Lura, World on 3, June 26

[Charlie]

sorry this is an after-the-event posting, but the prgramme is still online for the rest of the week.

Lura, World on 3, 26 June 2009

I am so accustomed to meeting musicians whose lifetime ambition has been to make their living from music, it’s a refreshing change to meet a singer as casual and unambitious as Lura, whose only expectation was to be a dancer. Luckily, almost ten years ago somebody heard her in duet with a famous singer, and here she is, four albums into a solo career and getting better every time.



The danger with the easy-on-the-ear tone of Cape Verde’s singers is that they so easily invite and accept arrangements that would work well in night clubs and hotel lounges. When Lura played WOMAD a few years ago, her main set in the Siam Tent really did sound like it belonged in a night club, but when she came to play on my Radio London show a few hours later she had was accompanied by just guitar and her own percussion, which is what we got in this programme too.


Lura

All the songs are from Lura’s new album Eclipse and, without any keyboards to smooth down the edges of her voice, she sounds so refreshingly immediate and engaging, I was moved to congratulate her on having a tone reminiscent of Ella Fitzgerald at her best, able to sing to the edge of her range without needing to push past it. Graciously accepting my praise, Lura then confounded me by playing a track by Jennifer Hudson. As you will gather from my reaction, I had never heard this singer before and was obliged to endure a shouter who would make Mariah Carey or Celine Dion seem restrained by comparison.

Every now and then, I am caught out by my policy of inviting guests to play whatever they like, with no censorship or filtering, and it is difficult to convey the pain of having to sit through this. How can a singer with such a beautiful tone possibly enjoy somebody with such an ugly voice? It’s a mystery that goes back to the 1920s when Louis Armstrong bewildered his admirers by praising the million-selling bandleader Paul Whiteman. On the one hand, it’s as if the gifted musician has no idea what makes him/her so special to our connoisseur ears, but on the other it’s recognition of what the wider world seems to like best. No singer wants to be boxed into the categories where we may choose to file them, and Lura is entitled to believe that her music would be enjoyed on more mainstream stations than Radio 3. I think so too. And by the way, or not so by the way, she is delightful company.


Lura

The programme is first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 11.15 pm (23.15) on Friday 26 June 2009 and remains online on iPlayer for seven days at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/worldon3

Seq - Artist - Song Title - Album - Country - Label - Cat no

1 - K'naan - Fatima - Troubadour - Somalia/Canada - A&M/Octone - B0012479-02

2 - Chalachew Ashenafi - Munit - Ilita!: New Ethiopian Dance Music - Ethiopia - Terp - AS-15

3 - Up Bustle & Out with Şevval Sam - Yol Türküsü - Istanbul's Secrets - Turkey - Collision - CCT3017-2

4 - Lhasa - Fool's Gold - Lhasa - Canada - Warner - 2564690483

- Lura (vocals, percussion) in session with Osvaldo Diaz (guitar) Part One - - - - -

5 - Lura - M'Bem Di For a - in session - Cape Verde - -

6 - Lura - Marinhêro - in session - Cape Verde - -

- Radio Ping Pong with Lura (*)

7 - Waldemar Bastos - N Gana - Telling Stories to the Sea - Angola - Luaka Bop - 9362 45669 2

*8 - Buika - Mi Niña Lola - Mi Niña Lola - Spain - DRO Atlantic - 082564 6327 423

9 - Cesaria Evora - Bia Lulucha - Telling Stories to the Sea - Angola - Luaka Bop - 9362 45669 2

*10 - Jennifer Hudson - And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going - Jennifer Hudson - USA - Arista -

11 - Mario Lucio - Dioge E Cabral - Badyo - Cape Verde - Lusafrica - 02392-2

*12 - Dee Dee Bridgewater - A Tisket A Tasket - Dear Ella - USA - Verve - 537 896-2

13 - Miriam Makeba - Click Song No 1 - The Essential Recordings - South Africa - Manteca - MANTDBL502

*14 - Amalia Rodrigues - Nem As Paredes Confeso - The Art of Amalia - Portugal - EMI Hemisphere - 7243 4 95771 2

- Lura (vocals, percussion) in session with Osvaldo Diaz (guitar) Part Two

15 - Lura - Un Dia - in session - Cape Verde

16 - Lura - Maria - in session - Cape Verde

17 - Sambasunda - Lost Two Tigers - Island Blues - Indoniesa (Java) - Network - 21.292

18 - Aynur - Ehmedo - Crossing The Bridge - T urkey - Corazon - 5050467 8740 2

19 - African Jazz - Parafili - Congo: Rumba on the River (African Pearls) - Congo - Syllart - 6129042

20 - Cape Verde Show - Santa Catalina - 20 Years of Syllart - Cae Verde - Syllart - CDS 8911

[Charlie]

email from:

1. Elizabeth Molony

Dear Charlie Gillet,
In February 1966 Miriam Makeba performed at the Bern's Salonger in Stockholm, Sweden. This concert was shown on Swedish television in 1967.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHxkiXALQjU

I very much enjoyed your guest Lura on Friday's programme.
Woke in the middle of your show to hear her chatting with you, and then her own charming song 'MARIA '

You can't imagine my joy when after this you played MIRIAM MAKEBA.
Of course her 'Click Song', Qongqothwane' was known to all South Africans.

I wondered if you had seen this video on u-Tube of her aged about 33 singing this song in her amazingly assured style.[There is another in colour where I think she is younger]

Watch her shoulders carrying the rhythms.
Her eyes showed great courage and sadness.
What a wonderful woman. She was like royalty.
You were so lucky to meet her!

She lightly mocked her 'white' audiences for calling her song the 'Click song' .
She, who was fluent in English, I think despised the 'whites' for being unable to pronounce the Xhosa title of this song - 'Qongqothwane' .
and she enjoyed showing off the fantastic clicks

You wondered about Click Song 2.,the second song using those Xhosa sounds , and called Baxabene Oxamu

We were very young students at Cape Town university in the early 60's when she had begun to be known outside of Johannesburg. [She first toured in 1952]

But then the tragedy of South Africa losing her through its crushing Apartheid system..

It still makes me troubled to think back on those shameful times. What courage it took to leave her family and home and make her stand against apartheid through song..

Our National Union of Students kept us abreast of the terribly restricting laws that were being introduced, those awful changes of the early 60s. and the Sharpeville massacre.

But most of us just did not know how to deal with combating a pwerful and aggressive government.

I never knew till recently that she hadn't been able to return for her mother's funeral in 1960 and only returned finally at Mandela's invitation in 1990.

I have missed your shows
Were you at Glastonbury?

Elizabeth Molony

PS:

I haven't found the translation yet!
But see all the 'x,ng, gh, and q's' that make up all the clicks in Xhosa!!!

Baxabene oxamu
Bexabene ngengxongxo
Bexakwe yinxu baxaka

Qyike legqitha igqele laqinge qhude ni
Beliqhatha baba geqotho leqhude

[Alan]

listen again via http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00l8tnd

Includes the heavenly Parafifi by Le Grand Kalle & African Jazz from the album Congo: Rumba on the River (African Pearls). Sound advice from Charlie - “a record you should never be without, wherever you go; if you’re gonna go to a party just put that in your pocket, it might come in handy.â€

[Andrewq]

Despite the posting about the next programme I am still enjoying the sounds of Lura. In fact to have Lhasa, Buika, Cesaria, Miriam, Amalia plus Lura all in the space of an hour was fab. Add Souad, Mariza, Sara, Rokia, Oumou and I realise that the range of the female voice has so much more to offer.Or is that just my preference?

[Charlie]

I realise that the range of the female voice has so much more to offer. Or is that just my preference?

Mine too, Andrew.

Superficially, the same thing is going on in mainstream pop too. But on checking some of the current hot girls - La Roux, Lady Ga Ga - they sound suspiciously like Madonna. Which is no kind of range at all. Still, Duffy, Amy and Lilly are OK and definitely better than the drippy men currently on offer. Jason Mrantz, James Morrison? Gimme a break.