I know what you're thinking. Jaybee, you JUST SAID you were listening to rock n roll.
Well, yeah, I did. It just so happens I'm finding it in odd places, this time in the Sahara.
The very first time I ventured out of North America and Europe (musically, that is) I landed in South Africa. Soweto, to be specific. That was with The Indestructible Beat of Soweto, back in the eighties. The records below motivated me to head down to the basement and play it. And it sounded just as great as it did then.
Various Artists: Rough Guide to the Music of the Sahara (2005)
The subtitle says it all: Moorish Traditions to Desert Rock and Roll. It covers a lot of ground - literally - as the Sahara is nearly as big as the good old USA. But unlike us, the folks there are pretty spread out, which gives them the room to do their own thing.
Some stick to their traditions. Others plug in their guitars. So I'd be a liar if I said it was a party record with bouncy rock songs from start to finish. But, like Soweto, it shows how the two approaches are more together than one might suppose.
The first two songs, while traditional, have some subtle melodic elements that one can imagine being used on Western pop. But it's the third song, combining a call-and-response chant and an ominously chirping electric guitar where the connections become more obvious.
It might have sounded stranger to me if I hadn't already heard Ocean of Sound, which just parachutes you into Tibet to hear the monks, and then over to LA for the Beach Boys, and expects you to deal with it. The same goes here in that the music is completely on their terms, made to please themselves.
So a little patience is in order. And given that it's a collection, it's not quite as focused as the wonderful Le Tran De Lair from earlier this year, which is a bit more focused and basic.
But this record, like Soweto, gets me thinking that maybe rock 'n roll is just the folk/street music but plugged in, and sometimes even not.
In other words, it's music that comes from the ground up.
A-
"Id Chab" by Miriem Hassan
Rachid Taha: Bon Jour (2010)
Rachid was born in Algeria, which, by a strange coincidence is also in the Sahara. (I swear I didn't plan this.) He grew up in France before his untimely death.
He takes a very different approach to his Saharan brethren above, who found rock 'n roll in tradition. Rachid just went out and grabbed rock music and, when he saw fit, added some of his own cultures to it.
As a matter of fact, aside from the vocals, which are in his own language and in the style more akin to some current African genres, you wouldn't blink if you heard this record in a bar. Thus proving not only that they can do rock 'n roll, but do it as well as anyone else.
This record is far more commercial than most of the artists on Sahara, and the cover is a lot tackier (I LOVE it), but the music is accessible as you could possibly hope.
A-
