Hear Anoushka Shankar & Nitin Sawhney Talk about Traces of You in Echoes Podcast.
John Diliberto and Anoushka Shankar on Echoes
Ravi Shankar passed away in December of 2012. He left an incredible legacy, scores of disciples and two daughters who have achieved their own kind of fame, Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones. The two sisters got together while Shankar was in the process of dying and recorded a beautiful homage called Traces of You. At the same time, Indian-English producer Nitin Sawhney had lost his own father. He joined Anoushka to produce the album, co-compose more than half the tracks and play guitar and piano and programming. I talk about traces of those who’ve passed with Anoushka Shankar and Nitin Sawhney.
Anoushka Shankar: I kind of started making a record that was going to be about life, and life is a journey and the journey kind of became things I couldn’t have anticipated, but that was kind of the whole ironic point really…is that, is that it is a journey and so I just sort of allowed myself to, to follow that.
Anoushka Shankar on “In Jytoti’s Name”: No, it’s angry. That sitar melody came from a place of rage, you know. I was really angry and kind of wrote a melody that was quite minor and dark, and yet you know, by the time I was adding the percussion and stuff, but you know, there’s anger and there’s also a passing through that anger that has to happen.
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Tonight on Echoes, Anoushka Shankar & Nitin Sawhney
Ravi Shankar passed away in December of 2012. He left an incredible legacy, scores of disciples and two daughters who have achieved their own kind of fame, Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones. The two sisters got together while Shankar was in the process of dying and recorded a beautiful homage called Traces of You. At the same time, Indian-English producer Nitin Sawhney had lost his own father. He joined Anoushka to produce the album, co-compose more than half the tracks and play guitar and piano and programming. I talk about traces of those who’ve passed with Anoushka Shankar and Nitin Sawhney.
Anoushka Shankar, Ravi Shankar, Norah Jones
Anoushka Shankar: I kind of started making a record that was going to be about life, and life is a journey and the journey kind of became things I couldn’t have anticipated, but that was kind of the whole ironic point really…is that, is that it is a journey and so I just sort of allowed myself to, to follow that.
Anoushka Shankar on “In Jytoti’s Name”: No, it’s angry. That sitar melody came from a place of rage, you know. I was really angry and kind of wrote a melody that was quite minor and dark, and yet you know, by the time I was adding the percussion and stuff, but you know, there’s anger and there’s also a passing through that anger that has to happen.
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Alvin Lee Founder & Guitarist of Ten Years After Passes
I remember watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson around 1969. I think it was Steve Lawrence, or another of those loungey Vegas entertainers Carson loved back then, was on the show talking about hanging out with this group Ten Years After. He was shocked how this nice looking kid with perfectly coiffed flowing blonde hair would open up his mouth and sing like a growling Mississippi bluesman. He said they sat in the hotel room watching Count Basie on TV while the band distorted the color on the set, probably much like this album cover. Gee, I wonder what they were doing.
Ten Years After Undead
At the time, I’m not sure I knew but I had already been introduced to Ten Years After with their eponymous debut album and converted with Undead, their ferocious live album. Ten Years After was a band that was always better live than on record. Just witness that iconic performance of “I’m Going Home” in the Woodstockfilm. It made Ten Years After rock stars and Lee’s peace symbol-stickered red Gibson guitar a rock symbol.
Most people remember TYA from their 1971 hit, “I’d Love to Change the World.” It was a beautiful slice of late-psychedelic, Pre-Progressive pop that also showed a more tender side to this speed demon guitarist.
How much did I love Ten Years After? In a year or so span between 1969 and 1970 I saw them four times. Once at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1969 and three times at the Commodore Ballroom in Lowell, Massachusetts where I’d have my elbows on the stage while sweat poured off Lee as he scorched his guitar in furious improvisations. Every time they blew me away. They were always a band that was about the music with Alvin Lee flailing like mad hornet on his guitar. Leo Lyons had scraped the finish completely off the upper side of his bass guitar from coming off the strings so hard.
Alvin Lee
I never followed Lee after Ten Years After broke up in 1973, but he was still out there making records and touring even while a Lee-less Ten Years After toured the nostalgia circuit. He passed away on March 6 following complications for what is reported to be a routine surgical procedure. Born in 1944, he was 68 years old. The death notice was posted on his website.
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Reg Presley, lead singer and composer for The Troggs, dies at 71.
I just played both sides of Wild Thing, the American debut album by The Troggs, named for their #1 hit song. I bought it in 1966 at Woolworth’s in Tewksbury, Massachussetts. Not even thirty-minutes in total length, it has only one bad song on it, the inexplicable vaudevillian “Hi Hi Hazel” in the style of “Winchester Cathedral.” The rest of it is pure teenage pop and raging proto-garage punk rock that charged my junior high school years. Their tribal tom-tom grooves, Pete Staples’ thudding bass lines and songs of adolescent love were the soundtrack for young yearnings and screaming bedroom sing-a-longs. There’s almost nothing on their American Fontana records debut that wouldn’t sit comfortably on the Nuggets anthology, right between The 13th Floor Elevators and Count Five. And they would’ve also sat well around 1978 between Richard Hell and The Buzzcocks.
The lead singer of The Troggs, Reg Presley, born Reginald Maurice Ball, died on February 4th from lung cancer. He was 71.
Reg Presley had an adenoidal snarl, occasionally lapsing into a lascivious Peter Lorre with a Transylvanian leer on lines like lines like “I need your lovin’ I can’t wait long” off of “From Home,” a Bo Diddley-beatdriven rocker with a great, albeit brief, Chris Britton rave-up solo.
For being a straight up four-piece rock band, The Troggs engaged in some interesting musical invention. There’s the ocarina bridge on “Wild Thing” and the harpsichord on “Jingle Jangle”. The jungle groove of “Lost Girl,” with the bass doubling on the tom-tom was a powerful arrangement that culminated in Chris Britton’s psychedelic guitar solo.
Reg Presley of The Troggs
Reg Presley probably never got enough credit as a writer. Their biggest hit, “Wild Thing,” was composed by Chip Taylor, but Presley wrote songs better than that like “Lost Girl” “I Just Sing” and “I Can’t Control Myself.” That last one is the most unadulterated expression of pure lust to ever hit the Top 40. (Although their rendition of manager Larry Page’s ”I Want You,” which didn’t chart, probably tops it for pure sexual desire.) They eventually topped themselves for infantile sex with “Strange Movie.” Banned in England, it climaxed with Reg Presley’s “uh-uh-uh-uh” orgasm.
To say Reg Presley’s lyrics were juvenile is to give them too much credit for maturity. It wasn’t about deep insight, it was about pure sexual urges, love lost and in “Love Is All Around,” their last hit from 1967, pure puppy happiness.
The Troggs’ glory got a bit tarnished when the infamous “Trogg Tapes” began circulating. This recording catches the band in a shambolic recording session full of arguments and more “fucks” and “fucking” than Al Swearengen on a bad day. It became an inspiration for Spinal Tap.And speaking of Tap, The Thamesman, an early incarnation of Spinal Tap, were clearly modeled on The Troggs.
Even after they faded in the 1970s, the Troggs remained an important influence. David Bowie had them on a TV special in the early 1970s. Calling it the combined US and English national anthem Jimi Hendrix immortalized them with his cover of “Wild Thing” at the Monterey Pop Festival. The MC5 recorded “I Want You” on their debut and later on, REM and Wet Wet Wet covered Troggs tunes.
Only Pete Staples and Chris Britton remain from the classic Troggs line-up.Reg Presley joins Troggs drummer Ronnie Bond on the other side. He died in 1992. Hopefully they’re not still arguing about the drum beat.
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Gabrielle Roth wouldn’t have won any musician polls. She didn’t really play anything beyond some percussion. Yet she was responsible for nearly two dozen albums over the last 20 years or so. She referred to herself as an urban shaman and with the floating personnel of her ensemble, Gabrielle Roth And The Mirrors, she released music and conducted dance movement workshops. Gabrielle Roth passed away on October 22, after a long struggle with stage four lung cancer.
We interviewed Roth and her husband, Robert Ansell in the early 1990s. Walking into their Greenwich Village apartment I found Indian yarn paintings from North Mexico and Persian rugs amid a clutter of drums and percussion.
Drums were at the root of Gabriele Roth’s sound and one of the vehicles on what she called Maps To Ecstasy. That’s also a book she wrote. Tall and lithesome, with long, dark hair and bright, penetrating eyes she called herself an urban shaman.
“To be a Shaman means to be a wounded healer,” claimed Roth. “It means somebody who has fallen apart and put themselves back together again. So it’s very human. It’s just a job. But a Shaman is essentially somebody who transports, who moves from regular reality to ecstatic states of consciousness and knows how to do that. And can take other people with them.”
Roth didn’t claim to have studied any shamanic traditions. She never became a disciple of a voodoo priest or Indian medicine man. but she spent some time at Esalen, the self-actualization institute and studied a spiritual philosophy called Arica. But she says she was already on a path of using music and dance to heal. She wrote several books and gave dance movement workshops in what she calls ecstatic dancing, getting participants to into a whirling dervish of trance.
“I created my own form of dance, which is an ecstatic dance form,” explained Roth. “And it’s based in rhythms, specifically five particular rhythms. The very flowing rhythm, the very staccato, percussive rhythm, a very chaotic rolling, abandoned type rhythm, 6/8. And a very light and lyrical rhythm. And then a still rhythm. And then within this context, I get people to dance their own particular steps, but staying in the context of that state of being. So it’s really a practice, it’s like, it could be looked at as a workout, or it could be looked at as a meditation, that’s just how you come to it. ”
Here’s one of Gabrielle Roth’s dances from her workshops.
Gabrielle didn’t actually write any of this music. In fact, she rarely played anything but incidental percussion and sang on a few tracks. Instead, she guided the music, giving directions to the musicians, even dancing for them. It sounds a little flakey, but she’s gotten some serious musicians to work with her including percussionist Mino Cinelu who played with Miles Davis and Weather Report, Adam Rudolph who played with Jon Hassell, jazz trombonist and conch shell player Steve Turre, Latin percussionist Sammy Figuroa and bassist Alex Blake.
“I talk to these artists in tongues,” she proclaims. “You know, in rhythms, in feelings, in tones, in landscapes, in images, and it’s like soul to soul. And we just, you know I totally trust that they will know exactly what to do.”
She started out with earthy and organic slow movement trance pieces with percussion and synthesizer atmospheres which you can hear in the sensual spaces of albums like Ritual. But as she moved on she tapped into more electronic dance and techno forms which you can hear and see in this video which won’t embed, but is worth following the link.
Gabrielle Roth’s mix of drums and mysticism, world music and primal dancing might smack of New Age opportunism. She said she never wanted to be a shaman, she just wanted to feel good, to live an existence in a state of ecstasy. Music and dance is how she got there. Being a shaman was knowing the way.
“Shamans are really map makers,” she said. “It’s like you find your way somewhere and then you map it. You know it’s instinct to do so. So it’s like the cartography of the soul. And inside the soul what I found was a dancer and a singer and a poet and an actor and a healer in every soul. That’s what the soul is, it’s those archetypes. So my work is just to bring those out. To give them something to do, to find a way to express, whoever happens to be there, you know. ”
Ultimately, cancer proved too much for even Gabrielle Roth’s healing shamanic ways. She passed “into stillness” on October 22 at the age of 71.
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I always thought of “Moon River” as the first space music song. Even in 1961, when Andy Williams recorded it, I knew this was music from another era, but something about Johnny Mercer’s lyrics and Henry Mancini’s sweeping orchestration always suggested something beyond this earth to me. Just now I had a new spacey ambient album by Slow Dancing Society (Laterna Magica) playing on the CD when I put on a youtube video of Andy Williams singing “Moon River.” They flowed perfectly together.
I remember watching the Andy Williams Show with my parents, even the Christmas specials, which The New York Timesdescribed as “anodyne and homey.” It wasn’t my music, but I always loved Williams’ genuine friendliness and humility. Even though he apparently went off the deep end politically and joined the Empty Chair crowd, I’ll always remember him as the guy who took us to the moon. He passed away at 84 this past Tuesday. There is a very good obituary in the New York Times.
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Tonight on Echoes we’ll be airing an interview with Icebreaker and BJ Cole talking about their beautiful cover of Brian’s Eno’s 1983 collaboration with Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois, Apollo-Atmospheres and Soundtracks. Our show was recorded last Friday, making it to early too comment on the passing of Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon. With Martin Scorsese’sHugo, Air’sLe Voyage Dans La Lune, Icebreaker’sApollo, and the Curiosity Mars Rover
Icebreaker – Apollo
it has been a lunar and interstellar year. Now with the passing of Neil Armstrong, it all comes into sharper and more poignant focus. I wish I could r-ecut that show to honor one of the few men to experience a dream that many of us have had, to travel to other worlds and touch the stars. But when you listen to James Poke and BJ Cole talking about Eno’s classic album tonight, think of Neil Armstrong.
Echoes affiliate WEXT will be dedicating an hour of songs to the man on the moon, Neil Armstrong at noon eastern time, today (8/27/2012) , spun by Chris Wienck at Exit 97.7 WEXT You can catch them online.
Neil Armstrong, traveling the spaceways forever.
Here’s a clip of Icebreaker’s liver performance of Apolloin 2010. An album of that event has just been released.
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I was so sad to hear of the passing of Sam Rivers at 88 years of age on December 26, 2011. He was an iconoclastic musician who came up in the free jazz days and cut through that scene with music blazing in serrated slices. I got to see Sam play with his trio a dozen times since the early 1970s, many of them at the legendary Foxhole Cafe in Philadelphia with eh trio of Dave Holland and Barry Altschul. I had the pleasure of producing a Jazz Profile documentary for NPR on Sam in 2000. Unfortunately it’s not available to stream. No one blew harder or with more passion. Few could equal his stream of consciousness improvisations and his writing for large ensemble never got it’s due. Nice obituary here. I’m sure more will follow.
Here’s a video with one of his great trios with Thurman Barker & Dave Holland.
Composer, keyboardist and Mike Oldfield Collaborator David Bedford Passes
I was sad to hear of the passing of David Bedford, the English composer who had a deep engagement with progressive rock in the early 1970s. It actually started a little earlier in Kevin Ayers and The Whole World, a rollicking post-psychedelic, pre-progressive rock, musically insane band that also included a very young Mike Oldfield. Oldfield went on to compose his magnum opus, Tubular Bells and Bedford went along, arranging The Orchestral Tubular Bells.
At a time when Virgin Records was exploring music’s outer reaches, they signed Bedford as a solo artist and his first work for the label was the expansive and explosive orchestral work, Star’s End, one of two sources for the name of the radio show Star’s End. (The other is the original source, Isaac Asimov’sFoundation Trilogy). This was at a time when, if you wanted a symphonic sound, you weren’t going to get it with a synthesizer, but needed an actual orchestra. The album included Mike Oldfield on electric guitar. He would guest on more of Bedford’s recordings including his impressionistic reading of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in 1975 followed by The Odyssey and Instructions For Angels.
The Odyssey really captured my imagination. It was an electronic keyboard foray that also included Mike Ratledge from The Soft Machine. I remember including it in my Top Ten that year in the Philadelphia Drummer. In fact, it may have been #1. Bedford albums were always in heavy rotation on WXPN’sDiaspar show and I continued to play him on Echoes occasionally.
I was able to interview Bedford in the mid-1980s for Totally Wired. He lived in a modest row home in the outskirts of London and had only one keyboard in his den where he composed. He had that English ability to be self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating at the same time, although his humility usually won out. He was already in his late 40s and had the look of a man much older.
He has continued to compose and perform, working in films and arranging for the likes of Elvis Costello and Roy Harper. He continued composing up until the end, moving between electronic and orchestral worlds, pop and classical and wherever else he wanted to land.
David Bedford was an artist between worlds, born into the classical tradition but constantly leaving those constraints behind. He was as likely to play free jazz with the late-Lol Coxhill as wax avant-garde with 80 voices and 27 plastic twirlers on “Some Bright Stars for Queen’s College.” He could write lyrical tone poems to angels and sci-fi epics for Rigel 9. Now he’s traveled to one of the mythical lands he loved to employ for musical inspiration.
Like too many artists from his generation, including Bert Jansch who passed today, David Bedofrd died from lung cancer, likely due to smoking. He was 74.
Although Mike Oldfield was the star, David Bedford shined the light.
Charles Fambrough, who played with McCoy Tyner and Art Blakey among others, died on January 1 and Mick Karn, who played with Japan, Dali’s Car and David Torn died today, January 4th.
These musicians could not be more different. Fambrough was a jazz wizard with prodigious technique and an encyclopedic knowledge of his precursors and peers. I conducted a Downbeat Magazine blindfold test with him in 1991 when he released his solo debut. I played an obscure Stanley Clarke track called “Desert Song” (from Live 1976-1977) with John McLaughlin. Even though it was an uncharacteristically Indian-inspired track from Clarke, Fambrough not only nailed Clarke’s playing in 4 notes, he even knew what acoustic bass he was using. Obituary.
Mick Karn played fretless electric bass and had a distinctive, rubbery sound with notes that slid into each other in deep throbbing lines that could drive the post-gothic sound of Dali’s Car with Peter Murphy and the more atmospheric jazz of David Torn. I interviewed Mick a few times in the 1980s and 90s when he was playing with David Sylvian and Torn. This was back in his shaved eyebrows days. He was always erudite and enthusiastic. He also recorded several notable solo albums. Not much in the obituary zone, but here’s something from NME.
Anoushka Shankar: I kind of started making a record that was going to be about life, and life is a journey and the journey kind of became things I couldn’t have anticipated, but that was kind of the whole ironic point really…is that, is that it is a journey and so I just sort of allowed myself to, to follow that.
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Alvin Lee Goes Home R.I.P.
March 6, 2013Alvin Lee Founder & Guitarist of Ten Years After Passes
Ten Years After Undead
At the time, I’m not sure I knew but I had already been introduced to Ten Years After with their eponymous debut album and converted with Undead, their ferocious live album. Ten Years After was a band that was always better live than on record. Just witness that iconic performance of “I’m Going Home” in the Woodstock film. It made Ten Years After rock stars and Lee’s peace symbol-stickered red Gibson guitar a rock symbol.
Most people remember TYA from their 1971 hit, “I’d Love to Change the World.” It was a beautiful slice of late-psychedelic, Pre-Progressive pop that also showed a more tender side to this speed demon guitarist.
How much did I love Ten Years After? In a year or so span between 1969 and 1970 I saw them four times. Once at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1969 and three times at the Commodore Ballroom in Lowell, Massachusetts where I’d have my elbows on the stage while sweat poured off Lee as he scorched his guitar in furious improvisations. Every time they blew me away. They were always a band that was about the music with Alvin Lee flailing like mad hornet on his guitar. Leo Lyons had scraped the finish completely off the upper side of his bass guitar from coming off the strings so hard.
Alvin Lee
I never followed Lee after Ten Years After broke up in 1973, but he was still out there making records and touring even while a Lee-less Ten Years After toured the nostalgia circuit. He passed away on March 6 following complications for what is reported to be a routine surgical procedure. Born in 1944, he was 68 years old. The death notice was posted on his website.
Alvin Lee is going home.
~John Diliberto ((( echoes )))
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Tags:blues, psychedelic, R.I.P.
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