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Artist:
Cesaria Evora
Cesaria Evora sings morna, a cool mix of blues, jazz and Portuguese folk that is the national passion of Cape Verde. It's usually played on caviquinhos and guitars, sometimes piano, an occasional horn, with light touches of percussion. It is laidback compared to many other Latin and Portuguese derivatives, but it is made for the singer and the song. Cesaria Evora has a whiskey-and-cigarettes voice, a mournful, worldly style that has become what most folks think of when they say morna. Cabo Verde doesn't hit the high point of Miss Perfumado--it's a little heavier in the production and her voice not as powerful as in the past. But hers is still a magni...
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List Price: £5.99
Our Price: £3.69
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Artist:
Bhundu Boys
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List Price: £16.99
Our Price: £9.99
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Artist:
Various Artists
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List Price: £15.99
Our Price: £12.34
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Artist:
Toumani Diabate With Ballake Sissoko
Back in the early 1970s, a recording by kora masters Sidiki Diabate and Djelimadi Sissoko called Cordes Anciennes first brought this rich acoustic music of Mali to the world. More than 20 years later, their sons, the now world-famous Toumani Diabate and the junior Ballake Sissoko, have come together to pay tribute to their fathers with 1999's New Ancient Strings. While many of the songs come from the original repertoire, the music is all modern Mali. Toumani Diabate has toured the world as a soloist, as a member of fusion groups like Songhai (with flamenco fusionist Ketama), and he has incorporated subtle changes into his music that makes it a living ...
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List Price: £11.99
Our Price: £5.13
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Artist:
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Whether they are singing hymns or secular songs, Ladysmith Black Mambazo always raise their voices in glorious harmony. They are the unmatched masters of the South African a cappella form known as isicathamiya or mbube, and this CD demonstrates their vocal prowess. The Zulu songs are ornamented by trills, yips, humming and tra-la-las and punctuated by the rhythmic clicks that are particular to the language. The English-language songs instruct and advise on the fine moral points of human relationships. While the mbube song form lends a certain similarity to the pieces, this group is so good that the music never seems redundant and the generous selection of 16...
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List Price: £14.99
Our Price: £2.90
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Artist:
Cesaria Evora
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List Price: £5.99
Our Price: £3.70
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Artist:
Cesaria Evora
Like Billie Holiday, the Cape Verdean queen of morna--a slow, rhythmically ballad-like blend of African blues and the Portuguese fado--asked heartache to come in and set a spell. In fact, trouble and Cesaria Evora are longtime soulmates. This 1992 album (released in the US in 1998) about nostalgia, longing, hit-and-run lovers and the sea features titles such as "Barbincour" ("The Conman") and "Torura" ("Torture"). It went gold in France, transforming the plump grandma diva of her West African island's beachside canteens into a world-music icon. Not the least of Evora's magical appeal is that those smooth, honey-rich vocals suggest a universe of passion and pain, wi...
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List Price: £5.99
Our Price: £3.89
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Artist:
Cesaria Evora
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List Price: £11.99
Our Price: £4.77
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Artist:
Cesaria Evora
Unlike Mar Azul or earlier releases Miss Perfumado and Cesaria Evora, which were largely collections of the Portuguese-influenced song form called morna, Café Atlantico finds Evora singing Cuban and Brazilian traditionals. Evora's voice is as smooth as ever, but it's a little odd to hear her croon to a bolero or danzon. Still, the connection fits snugly as this release is a tribute to Evora's hometown of Mindelo, a port on the Cape Verdean island of São Vicente where sailors from Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, and the Caribbean cross-pollinated the music of Cape Verde. On Café Atlantico, Evora croons with her usual beauty,...
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List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £4.08
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Artist:
Ali Farka Toure,
Ry Cooder
Talking Timbuktu is a groundbreaking record that vividly illustrates the Africa-Blues connection in real time. Ali Farka Toure, one of Mali's leading singer-guitarists, has a trance-like, bluesy style that, although deeply rooted in Malian tradition, bears astonishing similarity to that of John Lee Hooker or even Canned Heat. It's a mono-chordal vamp, with repetitive song lines cut with shards of blistering solo runs that shimmer like a desert mirage. Toure may be conversant with some blues artists, but it is unlikely that artists like Hooker or Robert Pete Williams ever heard these Malian roots, which makes the connection so uncanny. Ry Cooder, well versed in dome...
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List Price: £13.99
Our Price: £9.88
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