Remarkable rootsy guitar from the streets of Durban. The guitar probably arrived in South Sfrica with Portuguese or Arab sailors back in the 16th century, but it only started to enter vernacular African traditions in the late 19th century. The discovery of [...]
The Ewe people of Ghana and Togo are renowned for their polyrhymic drumming and beautiful call and response singing. Travelling through this region, one is struck by the way in which they have preserved their traditional music alongside the new cultural ideas [...]
Possibly no other African rulers maintained such a rich variety of musical ensembles at their courts as the Kabakas (kings) of Buganda. For several centuries their kingdom was the largest and most powerful state in central Africa and their palaces resounded throughout [...]
This HMV GV series is a catalogue of roughly 250 double sided 78rpm discs issued between 1933 and about 1958, comprising almost entirely Latin music, mainly from Cuba but also from Puerto Rico and Brazil. It drew on recordings originated by Gramaphone [...]
Blowers from the Balkans presents a remarkable collection of historic recordings from virtuoso players of wind instruments from the countries that make up the Balkans – Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and the newly independent parts of the former Yugoslavia. The recordings were [...]
An exciting collection of authentic Greek bagpipes recorded across the entire country over the last thirty years or more. Many of the musicians are shepherds and peasants and have been recorded in their homes or local environments. Recordings and notes by the [...]
A CD compilation of fantastic Arab women, stars of Egyptian theatre and song who recorded in the nineteen twenties and early thirties. Taken from original 78rpm recordings of the time and remastered to the highest standards, this collection features among others the [...]
Georgia lies to the south of Russia, bordered by the Black Sea to the west and by Turkey and Armenia in the south and Azerbaijan in the east. Formerly part of the Soviet Union, Georgia is a small, very mountainous and poor [...]
As recorded music developed in the early part of the 20th century, there was more and more pressure on commercial record labels to capitalise on indigenous music in Africa, Asia, South America and the Caribbean. This was not some sort of altruistic [...]
The Topic World Series is widely praised as an important collection of the very best ethnographic recordings. Many releases have been made in conjunction with the International Music Collection of the British Library National Sound Archive. Started in 1955, The British Library [...]
Born in 1933, Reg Hall has been a quietly important stalwart and historian of traditional music for wee over fifty years. Best known as a dance musician, Reg has had a long, personal involvement with traditional music-making and has played Irish music [...]
SONGS & RECITATIONS BY THE GREAT MUSIC HALL COMEDIAN Years before Monty Python, a red-nosed comedian in disreputable tails and an improbable moustache created a world all his own. With his spoofs of well-loved poems, raucous street-corner singing and surreal narratives of [...]