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Mairéid Sullivan

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Toby Baker
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Alice Fenton
Larry Hambrecht
Don Heckman
Dave Hoffman
Sheri Hoffman
Dan Liss
Tal Pinchevsky
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Morgan Peggy Randall
Chad Simon
Peter Spellman
Kai Warner
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flatheadHis Name Is Flathead: A Rap With Ry Cooder
by Barney Hoskyns from Rock's Backpages

"With I, Flathead Ry Cooder completes the trilogy of records about 1950s/60s California that began with Chavez Ravine and continued with My Name Is Buddy. Complete with his own superb 53-page novella, the album explores a lost world of pedal steel guitarists and salt-flat drag racers. It also sounds fabulous. I talked to the wry Cooder about the album, its hero Kash Buk, and the vanished land it celebrates." - Barney Hoskyns, RBP Editorial Director

Sometimes what is most exotic is what you unearth in your own back yard --or at least in your own recent cultural past. For Ry Cooder, a man who's done so much to put "world music" on the rock'n'roll map, the rediscovery of America(na) on Chavez Ravine, My Name Is Buddy and now I, Flathead has come as a kind of third wind in a career characterized by fascination with pre-rock pop culture.
Full story here.


GoreckiThe Secret Meaning of the Blues
by Larry Hambrecht, Blues Messenger

The Birth of the Blues A friend of mine once said: "It was a long time ago, in New Orleans, when a cat in jail, heard the wail, of the breeze in the trees, and a brand new note was born. And they called that note jazz, America's only original art form." I must add that the soul of jazz is the blues.

Now that cat in jail, was no doubt Black, because African American folks have felt the blues the most. Despite this, Leadbelly, one of the greatest blues singers, who spent many years on a prison farm in Louisiana said on a Library of Congress recording, "There was a white man who had the blues once, so it's nothing to worry about." This sentiment is part of the message that bands like the Blues Messengers are putting down today. Everybody has had the blues, because blues is the quintessential expression of experience, it's existential, what the French call "La Condition Humaine." Blues can reach anyone, anytime - - if they are willing to listen, if they dare to be honest. Full article here.


Hector ZazouIn Memorium:
Hector Zazou died in Paris on September 8th. He was 60 years old.

Hector Zazou (July 11, 1948—September 8, 2008) was a prolific French composer and record producer who has worked with, produced, and collaborated with a large international array of recording artists. He has worked on his own and other artists' albums, including Sandy Dillon, Mimi Goese, Barbara Gogan, Sevara Nazarkhan, Carlos Nuñez, Italian group PGR, Anne Grete Preus, Laurence Revey, and Sainkho since 1976. Zazou first came to international attention as part of the ZNR duo with Joseph Racaille, where both played electric keyboards. Their 1976 debut album Barricades 3 was notable for its "strong Satie influence, stripped to minimal essentials, everything counts".

On October 6, his last record was released by Crammed Discs: In the House of Mirrors, featuring musicians from India and Uzbekistan (Toir Kuziyev, Milind Raikar, Ronu Majumdar, Manish Pingle), and Western guests such as Nils Petter Molvaer, Diego Amador, Carlos Nunez, Zoltan Lantos and Bill Rieflin (former drummer of R.E.M.).

As a tribute to this so creative French musician and producer,the staff here at AMP recommend that you listen to this 1991 album, Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses (it won a Victoires de la musique award in 1992).

Traditional songs from Corsica are surrounded by a instrumental tapestry featuring among others Steve Shehan (percussions), Richard Horowitz (ney), Manu Dibango (sax), Jon Hassell (trumpet), Ryuichi Sakamoto (piano), Christian Lechevretel (trumpet), Pierre Chaze (guitars), Renaud Pion (sax soprano), Lightwave (electronics), John Cale (piano), Shaymal Maltra (tablas). It is a splendid album where traditions from the past meet the new musical technologies. Sacred music, lyrical inspiration, and delicate electronic soundscapes are the main features of this album: it will never be outdated...

Zazou, we will not forget you !

Latest Features

The Secret Meaning of the Blues by Larry Hambrecht, Blues Messenger

Philadelphia Blues Messengers

An interview with
Henryk Gorecki

by Norman Lebrecht

An Interview with
Buddy Guy

By Robert Loerzel

American Idol
by Paul Adams

I
mpossibility of Failure
- by Paul Adams

A Personal Remembrance of Ray Charles
by Dave Hoffman

Ry Cooder

Robert Mirabal


Latest Reviews

Mimesis ~
Art Imitating Life


Erdem Helvacioglu ~ Altered Realities

Kim Richey ~
Chinese Boxes

Larry Sparks ~
The Last Suit You Wear

King Wilkie ~
Low Country Suite

Lisa Gerrard & Jeff Rona ~
A Thousand Roads OST

T-Bone Burnett ~ The True False Identity

Greg Trooper ~
Make It Through This World


Joseph  Marshall III ~
The Lakota Way


Time after Time
, the ground-breaking, award winning film is now available.

"Rich, embracing and informative...
an exhilarating example of visual world music at its best." Don Heckman, Los Angeles Times

Buy the DVD here:

To view the 90 second trailer on MySpace™
click on image. (3.1MB)MySpace

A celebration of ancient Celtic, North American and Australian peoples. There is magic here as sublime poetry and ancient song celebrate freedom and echo a world beyond ours. ... The result is as moving and affecting as all great art.

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