MUSIC OF THE SHIKHAT

Via ghostcapital: a most incredible sample of Tunisian Shikhat dance music recorded by soloist and choreographer Mardi Rollow. Shikhat are "female performers in Moroccan society whose singing and dancing are central to all festivity, including rites of passage like marriage ceremonies and birth and circumcision celebrations. Despite their centrality, however, Shikhat are socially marginal due to the license that they exhibit both in performance and in their 'off-stage' lives" (JSTOR). Dancers sing, perform complicated handclap rhythms and work with finger cymbals. The joyous intensity of this music is arguably not higher than, but definitely very different from, traditional Western wedding music like this (which does still give me goosebumps).

Listen to Music from the Shikhat here.

SUNI MCGRATH - CORNFLOWER SUITE (PT I)

Lesser known of the American Primitivist musicians than his contemporary John Fahey, McGrath's recordings are comparatively hard to come by and fewer/farther between. Cornflower Suite is his first EP, released by Adelphi records in 1969. This is the first portion of the title track, second part here.

McGrath's liner notes read:
"The music on this record is my attempt to explore and further the American acoustic guitar. I have four sources for the musics here presented: Bulgarian harmonies, Hindustani for subtle melodic graces and ideas of variation, Fahey for the conception of the art, Bartok for modal harmonies analogous to conventional Western harmony, and treatment of themes."

McGrath played 12-string guitar. With this, which is at once virtuosic and lush (in those ways, and as it is based on variations, fuguelike) as a precedent it's suddenly so easy to see where something like Led Zeppelin's "White Summer/Black Mountainside" could come from (without disregarding obvious Eastern influences). When I was a kid I was floored by that song, and now by this.

THE QUEEN OF GREENWICH VILLAGE

Karen Dalton

KAREN DALTON - IT'S SO HARD TO TELL WHO'S GOING TO LOVE YOU THE BEST

There are so many comparisons to be drawn between women with "soulful" and "world-weary" voices but it's more fun to listen with an ear outside these. Songs like "Ribbon Bow" are transporting enough to take us beyond some kind of structure of cultural influence and just feel a little thrill in our hot red hearts.

It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You the Best is Dalton's first album, recorded in 1969 on Capitol. She played 12-string guitar and banjo. The album is a compact 31-and-a-half minutes. 



Track listing:
1. "Little Bit of Rain" (Fred Neil)0:00
2. "Sweet Substitute" (Jelly Roll Morton)2:35
3. "Ribbon Bow" (Trad./Karen Dalton)5:18
4. "I Love You More Than Words Can Say" (Eddie Floyd, Booker T. Jones)8:18
5. "In the Evening (It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You the Best)" (Leroy Carr)11:52
6. "Blues on the Ceiling" (Fred Neil)16:24
7. "It Hurts Me Too" (Mel London)20:00
8. "How Did the Feeling Feel to You" (Tim Hardin)23:08
9. "Right, Wrong or Ready" (Major Wiley)26:04
10. "Down on the Street (Don't You Follow Me Down)" (Lead Belly)29:03

MICHAEL HURLEY - BLUE MOUNTAIN

Another Michael Hurley classic. Something I've always loved about the Folkways recordings is how at home the artists seem in taking their time, showing their style, and playing as comfortably as they might alone. This song captures that mood between melancholy and the happiness that peace implies.

MICHAEL HURLEY - SWEEDEEDEE

Really does sound like a rooftop on Washington Square in the summertime. Hurley grew up in Bucks County, PA, and is alive, well, and recording to this day and to the delight of a century.

LATA MANGESHKAR

CLASSIC SONGS OF LATA MANGESHKAR. Listen

Mangeshkar's voice really inspires the kind of emotion and nostalgia that English speakers get from Bing Crosby, Sinatra, Russ Columbo. "The Nightingale of India."