Miriam Makeba - Her Essential Recordings: The Empress of African Song (@256)

Makeba remains the most important female vocalist to emerge out of South Africa although she was exiled and banned from her country for more than 30 years. Mama Africa, as she is often called, helped bring African music to a global audience in the 1960s.
She made her debut with the, already famous in her country, Manhattan Brothers in 1953, a group that blended ragtime, swing and doo-wop with African choral and Zulu harmonies.
By 1956, at the suggestion of her record company and along with her career as a singer for the Manhattan Brothers, she formed the all-female vocal group, the Skylarks. The group's influence was drawn from groups such as the Boswell Sisters and the Andrews Sisters but also from traditional melodies of South Africa. Ragtime, gospel and traditional jazz were fused with local rhythms and vocal harmonies to end up in a series of irresistible recordings.
Her appearance in the American documentary film "Come Back Africa", which had been shot covertly about conditions under apartheid, played a key role in her life. Miriam was invited to attend its premier at the Venice Film Festival in 1959, and she didn't return to South Africa for the next 31 years. The turbulence that her decisions caused to her relationship with the apartheid regime forced her to remain abroad, which resulted in the revocation of her passport, forcing her into exile. The devastating "Miriam's Goodbye to Africa", her last recording with the Skylarks, proved to be prophetic.
Her first solo recordings effortlessly combined folk, pop, and jazz idioms with her South African roots. Her collaboration with Harry Belafonte during the first half of the 60's was a very fruitful period of her career. Their duet (in Swahili) for "My Angel", about a Kenyan man too poor to marry his sweetheart, is a song that really stands out from that period. It is worth pointing out that Belafonte based his famous Banana Boat Song to the traditional song Kutheni Sithandwa, which she had sang while in the Skylarks. Major hits followed with "Click Song" and "Pata Pata". The latter, Makeba's signature tune, entered the top 10 of the US pop charts in 1967; it was the first time an African artist achieved that.
After her marriage with the Black Panther member Stokely Carmichael in 1968, she was evidently blacklisted by promoters in the USA and many of her concerts were cancelled, while her recording contract with RCA was dropped. After the couple's "escape" to Guinea, Miriam's career became more low-key with only sporadic releases throughout the years.
Following Nelson Mandela's release from prison, he, as a personal admirer, asked her to return. Her return in December 1990 followed a triumphant concert in April 1991, her first in her homeland for more than thirty years.
Miriam Makeba passed away on 9 November 2008.

As for the upload, although this collection is considered as one of the most consistent someone can find about her, one has to shuffle a lot to follow the chronological order of the songs. Thus, I have rearranged the sequence of the tracks, based on the year of release of each song.

Tracklisting:
part1: Makeba as a member of the Manhattan Brothers and the Skylarks
01-Tula Ndivile (with the Manhattan Brothers)
02-Baby Ntsoare (with the Manhattan Brothers)
03-Live Humble (with the Skylarks)
04-Mitshakasi (with the Skylarks)
05-Makoti (with the Skylarks)
06-Sophiatown Is Gone (with the Skylarks)
07-Orlando (with the Skylarks)
08-Uyadela (with the Skylarks)
09-Intandane (with the Skylarks)
10-Kutheni Sithandwa (with the Skylarks)
11-Holilili (with the Skylarks)
12-Uthando Luyaphela (with the Skylarks)
13-Hush (with the Skylarks)
14-Inkomo Zodwa (with the Skylarks)
15-Miriam & Spokes Phata Phata (with the Skylarks)
16-Miriam's Goodbye To Africa (with the Skylarks)
part2: Makeba in her solo career
17-Kilimanjaro (1960)
18-Zenizenabo (1960)
19-Ntyilo Ntyilo (with Hugh Masekela) (1960)
20-Umqokozo (1960)
21-Ngola Kurila (1960)
22-Thanayi (a.k.a. Nomalungelo) (1960)
23-Liwa Wechi (1960)
24-Nagula (1960)
25-Carnival (1960)
26-Love Tastes Like Strawberries (1960)
27-In The Land Of The Zulus (Kwazulu) (1965)
28-My Angel (Malaika) (with Harry Belafonte) (1965)
29-Click Song No.1 (1966)
30-Mas Que Nada (1967) (2003 version)
31-Amampondo (1967)
32-Pata Pata (1967)
33-Samba (1974)
34-Mama Ndiyalila (1974)
35-Talking & Dialoging (1974)
36-Teya, Teya
37-Jolinkomo (live in Paris, 1977)
38-Isangoma (Witch Doctor) (1978)
39-Mbube (The Lion Cries) (1978)
40-Chicken (Kikirikiki) (a.k.a. Sekusile) (1979)

album review link: here

download link (part1 - Makeba as a member of the Manhattan Brothers and the Skylarks): here
download link (part2 - Makeba in her solo career & covers, info etc): here

Closed Zone - Salt of this Sea

Two essential additions to this post.

Closed Zone (2009)


Salt of this Sea (2008)

Various - Original Seeds Vol.1: Songs That Inspired Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (@256)

Mojo's past issue (n.184/ March 2009) had Nick Cave on the front cover. Is this because Cave has entered the vintage category of artists from which Mojo and Uncut select their front covers, or is this a transition for the magazine to artists that emerged after the late 70's? Anyway, the article about Cave was nothing less than brilliant, and came along with a premium cd with Cave's roots and collaborations. It reminded me of an older release (which is uploaded here) with the same concept; Johnny Cash and Scott Walker are included in both compilations, which is also the case for Tupelo Blues by John Lee Hooker, Katie Cruel by Karen Dalton, and Long Time Man by Tim Rose. Most of the songs of this release have been covered by Cave, while the rest inspired him to form new songs. For those that will find this interesting, there is also a vol.2 of the same series.

see also here for a very informative list of the songs that Nick Cave has released/ performed throughout his career up to 2001.

Tracklisting:
01-Tim Rose - Long Time Man
02-Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps - Cat Man
03-Leonard Cohen - Avalanche
04-Karen Dalton - Katie Cruel
05-Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Hammer Song
06-Tom Jones - Weeping Annaleah
07-The Loved Ones - Sad Dark Eyes
08-Scott Walker - The Big Hurt
09-John Lee Hooker - Tupelo Blues
10-Lefty Frizzell - The Long Black Veil
11-Johnny Cash - The Folk Singer
12-Odetta - Another Man Done Gone
13-Blind Willie Johnson - I'm Gonna Run To The City Of Refuge
14-The Edwin Hawkins Singers - Oh Happy Day
15-Gerge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin - Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus
16-Isaac Hayes - By The Time I Get To Phoenix

download link: here (includes liner notes where the link between each track and works by Cave is described)

If I Could Fly or Viva La Vida?

If I Could Fly was released in 2004...

Μετά απ' αυτό ο τίτλος αυτού του παλιού post αποδεικνύεται προφητικός.

Cramps - Live in Athens, Greece, Rodon club, Nov., 29, 1991 (@256)

Although the Cramps were not the best band in the world, they were unique in their own bizarre way. Their love for 50's rockabilly, 60's garage and 70's US punk all of which hold a significant part in their music, their obsession with horror b-movies, their trashy fetishist outfit and a large dose of explicit sexuality, summed up to give us a group that will hold a very special chapter in the history of rock'n'roll. But as for all the great bands of r'n'r era, their legend was largely drawn from their live performances. Lux as an demented Elvis, Poison Ivy as a b-movie femme fatale, with the other two members always selected from the large reservoir of semi-famous underground session musicians, were giving every night a document of their raw, psychotic, dirty, primitive, nihilist, sexual version of rock'n'roll. One of those performances is uploaded here. Farewell, Lux Interior.

Pitchforkmedia for Lux







Setlist:
01-Intro
02-Dames, Booze, Chains and Boot
03-Muleskinner Blues
04-Aloha From Hell
05-Bop Pills
06-Everything Goes
07-Jelly Roll Rock
08-Creature From The Black Leather Lagoon (Fill in this title on the track's file when you finish downloading)
09-Hipsville 29 B.C. (Fill in this title on the track's file when you finish downloading)
10-I Wanna Get In Your Pants
11-Hard Workin' Man
12-Goo Goo Muck
13-Human Fly
14-Cornfed Dames
15-(cut song)
16-Miniskirt Blues
17-Sunglasses After Dark
18-Bend Over I'll Drive
19-Two Headed Sex Change
20-Blow Up Your Mind
21-Eyeballs In My Martini
22-Alligator Stomp
23-Shortnin' Bread
24-The Crusher
25-Surfin' Bird

download link: here

P.S.1: For those that will wonder what those strange sounds are during Blow Up Your Mind, it is Lux destroying the hardboard floor of Rodon, and swallowing his microphone. During the same track I remember very vividly that Lux climbed near the club's roof through the side steel columns.
P.S.2: I'm waiting for your contribution on the two songs for which I wasn't able to find the title.
P.S.3 (update on June, 7): Dimitris, a reader of this blog, not only contributed on the two songs (see PS2), but he also sent me the blood-stained playlist of that night, which I uploaded. That's Lux's blood from when he was cut by the mic, Dimitris explains. Incredible, (sentimentally) valuable memorabilia. Thanks.