Musical Interlude

Turn the map of Europe on it's side and the importance of the ancient Atlantic seaways becomes apparent.  A mare-nostrum of stateless nations, the Scots, the Welsh, the Cornish, the Bretons, the Basques, the Galicians and in North Africa, the Berber peoples.  Choose your angle carefully and the expansionist polities - the English, the French, the Spanish and the Arabs almost disappear from view.

Here a young girl sings a composition by the Berber poet Lounés Matoub - a secularist, a democrat, and an opponent of the enforced arabisation of his people, he was assassinated in 1998.

I like the normality of the scene, the passers-by, the cat in the background ....

Kenza my daughter
don't weep
we die as a sacrifice
for the Algeria of tomorrow

Musical Interlude

Wikipedia tells us that Mandy Rice Davies was born in Pontiets, although her birth certificate is more likely to read Wiltshire.  Ms Davies was, though, a product of that largely forgotten diaspora of half a million Welsh folk who left our country in the "locust years" of the 1920s and 1930s.

Back in the headlines, I've been reading some of the old reports of her court appearances in 1963.  What a clever and spunky eighteen year old Mandy was; fair play to the education she must have received on those occasions when she actually turned-up at her Birmingham Sec Mod.

Nowadays we might have insisted that MRD give her evidence via a video-link, being legally a child when many of the shenanigans were on-going, whether this would be for her protection or that of the court is another matter.

Songs of the Defeated

Something new everyday and today I found out about Aikake.  Now Hawaii may have a whole lot more devolved powers than anything envisaged for Wales, but clearly too little and far too late.  When you've ended up as a less than 6% minority in your own country then living in a shack on a beach seems a pretty good option.

Of course we're all supposed to abhor such narrow nationalism and that beauty spot clearly needs a golf course ..... book 'em Danno!

UPDATE:  These people were evicted from the beach in 1996, no golf course yet though - or even a windfarm - probably due to the proximity of a US Army live-fire training area.

Musical Interlude

It's good to see the Holohan sisters are back on youtube after a long exile on dailymotion.  I've picked out this performance because of its connection to the Radnorshire border country - it was one of the songs collected by Vaughan Williams from Mrs Powell of Westhope, Herefordshire.  I usually disable the show suggested video box but in the sisters' case I've made an exception - their version of Down By the Glenside is particularly fine.

Musical Interlude - songs of the defeated

I can't say I know much about these happy Polish hippies but they're performing a popular Serb folk song from Kosovo: "A dense fog has fallen over the plain of Kosovo"

With politicians like Hague and Hollande eager to intervene in Syria it might be worth reading John Pilger on Hague prosecutor (won't happen) Carla del Ponte's The Hunt: Me and War Criminals.

Ms Del Ponte was in the news recently when she raised the possibility that the Syrian rebels were using sarin. She seems a little off-message, wasn't she copied into the emails?

Musical Interlude .... songs of the defeated

Musical Interlude

Musical Interlude

Bettye Lavette, defining soul music.

Musical Interlude

This is a fascinating Welsh folk song since it was seemingly handed down in a single family from Cei Newydd in Ceredigion, with the warning that it should not be sung in public.  It's doubtful if such Marian verses could have been composed in Wales during the non-conformist period and therefore it's believed that the words date back at least as far as the Reformation.

It came to wider notice from schoolteacher Myra Evans 1883-1972 (born Jane Elmira Rees) who got it from her mother, who in turn learnt it from her grandfather David Williams.  Elmira Rees's father was a mariner, like many of the men in New Quay - you'll not find him in some of the census records since, presumably, he spent so much time at sea.  I wonder if the absence of husbands from the household accounted for the longevity of such an "old-fashioned" and matriarchal song.

There's a recording by Elen Manahan Thomas on youtube but this version is from Siwsann George.

They have a dream ......

It's December 31st 1965 and the Labour government has just received a report it commissioned on the building of a new town in Mid-Wales. The report recommends a town of some 60000 stretching 17 miles between Llani and Newtown. It looks like the dream of various businessmen, council officials and local politicians is coming to fruition. Then in March a bomb explodes at the nearby Clywedog reservoir, followed in July by Gwynfor Evans' victory at Carmarthen .... the plan to extend the West Midlands into Mid Wales is quietly dropped.

Never mind there are other cards to play and in the meantime we can all enjoy Brumbeat legends the Applejacks ... the Honeycombs might have had a girl drummer but the Solihull group had Megan Davies on bass.

Musical Interlude

With a German hegemony likely in the EU will this be the future of popular music? These girls are getting bigger and blonder and those serial-killer smiles even more unsettling. I like them and at least we'd get good beer and good sausage. Of course we might get this, in which case scrub the beer and sausage.

Musical Interlude

Obviously the revival of Irish hasn't gone quite as well as it should have.

But never mind, here we have the best motor sport song since Arriva Tazio by Trio Lescano, plus some epic bad driving and a guest appearance by everyone's favourite rally marshal.

Musical Interlude

Musical Interlude

Hi ya hi ya ho

It's Only Rock and Roll

Ireland meets North Korea, Slightly mad but fascinating ...

Musical Interlude

A rare glimpse of the girl group genius that was Coventry's The Orchids.

I don't know if Val Jones, Georgina Oliver or Pamela Jarman had Radnorshire roots, but with those surnames they certainly could have.

Outlanders

Fed up with no longer being able to bore your workmates and relations with talk of how much your house has gone up in value? Well I don't suppose many Radnorians spent the 1970s buying Welsh language LPs, but if you did you might just have a new topic of conversation. Say about this or this or this or even this.

Did You Ever

Cardiff blogger Babylon Wales has come up with visual proof of Radnorshire songbird Maralene Powell's 1972 musical adventure with Gareth Edwards. I'm guessing Gareth has a better singing voice than current Welsh scrum-half Mike Phillips.

Musical Interlude

Oh dear I'm afraid the sound of all these plummy-voiced Trot students is making me nostalgic for Uncle Joe.

Musical Interlude