The Revelers: At the End of the River

To say that The Revelers are a Cajun band from Louisiana tells only part of the story. Their new album At the End of the River ~ Au bout de la rivière brings together a heady concoction of musical styles. In addition to the well-known Cajun sounds of their home territory they throw in some swamp pop, zydeco, and blues, and there’s also a sidestep into country music.

It might seem a bit all over the place at first but growing familiarity with the album has convinced this listener that the band knows exactly what it’s doing and at the very least the members are all excellent musicians. The songs are divided almost equally between English and French language vocals with six sung in French and five in English.

They come out firing on all cylinders with the opening track ‘Au bout de la rivière’ to create the perfect party mood. And just at the point when we think we know exactly where this song is going there is the unexpected addition of saxophone.

The blending of accordion, fiddle, and saxophone appears on many tracks and is used almost as a kind of substitute brass section. It makes you wish you could see the band perform live as their music is exhilarating and clearly very danceable. While accordionist and songwriter Blake Miller is at the forefront of much of what is best here, all six members contribute greatly in various ways.

It isn’t all played at a breakneck pace and one of the best tracks is ‘Bonsoir, petit monde’ a slower song with a French vocal and a superb blend of fiddle and saxophone. The two country songs are also surprisingly effective: ‘She’s a Woman’ and ‘You’re Not to Blame’ both feature prominent accordion and slide guitar and are written in a style not a million miles away from Willie Nelson.

The Revelers (Photo: Sandlin Gaither)

The moody, brooding and bluesy ‘I Wouldn’t Do That to You’ is another change of direction that works well. These sudden shifts in rhythm and style are not jarring at all and they provide a nice contrast on an album where there is a lot of upbeat music.

It’s easy to see why they are so popular in their home base of Lafayette where Cajun music has its heartland. In fact, the band are unofficial musical ambassadors for Lafayette where they run the annual Blackpot Festival involving the whole community in songs, music, dancing and food. This year’s festival will be held on the 25^th and 26^th October.

By their own admission, The Revelers are dedicated to the ‘holy trinity’ of Cajun culture: hot music, all-night dancing, and great food. With this album they have succeeded very well in making a new sound by synthesizing many different elements of music from Louisiana and beyond.

At the End of the River ~ Au bout de la rivière will be released by The Revelers on 8^th November.

www.revelersband.com

Advertisements

Turning Japanese with Kina

This week a friend reminded me of something I’d written in the first edition of The Power of Okinawa book. I ended the chapter about Shoukichi Kina with the words: “Kina may still have some more surprises to give us.” I had forgotten that, but it obviously wasn’t a particularly perceptive thing to say as the great Okinawan singer’s middle name (if Okinawan people had middle names) would surely be ‘impulsive’.

Kina, of course, surprised many of us by going on to become a politician and was even a member of the short-lived government in Japan before eventually being expelled from Minshuto, the Democratic Party of Japan. He subsequently stood unsuccessfully as an independent candidate for Governor of Okinawa.

But the biggest surprise of all must surely be his recent return to the recording studio with the release of a new single, ‘Fujiyama Japan’. The surprise is not that he has paid so little attention to new music over the past few years. No, the clue is in the song’s title. For this is a song in praise of Japan. In fact, it’s something of a homage to the Japanese spirit. Yes, Japanese spirit, not Okinawan.

Shoukichi Kina (Photo: Stephen Mansfield)

This is little short of a seismic shock. It would be on a par with veteran octogenarian singer Misako Oshiro suddenly announcing she is heavily into gangsta rap and is going on tour with Ice Cube. (She isn’t).

In the music video for ‘Fujiyama Japan’ we follow our man Kina as he wanders the city streets before communing with nature while Mount Fuji looms in the distance. The co-written song extols the virtues of all things Japanese and has lyrics by Ryo Shoji and enka-style music by Kina. The only hint of Okinawa is the sanshin that Kina carries to let us know where he’s from and then plays briefly (though we can’t hear it). The video ends with lots of musicians playing violins. It’s awful, and awfully unoriginal too.

Never mind, I thought, maybe the B side is something very different. (Are there still B sides?) A sparkling new Kina original perhaps and too groundbreakingly radical to be the main song. Anyone who follows Kina must surely know, however, that he is not going to miss the chance to include the millionth recording (this time the so-called Reiwa era version) of ‘Hana’ and, yes indeed, here it is again. Oh no!

At the beginning of his recording career Kina released the single ‘Tokyo Sanbika’ (included on his first album). This was a song mocking the lifestyle of the busy, self-important Tokyo man. All his life Kina has oozed Okinawan spirit, fought against the injustices meted out to these islands by Japan, and once said: “I don’t just hope for independence, I think it’s absolutely right that these islands should be independent again. I want to make a model society in the Ryukyu Islands which has freedom and happiness and will be an example for the rest of the world.”

So, has Kina had a change of heart? Is he being ironic? Is there some underlying message that we’ve missed? Is it an attempt to ingratiate himself with Japan so he can sing at the Olympic opening ceremony next year? Or has he gone crazy? Well, I would have to ask him (if I dare) but it seems most likely he is just following those impulses again. If nothing more it’s a return to music.

Some people might like ‘Fujiyama Japan’, of course, and I’m sure it will go down well with Shinzo Abe if he ever gets to hear it. For now, we should perhaps be grateful that there is someone like Shoukichi Kina in Okinawa to continually surprise us, even if some of those surprises are occasionally unwelcome.

You can watch the ‘Fujiyama Japan’ music video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XznrEcIBYJ0&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3gMw4Q1eaKTrWTepWIUnBfPsU8CWpar-_rO4MNB2NiwiWcRcjVGlbuHEQ

The Hackles: A Dobritch Did As A Dobritch Should

This is the second album by Oregon-based American guitar and banjo duo The Hackles. The pair Kati Claborn and Luke Ydstie met in 2008 and have been making music together ever since. Their musical projects also include being members of the band Blind Pilot.

Now their own songs are given full reign again on this new album and their musical style is described in their own press release as ‘melodic, shimmering indie folk’. The ten tracks cover a range that comes close to both Appalachian-style folk roots and country inflected pop without ever going full tilt into either. This is no bad thing as they have their own way with words and music that is satisfyingly understated.

Claborn says that in these songs they want to “look at the big picture through individual lives” and to make sense of the present by looking to the past. The eccentric (some might say irritating) title of the album is therefore a reference to 20^th century Bulgarian circus impresario Al Dobritch whose eventful life came to a sudden end in the USA when he jumped to his death on the Las Vegas Strip. It appears in the story song ‘The Show Goes On’.

The Hackles

At various points they flesh out some of the songs with the addition of strings, fiddle, piano, percussion and slide guitar but always it’s the song and the singing that remain at the core. The two share vocal duties and frequently sing harmony with Claborn taking the lead on the bulk of the songs. The country influenced ‘Dreamer’ is aptly titled as much of the album has a dreamy atmosphere with some tracks running naturally into each other.

At the centre of the album, and positioned back to back, are its two finest songs ‘Peaches’ and ‘The Empty Cups’. Like several of the others, ‘Peaches’ is a simple guitar and banjo-led composition with harmony vocals but above all it contains some lovely turns and musical developments. It ends too soon but is then followed by the equally simple and subtly subdued ‘The Empty Cups’.

For no discernible reason the singing and songs of both Linda Thompson and Mary Chapin Carpenter were conjured up at times in this listener’s mind but The Hackles are making music that is distinctly their own. This set of tranquil, idiosyncratic songs will do just fine.

A Dobritch Did As A Dobritch Should will be released by Jealous Butcher Records on 8^th November.

www.jealousbutcher.com

Notes on Nenes

A British friend of mine is a professor in the music department of a New Zealand university. We met up earlier this year during one of his occasional research trips to Okinawa. Inevitably the talk turned to music and to some of the artists from these islands. Among those discussed were Nenes, the four women who caused a sensation when they arrived on the Okinawan music scene some years ago.

I hadn’t listened to the earlier Nenes albums for quite a while, so our conversation prompted me to return to the work of these four remarkable women. It was immediately a bit of a surprise to realise that next year, in 2020, it will be a whopping 30 years since the formation of the original band.

How the time flies (and other platitudes). It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I had another of my Okinawan music revelations when I saw the original Nenes for the first time at a packed all-standing Banana Hall in Osaka. I had been to this venue many times, but it was a big crush that night and I even gave up an attempt to get to the bar for another beer (previously unheard of!) as it was more like a football crowd than a concert audience.

Nenes: Yasuko, Yukino, Misako, Namiko

Nenes were superb that evening and were so again on the subsequent occasions I saw them. Shortly after the release of their second album I met up with members Misako Koja and Yasuko Yoshida for an interview before another great concert in Osaka, this time at Club Quattro. And lest we forget, the other members of that sublime original line-up were Namiko Miyazato and Yukino Hiyane.

From 1990 until the end of the decade the four made some wonderful music, not just in live performance but with some excellent recordings. They released eight studio albums during that decade, including the Koza compilation and then a final live album Okinawa subtitled (rather morbidly) Memorial Nenes. The one change of personnel occurred when Misako Koja left to pursue a solo career and was replaced by Eriko Touma for the last two of these albums.

Two more compilations arrived in 2002 and then a double retrospective Golden Best in 2004 on Sony, so there is still plenty out there to interest anyone yet to discover their legacy. And I haven’t even mentioned Sadao China, the man who put them together, acted as mentor, produced their albums and wrote many of the songs. He also created the Okinawan language version of Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman, No Cry’ that became one of their trademark songs in live shows.

It was thrilling to see Nenes at their peak especially when they played with backing musicians rather than pre-recorded tracks. They produced a hybrid sound combining Okinawan traditional songs, modern shimauta, and global pop with hints of Indonesia, Hawaii and Brazil. Usually the four sang in unison while each member occasionally took turns with the lead vocal.

They announced themselves on the cover of their third album Ashibi as an ‘International Uchina Pop Group’ but could sing straightforward Okinawan minyo too as they showed on their fifth album Narabi where the guests included Seijin Noborikawa and Tetsuhiro Daiku. It was a relatively stripped back Nenes after the glorious excess (and success) of its immediate predecessor Koza Dabasa recorded in Los Angeles with Ry Cooder, David Hidalgo and other American musicians.

Of course, the individual members were mostly established already as solo singers before Sadao China came along. Traditional Okinawan song remained their first love and Yasuko Yoshida once told me that, however big the sound was when they played on stage with the full backing band, it was always minyo she was listening to in her head.

They were not the first either, as Four Sisters (who, unlike Nenes, were real sisters) preceded them by many years. But while Four Sisters were committed to traditional Okinawan songs, Nenes pushed things into much more diverse territory. It’s a bit like Bob Dylan taking inspiration from Woody Guthrie but ultimately surpassing his idol to take his music in many new directions. At least Nenes didn’t get booed for going electric.

As ‘any fule kno’, Nenes didn’t finish after that live memorial show and album. New reincarnations continue to appear to this day as Frankenstein China still tinkers with different formations. Most recently they have become a trio. All the members of the ever-changing younger line-ups have been fine singers and Mayuko Higa – now a solo artist – is a favourite of mine. However, it’s better that I don’t go on about China’s inability to move with the times: just read my reviews of the last two or three albums to get the idea.

It was great to meet up with Henry (that’s my friend in New Zealand) and to talk again about music. While I’m just an enthusiast, he really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to musical theory and it’s always good to pick his brains. More importantly he reminded me of those halcyon days when Nenes ruled Okinawa.

Rinsho Kadekaru: Maruteru Recordings

It’s already five years since the appearance of the last batch of Rinsho Kadekaru recordings. Now here comes another album of recordings from the studio collected and released for the first time on CD. Maruteru Recordings is also subtitled in Japanese as Shimauta Ogonjidai no Kadekaru Rinsho.

Many previous dips into the vaults have focused on Kadekaru’s work in the 1970s but this one goes back a bit further and the songs here were recorded in the 1960s when the singer was in his forties. Despite this he still sounds the same as always. Not so Misako Oshiro who sounds very young indeed. She joins him on five songs.

The album offers a generous slice of Kadekaru who, it almost goes without saying, does not disappoint in the least. It shows again why 20 years after his death he is still revered as arguably the finest interpreter of Okinawan traditional songs and is the singer and sanshin player most looked up to as an example of the very best of the first generation of Okinawan recording artists.

The recordings were made before he was taken up by journalist and music promoter Rou Takenaka and introduced to mainland Japan where he became very well-known. Until then it had been other singers, especially Shouei Kina, who were more popular back home in Okinawa.

On these tracks he is on his own with his sanshin for most of the time though occasionally accompanied by taiko. As well as the five songs with Misako Oshiro, he is joined by Keiko Higa for ‘Mue Guwa Bushi’ and by Setsuko Uezu on ‘Magukuru nu Hana’. There are 18 tracks and a total of 75 minutes playing time. The CD booklet has extensive notes in Japanese and lyrics of all the songs. The cover shows a photo of Kadekaru unwisely puffing on a cigarette alongside Rinsuke Teruya whose family owned and ran the Maruteru record company.

This is another important piece of Okinawan music history and yet another addition to the continually growing catalogue of Rinsho Kadekaru recordings.

Maruteru Recordings is released by Disc Akabana / Terurin Records.

Mitsuaki Iwago’s World Cats Travelogue

Mitsuaki Iwago’s photo exhibition, Neko, came to Okinawa two years ago and I wrote about it at the time. It was a wonderfully rewarding show for anyone with a love of cats or an interest in photography. Starting tomorrow, the same photographer returns with a new exhibition at the Urasoe Art Museum featuring cats from around the world.

Iwago was born in Tokyo in 1950 and is a renowned wildlife photographer and filmmaker. He has a special relationship with our feline friends and has travelled all over the world to capture images of them in a long career stretching back more than 40 years. He will be attending the exhibition in person on Saturday (7^th).

Mitsuaki Iwago’s World Cats Travelogue is sure to be worth a visit. The exhibition opens on 6^th September and runs until 27^th October. Full details are on the museum’s website.

http://museum.city.urasoe.lg.jp/

Okinawan Avant-Garde Night

There will be an Okinawan Avant-Garde Night in London, UK, on Thursday 3^rd October. This is presented by MYM at Rich Mix arts centre in Shoreditch. Taking part will be Okinawa’s Mutsumi Aragaki (vocals, sanshin, electronics, audio-visuals) and UK-based Japanese/Swiss singer Mina who plays sanshin and violin. The pair will be joined by Japanese dancer Yu Tamura who will also be familiar to Power of Okinawa readers as a member of An-chang Project.

The trio will give a music and dance performance that offers an avant-garde approach to ancient sounds and tales from Okinawa.

“By blending songs, stories, images and movements together with Japanese performing artist Yu Tamura, this new collaboration invites the audience to discover the unique and rich culture of Okinawa with a highly artistic perspective.”

More details can be found on the Rich Mix website.

https://richmix.org.uk