Music

Mama Africa: singing the truth

The life of the South African singer Miriam Makeba, known as “Mama Africa” who, died of a heart attack aged 76 in November. Perhaps more than any other musician, Makeba popularised South African music around the world and became widely identified with the struggle against apartheid. Born in Johannesburg and singing from an early age, Makeba first became well known in the early 50s when she teamed up with the popular close harmony singers, the Manhattan Brothers. This was a time of Black cultural resurgence in the ghettos of Johannesburg and Cape Town. Makeba became prominent in this, recording...

Dubya

Having spent his career documenting American post-Second World war history it was perhaps inevitable that Oliver Stone would want to make a film about George (Dubya) Bush. But the film feels more like a duty than a pleasure — work undertaken to “make the record”, to get printed on celluloid a representation of this at once ridiculous and very dangerously powerful man. Well, how to tell the story without going over very old ground, without being yet another satire on Bush’s gaffes and Texan folksiness? Stone deals with the problem sensibly and competently by opting for a mix of psychological...

Asperger’s, autism, and special talent

On Sunday 5 October, my son Joe and his dad went to the “Autism and Music” concert at the Savoy Theatre in London. It was promoted by the Autism Research Centre, which is based at Cambridge University and headed up by Professor Simon Baron Cohen. Most people hear about the difficulties associated with autism and Asperger Syndrome, including social and communication problems, and obsessions. But the obsessions can also give rise to particular talents, which apparently cluster around music, art and maths. So the idea of the concert — and of an arts exhibition at the ICA later that week — was to...

Iraq’s (not quite) lost generation

Review of Heavy Metal in Baghdad Acrassicaduda (Latin for black scorpion) is a heavy metal band in the world’s most “heavy metal city” — Baghdad. After writing about them in US counter culture magazine Vice in 2003, two metal head journos make the ultimate groupie pilgrimage to the world’s most dangerous city to track down the young Iraqis who make up the band. The filmmakers, Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi, introduce us to each member of the band — all young Iraqi men, who speak with terror and a glint of hopelessness in their eyes about the violence that has ripped apart their home city...

MARGARET BARRY

MARGARET BARRY A scrawny gaunt young tinker, With thick black hair and too few teeth, Street-singing through the fairs for pennies: Bottom of Ireland's underneath. But like the wild bird on the wing, She could sing: how she could sing!

Recent years

JB Lenoir from the Chicago blues movement in the 1950s recorded several LPs using acoustic guitar, sometimes accompanied by Willie Dixon on the acoustic bass or drums. His songs commented on political issues such as racism and the Vietnam War, which was unusual for this period. His Alabama blues recording had a song that stated: I never will go back to Alabama, that is not the place for me (2x) You know they killed my sister and my brother, And the whole world let them peoples go down there free White audiences’ interest in the blues during the 1960s increased due to the Chicago-based Paul...

Revolutionary rock stars?

Peter Doggett’s book recalls in detail (over 525 pages) the uneasy relationship between rock stars, political activists and the “counter–culture” between 1965 and 1972. His raison d’etre for the book: “In an era when Bono, the hand in glove darling of the global political establishment and Bruce Springsteen, the personification of cosy liberalism, are revered as rock and pop icons, its timely to be reminded of an era when artists were prepared to court unpopularity (and worse) for their ideals.” Dogget also attacks some of the myths that have been created by the artists themselves about this...

Blues in the 1960s and 1970s

Continuing a series on the history of the blues By the beginning of the 1960s, genres influenced by African American music such as rock and roll and soul were part of mainstream popular music. White performers had brought African-American music to new audiences, both within the US and abroad. In the UK, bands emulated US blues legends, and UK blues-rock-based bands had an influential role throughout the 1960s. Blues performers such as John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters continued to perform to enthusiastic audiences, inspiring new artists steeped in traditional blues, such as New York-born Taj...

About not giving in

Review of The Gossip at the Shepherds Bush Empire The Gossip’s riot girl inspired punk-soul music has been a revelation ever since it stormed the Indie music scene and its third album, Standing in the way of control, went stratospheric. Lead singer Beth Ditto’s electrifying voice and arresting onstage presence reminds you exactly why. Beth describes herself as “fat lesbian feminist”. She appeared naked on the front of the NME, and refused to play a gig at Top Shop, slamming them for not making clothes for “big girls and boys” and offering to design for them. It’s this out, proud and fuck-you...

Early post-war blues

Continuing a series on the history of the blues The Second World War had meant mass migration with papers like the Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier even advertising for blacks to make the migration north to a better life via the Illinois Central and Highway 61. Blacks replaced white workers in Detroit, Chicago and New York who had gone off to fight in the wars. Migration also took place to the defence industries in California and the Western states, after the successful threat of a March on Washington in 1963 by the Brotherhood of Railway Porters against the colour bar in these...

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