Going Fishing

I am going on holiday tomorrow so this will be the last post for ten days or so.

I am off to Spain to stay in the decaying villa of a down on his luck minor English aristocrat, so thought it appropriate to leave you with some music from Spain. But this is not Spanish music - Ruper Ordorika is a Basque and Joan Manuel Serrat a Catalan, and they sing in their respective languages. Here is one of each.

Ruper Ordorika - "Alberto Caeiroren Bizita"

http://www.box.net/shared/tq6dg9q5lr

Joan Manuel Serrat - "Els Falziots"

http://www.box.net/shared/jxd6v5axpm

I have been to Spain a number of times before. But not everybody has:



I will be taking down all the February links when I get back so fill your boots while you can. And there will be lots of exciting new stuff - my new Tsonga Disco CD should have arrived by then, and I'll have to plan some special Eurovision feature in the run up to the big day on 16 May. So stay tuned!

Birthday Bard

Tomorrow is Shakespeare's birthday, so to mark the occasion here are Michael & The Messengers with the garage-tastic "Romeo And Juliet":

http://www.box.net/shared/h6zo0bftgx

At this point I had hoped to revive the irregular "naff 1980s pop" slot with a clip of B A Robertson doing "To Be Or Not To Be", but sadly I couldn't find one. So here is David Essex with "A Winter's Tale", twinkling more than the lights on the Christmas tree:

Friends of a Friend

I am now a Facebook Friend of David Olney.

After my recent post about Barry Marshall-Everitt, Mr F sent me a list of Barry's Facebook Friends - see the comments on:

http://27leggies.blogspot.com/2009/04/borderline-barry-is-back.html

David Olney is on that list. I once bought him a pint after a gig in London which I reckoned made me just about his best mate by Facebook standards. So I contacted him and he agreed. I have not exactly joined an exclusive club - there are 550 of us and rising - but I am proud to be there in between Monty Hobratschk and Sheila Hopkins Hoeppner*.

Monty and Sheila, while no doubt lovely people, are not names I recognise (and in Monty's case not a name I can spell). But there were plenty of others on there I had heard of and long admired. Here are two of them.

Vince Bell - "Best Is Yet To Come" (from "Texas Plates", 1999)

http://www.box.net/shared/kp12uv0qrk

Kevin Montgomery - "Another Long Story" (from the album of the same name, 2000)

http://www.box.net/shared/rg4l6osn4p

And here is a video of my mate Dave himself performing "Big Cadillac":



* The astute amongst you may have noticed that Goggins does not fit alphabetically between Hobratschk and Hoeppner and jumped to the wrong conclusion. To clarify - Ernie Goggins is my real name, but for Facebook purposes I use a ridiculous pseudonym to avoid being pestered by sad individuals wanting to be my friend on some flimsy pretext. Mr Olney might want to consider doing the same.

Today's post is brought to you by the Letter K

The only thing today's tracks have in common is that all the performers begin with the letter K. And for that reason alone this post is dedicated to Kat at "Keep the Coffee Coming", one of the brightest stars in the blogging firmament.

First up is some 1970s Korean pop from Kim Jung Mi. According to whatever blog I found this on originally - apologies to them for not giving them proper credit - the title translates in English as "Mi Ga Na Da Ka Ma Ba, My Loving Korean Alphabet". I say "English" is the loosest sense of the word.

http://www.box.net/shared/7y2thg677l

Next is one of my favourite Afrikaans troubadours - there are several, honest - Mr Koos Kombuis. This is a rocking, reggae-tinged number called "'n Kaartjie van Koos", taken from an album he made with Valiant Swart (he is one of the other ones). The title translates as "A card from Koos", and it is an extended apology to a young lady of his acquaintance. I won't translate the much-repeated line "Ek weet ek was a doos" directly as the last word is a bit rude, but the gist of it is "I know I was an idiot".

http://www.box.net/shared/okzai9kv3c

And finally, some 1970s Swedish folk-rock from Kebnekajse. I don't know much about them other than that they were named after the highest mountain in Sweden. I found a "best of" compilation for a couple of pounds in a street market in London a few years ago, but all the liner notes were in Swedish. Anyway, this particular song is called "Rattvikarnas Ganglat" and features a lady gargling. That is what sold it to me.

http://www.box.net/shared/b9s51uzie4

How kontrived.

Van The Man Live!

Last night I was at the Royal Albert Hall to see a great show by Van Morrison - one 75 minute normal set followed by "Astral Weeks" in its entirety.

It has been a few years since I have seen him and apparently in that time his performances had become a bit perfunctory. If that was the case it certainly didn't apply last night. He seems to have got his groove back. He even laughed at one point, which was a little unnerving.

One of the many highlights was "Queen of the Slipstream" from his "Poetic Champions Compose" LP. Here is a version by Son Seals:

http://www.box.net/shared/oqjo5via53

That is from the appallingly titled "Vanthology", released in 2003. Fortunately the album is much better than the title, and takes the simple idea of getting some classic soul and blues singers into the studio to interpret Van. Generally it works very well and for me it was a real treat to hear some of my favourite singers - people like Otis Clay and William Bell - adding their great voices to songs by the man I consider the all-time number one.

The second selection from the album is Little Milton's version of "Tupelo Honey":

http://www.box.net/shared/g5bmt74q7l

And finally here is the man himself performing "Sweet Thing" at the Hollywood Bowl version of the same show. His production company seem to have put the whole show up on YouTube but this is the only number that doesn't have an annoying "VM" logo superimposed over the action. Needless to say I'll be looking out for the DVD.

Tsonga Disco (3)

Exciting news on the Tsonga Disco front. My collection is about to double in size.

I have ordered two more CDs from the excellent South African online music store One World. There is a link to them in the right hand column and if you like the South African stuff I have posted up to now I would encourage you to investigate further. The postage costs are pretty steep - presumably because they don't feel able to entrust delivery to the South African postal service - but the CDs are very reasonably priced so the overall cost works out OK (at least from the UK with the current exchange rate).

I have ordered another Joe Shirimani CD and one by Thomas Chauke. Mr Chauke is apparently one of the biggest names in traditional Tsonga music, having recently released his 29th album. Whether traditional Tsonga music bears any resemblance to Tsonga Disco I don't know, but we'll find out soon. I will post some tracks from both CDs when they arrive.

But to keep you going in the meantime here is a track apiece from the two CDs I have already.

First is Joe Shirimani with "Marabastad 2". This album - Miyela - is available from One World.

http://www.box.net/shared/1j6p9ib29b

And next is Madlaks with "Ndhlo Ndhlo" (and before you start bombarding me with e-mails on the subject, the answer is yes - this is the remix tagged on to the end of the album, not the original version. I'm surprised you need to ask)

http://www.box.net/shared/15hkk92sjo

As with my previous Tsonga Disco posts we finish with a Joe Shirimani video from YouTube. This one is "Ncomani". This appears to be the last of his videos on there, so we may need to think of something else for next time.

Shondells Soul And Soca

Mary at work has very kindly given me a load of recent soca mp3s. I used to listen to soca a lot in the 1980s but with the modern stuff I’m afraid I find myself muttering that it all sounds the same to me – and in truth it was heading that way 20 years or so ago after the advent of what Chalkdust called “two chords and Leston Paul”.

Having said that there were a fair few gems in Mary’s selection, and one song in particular stood out as being very catchy and naggingly familiar. After a few listens it eventually dawned on me that the reason it sounded familiar was because they had nicked the tune for the chorus from “Crimson and Clover” by Tommy James & The Shondells. And they even gave it a title that rhymed as a clue. So here is “Wine And Bend Over” by Ghetto Flex and Denise Belfon.

http://www.box.net/shared/ohatbkultg

I have a few other Tommy James covers dotted around my collection. One of the better ones is this laid-back soulful remake of “Crystal Blue Persuasion” by The Kelly Brothers.

http://www.box.net/shared/epo9m8fqib

We'll leave you with a clip of Mr Flex and Ms Belfon wining and, in her case, bending over. If you have a nervous disposition you may want to skip the bit starting at 0:33.