guitar” with 18 strings immediately brings to mind Andy Tielman and his 10-string guitar. I suspect that many if not most Americans are unfamiliar (as I was) with The Tielman Brothers, a band of siblings from the Netherlands by way of Indonesia. But check out this
If it weren’t for Don’t Stay Up Too Late’s thoughtful (and poetic) 100 Great Singles of the 1960s (That Haven’t Been Played to Death on Oldies Radio), I might never have learned of “Africa’s Guitar King” — Sir Victor Uwaifo — and the heavenly sounds he conjured on his 1966
Les Roche Martin appears to have released one single and two EPs – all in 1967 – before the group’s creative director, Vèronique Sanson, struck off on her own, beginning in 1969. “Tu As Peur de Bruit” embodies 1967’s adventurous musical spirit, while it also brilliantly evokes the baroque pop
EMI’s anthology of 60s French pop – La Belle Epoque: EMI’s French Girls 1965-68 – includes this tuneful track from 1967, Christie Laume‘s “L’Adorable Femme des Neiges.” Unsurprisingly, this song – with its effective use of the celeste – would be the title track of a 4-song EP released in
My first encounter with a kalimba, the African instrument (also known as a “thumb piano” or mbira) was when I read the album credits for Space Oddity in my youth and learned that David Bowie played a kalimba on the title track, Bowie’s first American breakout hit (a.k.a., “Major Tom“).
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