Saturday Night on BBC London 94.9 FM

7 May 05

Kike Pedersen and his Paraguayan harp

Outside the gates of the Glastonbury and Reading Rock Festivals, do the security men check through the musicians’ equipment cases, making sure that nobody has an instrument with more or less than six strings?

How can you explain the unprecedented, one-dimensional dominance of guitars in modern music?

No use in blaming T-Bone Walker and Les Paul, pioneers who showed us what could be done with an electric guitar back in the 1940s. They were explorers. Where they led, Scotty Moore (with Elvis), Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly followed, and behind them came Hank Marvin and Hank Garland, James Burton and Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison and Keith Richard, and whoever else you want to add. But what started as an experiment and an adventure has become a worn-out template and a formula. Time to change and move on, surely.

While it’s rare to be surprised by new ways of playing guitar, I’ve never lost my fascination with hearing stringed instruments plucked, hammered and picked. These days, I’m more likely to be beguiled by the sound of an oud (four strings) and qanun (70-plus) from the Middle East, or the kamal ngoni (six) and kora (21) from West Africa.

Tonight’s guest, Kike Pedersen, offered yet another alternative, the Paraguayan harp. I forgot to ask how many strings it has – about 36 at a guess. I first ran across Kike earlier this year when we were both guests on the same edition of World Routes, hosted by Lucy Duran on Radio 3. Only 20 years old, Kike is in London to learn English, and has not made much attempt to launch himself as a regular live performer. But on the basis of his two radio appearances, he looks and sounds like the perfect support act for any number of artists from Latin America, unafraid to exploit the sheer beauty of his instrument’s sound while still being energetic and rhythmic. And which brave pop or rock group will be the first to invite Kike to give their song a distinctive sound? Interested parties can contact his UK manager Roger Ford at r.ford@amserve.com which is also the link for a copy of Kike's album, LatinAmerican Trip

Strings shimmered elsewhere in the programme too, notably in the first track from the forthcoming album of duets by the maestros from Mali, Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabaté. The album could join the short list of great records made by musicians duetting on stringed instruments, at least one of whom is not playing guitar.

Among the others in such a list would be A Meeting by The River by Ry Cooder and V M Bhatt, New Ancient Strings by Toumani Diabaté and Ballaké Sissoko, Nankuru Naisa by Takashi Hirayasu and Bob Brozman, and Ochre by Andrew Cronshaw (featuring Abdullah Chhadeh on both qanun and oud).

If there is one other Malian kora player to challenge Toumani Diabatðe, it is Ballaké Sissoko, who by coincidence also has a new album out, from which we played Yaro at the start of the second hour to give the programme a neat symmetry. The Czech duo Tara Fuki comes close to qualifying for that list with their album Kapka, on which Andrea and Dorota both play cello and sing. They join us next week to play live. I look forward to your nominations for great stringed instrument duet albums, to be posted in the Feedback forum on this website

For the second week in a row, I played Hellelliloua by Rhythm ‘n’ Bled, a very interesting hybrid project which includes musicians and singers from both north and south of the Sahara, featuring Moriba Koita playing ngoni and an excellent singer songwriter called Rafika, who must be from Algeria or Morocco. Although the track I played is acoustic, several of the others feature a heavier bottom end, making this is an album to search for if you ever play dance music in clubs.

The programme is broadcast from 8 to 10 every Saturday Night on BBC London 94.9, on digital (DAB) radio and on the web at www.bbc.co.uk/london where, as always, this show can be heard for the next seven days until it’s replaced by next week’s.
This site contains a full listing of all the upcoming gigs mentioned on the show, stretching for several months ahead, which is displayed by activating the "What's Going On" link on the menu bar above. If you have pertinent information regarding live music in the London area, send it straight to Alan Finkel 

Your comments, questions and corrections are welcome in the Feedback forum, link above on the navigation bar, where there are separate topics for reactions by listeners to each of the current weekly shows, on BBC London and the World Service.

Four shows from last year – Ping Pongs with David Byrne (April), Aiwa (September) and Mavis Staples (Christmas Day) and the live broadcast from WOMAD Reading (July) featuring Tinariwen, Laye Sow, Malouma and Carolina Herrera - can now be heard at http://www.mondomix.com/en/radios.php

I also present a weekly 26-minute world music show The Sound of the World on the BBC World Service, broadcast four times a week in a 24-hour cycle, Tuesday-to-Thursday. Exact times vary from region to region throughout the world.

In the UK, the programme can be heard four times throughout the day on digital radio, and at 2.30 every Wednesday morning on Radio 4. And it is available On Demand online for seven days.

The playlist is posted in two places: at the World Service’s own site and in the feedback forum of mine.

The link at the top of this page leads you to the On Demand archive for the World Service shows.

Pic by Philip Ryalls.