A Musical Tour of the World: All Countries A-Z One Per Day

And then there are the British Virgin Islands (BVI). This clip is a smartphone recording of what the poster on YouTube describes as follows: "A traditional fungi band serenades us on New Years Day on Tortola British Virgin Island. The tradition is the band arrives at your home and plays a song to ask for entry. If you accept you give them a shot of rum and invite them in where they play music for you in exchange for food and drink".

 

Well some might argue with the first part of that title ...

The Talbot Brothers can be seen in the first half of this clip -

 

It's interesting to see the music from non-independent places in the world which don't self-govern. I had a thought as to what parts of the world starting with B have their own recognisable culture. The first one to come to mind was Bavaria, and the first things I thought of were Oktoberfest and lederhosen. So, here is the Bavarian Oompah Band, a "drinking brass band". I don't know what the song is called. Unless that "drinking brass band" is the name of the song, not a description of the band.



EDIT: Though, I notice that the band may be UK based, given the entertainment agency that is advertising them. According to the comments, the name of the song translates to "one, two, three, drink".

 

LOL! That's hilarious. Bavarian drinking songs are far from my favorites, but it is definitely an easily identifiable cultural trait. Actually what they´re singing is "Eins, zwei, g'suffa", which I would translate freely as "One, two, bottoms up". "G'suffa" is Bavarian dialect of the high-German "gesoffen", which literally means "drunk" (i.e. the past participle, not the noun). Hence my translation, which is confirmed by the fact that someone is indeed emptying his glass standing up when the singer is close.

 

Fun find. I can only enjoy Bavarian oompa band music in small doses and usually at a beer hall. This one is fun/ny. It sort of reminds me of traditional Mexican folk music with the heavy use of horns. I think Spanish being sung is a bit more kinder to the ears than that of German.

Anyway, I plan to pop in here now and then. I like some occasional non-American music.

 

I'm just checking some Italian films out (while still assimilating Morricone's passing); and, as I stumbled upon the '74 Italian film "Profumo Di Donna" by David di Donatello, a very iconic moment of the movies history immediately came to mind .... the Tango dance scene to Carlos Gardel's memorable song "Por Una Cabeza", from a Martin Brest's film which was just based on that Italian film, and also borrowing its title name ("Scent of a Woman"). Worth sharing, methinks.

Carlos Gardel - Por Una Cabeza (orchestral version)

 

Thanks for the music, everyone.

Today's country is Cabo Verde, AKA Cape Verde.

A lot of singers move around the world. This is Mayra Andrade who is a Cabo Verdean singer, who now lives in Portugal. According to the comments the video is filmed in Senegal. I like the modern feel without it being modernised in the way that I often find if I google 'best 2020 music' of many countries.



The Moma style is said to be the national style of Cabo Verde, and one of it's early proponents was the late singer-songwriter Cesaria Evora, known as the 'Queen of Morna'. Here she is with Sodade.

This video claims to show the best violinist from Cabo Verde and I think he is very good indeed. I don't know who the artist is; the video says 'the best of Ilha do Fogo', but that's an island in the Cabo Verde group. I do like the sound of the violin with the modern African style backing.

One more rural style of music in Cabo Verde is the Batuque. I think that this unnamed song is an example, as the description fits and the word batuku appears to be an alternate spelling of batuque. Here is a Rotterdam based 'Batuco' group performing live, with the more traditional style where the lead singer will dance in the middle of a circle of others and there is no other accompaniment other than the percussion and chorus of those in the circle. The song is Sima Nos e So Nos by Batuco Cabo Verde.

There's a lot more to come from Cabo Verde, including styles such as the more dance orientated funaná, tabanka, coladeira, colá, the European influenced mazurka style (also a Polish dance, but I haven't investigated to see if they are related), and others. I saw someone say that they'd never heard so much music come out of such a small country, but in researching for this thread I've seen plenty of small countries producing massive amounts of music in diverse styles.

In googling batuque, I found the singer Lura who performs very much in Cabo Verde styles even though she, while born of Cabo Verdean parents, was born in Portugal. According to her publicity she prefers rural styles such as batuque, funaná, and mazurka to the more urban morna. Here she is with Fitiço Di Funana.

 

PS: I'm still working from the most recently posted list of countries/distinctive regions, and I count 17 countries/places beginning with C. That's a good number of countries, and we can have a rest/catchup/miscellaneous day after we've finished the Cs. I'll repost the list here within a spoiler tag to see if that takes up less space on screen.

Spoiler: List of Countries/Regions

Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Angola
Antigua and Barbuda
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Brunei
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cabo Verde
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada
Central African Republic
Chad
Chile
China
Colombia
Comoros
Congo
Costa Rica
Croatia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czech Republic (Czechia)
Côte d'Ivoire
Democratic Republic Congo
Denmark
Djibouti
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
England (UK)
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Estonia
Eswatini
Ethiopia
Fiji
Finland
France
Gabon
Gambia
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Grenada
Guatemala
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Hawaii (United States)
Honduras
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
Kosovo
Kurdistan
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mexico
Micronesia
Moldova
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
North Korea
North Macedonia
Northern Ireland (UK)
Norway
Okinawa (Japan)
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russia
Rwanda
Saint Kitts & Nevis
Saint Lucia
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tome & Principe
Saudi Arabia
Scotland (UK)
Senegal
Serbia
Seychelles
SierraLeone
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
Somalia
South Africa
South Korea
South Sudan
Spain
Sri Lanka
St. Vincent & Grenadines
State of Palestine
Sudan
Suriname
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Thailand
Tibet
Timor-Leste
Togo
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United States
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Vatican City (Holy See)
Vanuatu
Venezuela
Vietnam
Wales (UK)
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

 

An excellent varied selection as always; I particularly liked the "unnamed song" which I guess may be by Tradison de Terra (there are other YT clips bearing that name); although this album suggests they might be Femmes de Rincon; or Batucadeiras (drummers) de Rincon from the Santiago Island.
Batucadeiras De Rincon - Cape-Verde: Batuco From Santiago Island
The song appears to be about some men on the island who didn't want their wives to be part of the group.

A couple of artists I found and liked from a trawl through You Tube -

Blacka (Silva) - 'Sakedo'; her latest video, posted at the end of May


Blacka Silva

Elida Almeida -'Nta Konsigui' (not representative of her other clips)
YouTube
Elida Almeida - Wikipedia

 

Thanks John. Excellent song choice there with interesting back story. I read that while some other islands have more Portuguese influence, Santiago is culturally more African.

In terms of selecting unrepresentative songs - I often do this. I'm looking for music I like and often it's an artist's less representative songs that most match my personal taste. While I like heavy metal, for one country in the Ls I've put an acoustic session by a metal band in my list, because that's the song of theirs that I like most.

 

I'm starting to think we're going to need two days for Mali. I play world music playlists, something really nice starts playing, and it's Mali again!

 

'Mar Azul' (Blue Sea) is my favourite of those I've watched by Tradison di Terra (it's not really 11:36 long as indicated; only about half that length)


I see that they have released a CD/DVD
Tradison Di Terra CD+DVD
and a new video of theirs was posted to YT only a couple of months ago.

 

Great selection as always, @HitAndRun! I have been a massive fan of Cesaria Evora and her mornas for a long time. There is something very melancholic about the music, which is exemplified by the title of the song you posted "Sodade". "Sodade" is Cape Verdian creole for the Portuguese "saudade", which is difficult to translate, but means a melancholic yearning for something that was lost. She sings about São Tomé and São Nicolau, but she herself lived all her live in São Vicente, so exactly what she is referring to I don't know.

The violin player is Manuel "Breca" and what I gather is that these performances and the YouTube channel are sponsored by the "Fogo Violin Club", which I suppose is from Ilha do Fogo.

the "unnamed" song is indeed from a group called Tradison di Terra, which is creole for "tradition of the land (or soil)". By the way, that you found a batuque band based in Rotterdam is no surprise, as Rotterdam has one of the largest Cape Verdian communities outside Cabo Verde

I like the below song by Finaçon. They apparently play a mix of Funaná and Coladeira into a fusion called Funacola, according to Wikipedia. Anyway, it sounds like happy, upbeat music to me, far removed from the yearnings of the mornas.

 

Great songs both. Ilha do Fogo - I've just learned about that island. It's the one where people live in towns within the caldera of an active volcano. (The caldera as a whole itself isn't active, but there are active vents within it.)

I thought I'd do a quick search to see if I could post something sensible here. I found a music video showing the volcanic nature of the geography there, but I found the song a bit uninteresting. Then I found my way back to Elida Almeida as posted by John. I tried searching on Cabo Verde comedy music, but nothing doing.

 

Thanks for the music, everyone.

Today's country is Cambodia.

It's impossible to discuss the Cambodian music scene without mentioning the 1960s/70s rock boom that was ended with the Khmer Rouge regime, where many Cambodian musicians and artists were executed by the regime. Not only were the artists exterminated, but many of their recordings were destroyed, or allowed to be ruined. Some music only survived on records etc. and what remains is not always of high quality.

I do like to lead with a video that actually has video, rather than just audio. However, in this case I'm going to use what I can find. Here is Pan Ron (also spelled) Pen Ren with her song 'Don't Speak'.



Among the Cambodian Rock Boom artists, I prefer the more rock 'n roll style songs. Here's Ros Sereysothea with 'Chnam oun Dop-Pram Muy' or 'I'm 16'. And, here's Sinn Sisamouth, sometimes described as the Cambodian Elvis, with 'Khung Prous Sraulang'.

The exact fate of all of those artists is unknown, but it is said that all of them being western-influenced performers would have been subject to summary execution by the Khmer Rouge once discovered.

There are modern acts, both in Cambodia and elsewhere who recreate the music and style of this era. One is The Cambodian Space Project, which was a band formed by Kak Channthy and then Australian husband Julien Poulson. Here they are with 'Don't Say You Love Me'. While I had heard their music from some time ago, I hadn't been following them closely. In research for this thread I found that Channthy sadly had died in a car accident. The Cambodian Space Project has rebranded itself The CSP Mothership and has continued with a new vocalist.

Perhaps similar in style to The CSP in Dengue Fever. This is an American band with all American members apart from the lead vocalist Chhom Nimol who was a singer in Cambodia before emigrating to the US, but they too are inspired by the 1960s/70s Cambodian rock boom. Here they are with 'Hold My Hips'.

There are a fair number of links here already, but I'd like to include something different as well. Here's something more modern. The artist is Oeun Sreymom but I don't know the name of the song as I can't read Khmer. YouTube There's a lot of generic music around the world, but I find the instrumental backing of this song helps it become more interesting than some producers would have made it.

And finally, here's some traditional Cambodian music, described as 'Pinpeat Music'. 'Pinpeat' is the largest off the Cambodian traditional music ensembles, and they would perform the music of the Cambodian court and temples since ancient times, according to Wikipedia.

(Note)
I've just noticed that Côte d'Ivoire is last among the 'C' countries due to my computerised alphabetical ordering and the letter 'ô'. I'm going to leave it where it is in the order, rather than move it to the position that 'Cote d'Ivorie' would have.

 

Another good selection - when I looked at YT yesterday I couldn't find any modern Cambodian recordings that were to my taste, but I do like the one posted above by Oeun Sreymom.
Oeun Srey Mom | About

The Sinn Sisamouth song is also nice. Some of the other pre-Khmer Rouge Cambodian recordings on YT may perhaps have been subject to some more recent overdubbing to make them more rock'n'roll, but I really like this one by Ros Sereysothea (title google translated as "Flowers in the Sky") which sounds as if it could have been produced by Joe Meek and then played on a distant AM radio station


Here's the trailer for the documentary film "Don't Think I've Forgotten" on Cambodia's Lost Rock'n'Roll - I don't think it ever saw a full UK cinema release but I believe it is available for (paid for) streaming. I saw a film festival screening of it a few years ago.
YouTube

There was also a documentary "Not Easy Rock'n'Roll" about the Cambodian Space Project (aka "Rocking Cambodia; the Rise of a Pop Diva" when shown in the UK in BBC4's "Storyville" series) I found it to be more than a little sad at the time (and this was prior to Kak Channthy's tragic death)
BBC Four - Storyville, Rocking Cambodia: Rise of a Pop Diva, Cambodian Space Project on tour in Hong Kong
YouTube
Singer-songwriter Kak Channthy, dubbed the Cambodian Amy Winehouse, dies in car crash at 38

 

Thanks for the music.

Today's country is Cameroon. I'm going to start with, according to musicinafrica.net's bio of her, 'spoken word and afrosoul artist' Joyce Babatunde and her song Merry Go Round.



Having heard quite a bit of music from around the world in English which sounds like it could have come from anywhere, it's refreshing to hear this with has a distinctive feel. Here is an example of her spoken word performance called Blinding Charity (in English.)

More tradition, here is Pantaléon, described as 'The King of Mvet'. This video alternates performance and discussion of the mvet. Or, for a full track by Pantaléon with instrumental and vocal backing, here's Nken Mbon. I included the interview/explanation video and not just the track because I'd been seeing the mvet (or similar instruments) all over the place but didn't know what it was called.

Here is some Cameroonian disco from 1981 with syn-drum sounds and everything but still quite a lot of local flavour: Jeannette Ndiaye - Makom Ma Bobe.

For a very recently released interesting modern take on African styles that I like a lot, here is Mbog by Blick Bassey. This quite short song was released on the first of April this year, so very recent.

Finally, here is musician (saxophone and vibraphone) Manu Dibango with Goro City. Dibango mixed jazz-funk with traditional Cameroonian music, though this track to my ears is fairly normal and catchy jazz-funk. Perhaps the vocals have some more local flavour.

 

An interesting selection as always. Manu Dibango's 1973 US Top 40 hit 'Soul Makossa' would I think have been the first record by an African musician that I owned a copy of (not counting 'Burundi Black' as mentioned the other day).

Here's some recent afro-pop by Vernyuy Tina (posted to YT only a couple of weeks ago), which I discovered yesterday and liked, although I'm not sure if there is anything specifically Cameroonian about it -


Biography & Lyrics of VERNYUY TINA - Cameroon Artist | Kamer Lyrics

 

The great Manu Dibango was my introduction to African music as well, and just like @john hp, not counting "Burundi Black". I would like to highlight three artists from Cameroon:

Francis Bebey was a writer, sculptor and musician who passed away in 2001. He was a pioneer in mixing makossa with jazz, pop and classical guitar and helped launch Dibango's career. I couldn't find footage of him on YouTube but here is a track from his comp album "Psychedelic Sanza 1982-1984:


Anne-Marie Nzié, who passed away in 2016, was a Cameroonian bikutsi singer. Bikutsi is a form of dance music from the central parts of the country around the capital Yaoundé.
YouTube

Richard Bona received his musical education in his native Cameroon. He emigrated to Germany when he was 22 and then moved on to the US via France. He's a bass guitar player who has played with some of Jazz-fusion and jazz- funk's greatest (Pat Metheny Group, Joe Zawinul, Jaco Pastorius, George Benson, Randy Brecker. I am posting here a very interesting TED talk/performance by Bona in which he weaves beautiful vocal loops into a mesh of sound, powered by his "magic voodoo machine.
YouTube

 

And now I feel guilty as I took the opportunity to post a song of Manu Dibango even though I only learned of his existence since this thread was started

If anyone has a particular personal reason for posting an artist from a country, you are welcome to PM me and ask me not to !

The music is very interesting, particularly Francis Bebey with what he does with his voice in that track.

I did some searching, and found this footage of Francis and his son Patrick Bebey (if my lazy habit of reading French even though I don't know the language hasn't introduced errors.)

 

LOL! Don't. First of all, no harm in posting several songs of an outstanding artists. Second, I wasn't going to post anything by him, because I (mistakenly) assumed that he is pretty much universally known, as he was really a giant of African jazz, of the same stature as for example Fela Kuti, So let's celebrate Manu Dibango with his greatest hit, Soul Makossa (and check out all of his music, but especially Soul Makossa, Africadelic, Afrijazzy and African Soul.
YouTube

 

Thanks for that track.

My reason for starting this thread was definitely not to show off my knowledge. I've appreciated world music for a long time, but was frustrated at the obvious holes in my knowledge. E.g. I appreciated the artists Geoffrey Oryema, Ayub Ogada, and Samite of Uganda, and had seen the first two perform live. But, I wasn't aware of other artists performing in the same style. But, the latter two have released two albums each, and I have all of Oryema's albums. The same applies for a number of styles of music from around the world. I was aware that for probably the majority of the countries around the world, I wasn't properly familiar with even one artist from that country.

My Jazz knowledge is even less. I'm not widely knowledgeable about Jazz, but there are certain Jazz artists whose music I like a great deal - usually with more obvious melodic content such as Dibango, some Weather Report tracks, and Frank Zappa's long form instrumentals. I think I posted a thread here some time ago asking for more accessible jazz instrumentals of the style of the songs I liked. There were some useful posts, but nothing that hit the subjective jugular. Learning about Manu Dibango was therefore a double win

I've done a LOT of research for this thread, and have rough notes for most of the remaining countries already It's a massive learning process, and even when I have notes for all countries, I still refine that considerably on the day of posting as well as continuously searching for new music to add.

 

I think we're all learning massively from this thread! Thanks for taking the initiative and the enormous time investment you are making in doing research on the music of every single country. I certainly wouldn't have the energy or commitment to do that.

 

Yeah me neither for sure, let me give kudos to you @HitAndRun! I think that it's just attitude and passionate dedication to great ideas (i.e. this thread's subject) what really makes the difference.

 

Thanks. I think I can safely say that I am giving this a go.

While trying to add to my notes for the upcoming Central African Republic, I run across more content for Cameroon. This is 'Hut Song' by the Baka Pygmies of Cameroon, released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (which I find often in my searches.) It's a very interesting musical style.



EDIT: And both Cameroon and the CAR have the earth bow as a musical instrument. However, as it's again a Baka Pygmy playing this, I'll file it under Cameroon. Though, the Baka also live in Gabon.

YouTube