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."

LATA MANGESHKAR - TAK TAK DHOOM DHOOM

Theatrical gem sung by Indian performer Lata Mangeshkar, one of the best-known playback singers for Indian film. If you've ever wondered about the mesmerizing vocals of Bollywood actors, look up playback singing.

Mangeshkar is also the singer of the moody lullaby Main Jugan Tu So Ja, featured on Mississippi Records Vol. 056. The elision between some of the phrases is especially beautiful. The title means "I will stay awake while you fall asleep;" there is really nothing better than knowing that someone is staying awake while you get to sleep and this song is as good as that feeling.

Both songs are featured in the 1957 Hindi film Do Aankhen Barah Haath (Two Eyes, Twelve Hands), featuring by Sandhya Shantaram.

THE VERSATONES - BILA

It seems "The Versatones" was a popular name for bands in the US midcentury, & this actually has nothing to do with Eddie Balzonczyk's better known group of the same name; it was a part of a one-off 45 from a different band produced on All Star records by Dickie Goodman, in 1958. Later it became a Top 10 hit on Pittsburgh's station KQV & was reissued; most copies sold in NYC out of a subway station record shop called Times Square Records. THEN in the 60s it resurfaced as a hit in Philadelphia & was reissued by Lost Nite. There's a rare version of the song only found on the Lost Nite copies in yellow vinyl. Keep an eye out.

That super instrumental throaty humming is the kind of thing that sets one band apart from everything else in its genre. It's total doo-wop gibberish, unless you pull "dance" from the word "bila" which doesn't seem like too much of a stretch.

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES PRESENTS: MUSICAL BROTHERHOODS FROM THE TRANS-SAHARAN HIGHWAY

Filmed mainly at the Jemaa Al Fna in Marrakesh, this hour focuses on street music played in and between Marrakesh and Essaouira by traders and travelers, as they have done for centuries, along the Trans-Saharan Highway. Featuring electric ouds, mandolins, banjos, the Gwana sentir, and mindblowing vocals. "Ecstasy" in its most literal manifestation.

NEWS: MISSISSIPPI RECORDS STARTS SUBSCRIPTION SERIES

Mississippi Records has launched a website and a subscription series, which you can subscribe to by sending cash or check in the amount of $68-300.

"After years of resistance for no good reason" to frequent requests for a subscription service, MR has teamed up with Eggy mailorder for the Community Supported Record program:  "to give people who don't live in Portland, or do not live at their local record store, a chance to get the more limited Mississippi/Change releases." The CSR also gives you an opportunity to support our label in its mission to keep prices low, to make important cultural information available to those who care, and to support artists and their ancestors who have all too often been screwed by the mainstream record industry." You'll be sent as many records as can be bought with the money you send. Records are mailed as they're produced by the plant, which MR estimates to be about three times per month. A form is available if you'd like to to narrow your genre preferences. 

YEMEN FIRQAT SANAA - LAK AL-HAMD YA ALLAH NASHEED

That so many men could sing such agile vocals in complete synchronicity is nothing short of spiritual.

Posted by YouTube user Yemen Reform.

YILMA HAILU - TEWAHIDO: ETHIOPIAN ORTHODOX RECORDINGS

Mesmerizing Ethiopian Orthodox Christian music via Awesome Tapes from Africa. Fascinating that sounds produced by an Orthodox faith sound as untraditional as they do to Western ears - really it just confirms the radical nature of highly ritual spirituality.

Vocals and mezmur.

Listen here.