01 October 2013

Guyana






UPDATE

Somehow when I was posting music from Guyana, I forgot Mad Professor. I had lost him amongst the Jamaican dub artists. I am now remedying that slight.


Mad Professor (Neil Joseph Stephen Fraser) was born in 1955 in Georgetown, Guyana. He is a Guyanese dub music producer & engineer known both for his original productions & his remix work. He is considered one of the leading producers of dub music’s second generation. He was instrumental in transitioning dub into the digital age. He has collaborated with reggae artists such as Lee "Scratch" Perry, Sly & Robbie, Pato Banton, Jah Shaka, & Horace Andy, as well as artists outside the realm of traditional reggae & dub, such as Sade, Massive Attack, The Orb, & Brazilian DJ Marcelinho da lua.

Ariwa ARILP021, 1985. 
decryption code in comments

Side One –

Freedom Broadcast
Fast Forward Into Dub
Pirates of the Airwaves
Lord Ska-man
Banana Republic
Lightning Strike

Side Two –

Hong Kong Flew
Devil’s Playground
Stepping Razor
Ras Mas
Under Surveillance
Snake Charmer


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Bing Serrão & the Ramblers were Guyana’s first amplified string band.


The story of the Ramblers goes back to around 1950 in Georgetown, British Guiana when the last three siblings of the Serrão family (Bernie, Bing, & Maurice) started playing with make believe guitars, made of empty herring cans with a wooden pole protruding, & four rubber bands with wooden heads to ‘tune’ the guitar. In 1953, the Serrão brothers formally started the band along with several friends – Michaels Andrews, Romeo Rego, Mark Steele, & Ambrose de Sousa. The band was in great demand for dances, house parties, & charity concerts produced by ‘Auntie Olga’ lopes-Seale, ‘Honest John’ Fernandes, & the Ivy Campbell Dance School.


In 1960, the Ramblers had made their first record with Cook Records, a 7” single CC6019 “Three in One Saga” b/w “Nothing in Common”. From their pioneering days without amplification & bongos made from Guyana wallaba wood & bicycle parts, the band progressed to amplification. Although calypso & latin are their main styles, the Ramblers also play plenty of waltzes, tangos, cha chas, & ballads.

decryption codes in comments

Tracklist –

Guyana Don’t Fear
Caribbean Dream 
My Girl is Thirteen 
Love to Go 
Your Face 
When We’re Together 
Nothing but Memories 
Three in One Saga (instrumental) 
Magic Ride 
You’re Everything 
Medley – Guyana Folk Songs: 
  1. Mama Meh Belly an Hurt Meh
  2. Fan Meh Soldier Boy
  3. John Brown Baby
  4. Coloured Girl in the Ring
Just Another Cell 
Daddy 
My Guyana 
Caribana Jam 


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UPDATE: I am updating this post 10/08/2013. Be Advised. NØ

After a visitor here took umbrage at my less than subtle Jonesian foray, I tried to explain what my intentions were. I've explained that I didn't really know much about the music of Guyana. After Bing Serrão & the Ramblers above I just got into one of my Bryon Jones (Muslimgauze) moods & posted smart-ass music (see Valkenvania, Vatican City, & Uzbekistan for just a few other examples).

Obliging my stupidity in a gentlemanly (though begging anonimity) fashion, said visitor sent me the following music. So here is some more real music from Guyana. Two polar opposites but cultural cousins. The first is from 1958 & is possibly the first modern recording of traditional Guianese music & the second is from 2008 at the Carifesta X (No. 10) held  in Guyana.




Ramjohn Holda (Ram John Holder) was born in 1934 in Georgetown, Guyana. Growing up in Skeldon, near the Suriname border during the 1940s/50s he became quite accomplished playing the guitar. He became interested in the Kwe Kwe musicians & learned guitar from the famed Kwe Kwe musician Anice. Ramjohn goined the Kwe Kwe group & travelled around Guyana performing at weddings.

He then found work as a pork knocker (pork-knockers are freelance Guyanese prospectors who mine for diamonds & gold in the alluvial plains of the Guyanese interior. The name ‘pork-knockers’ refers to their regular diet of pickled pork of wild pig that is often eaten at the end of the day). In the first half of the 20th century miners, employing primitive methods, recovered significant quantities of gem-quality diamonds from the Potar river area. In fact the two largest gem-quality diamonds recovered in Guyana to date, one 56.75 carats (11.35 g) from Little Uewang River & one 25.67 carats (5.134 g) from Maple Creek, are from the Potaro area. Hence the name Potaro Porkknockers.


Holder would move to New York City in 1962 to become a folk singer, but this album was released in 1958 before he left Guyana.

On Songs of the Guiana Jungle, the Potaro Porkknockers are: Ramjohn Holda – vocals & guitar; Jim Holder – guitar; Ogi Godette – jungle guitar (a large wooden box with steel bands attached that are thumped); Rica Clarke – maracas; Roy Singh – claves; & Elwood Donnoe – drums. Mozst of the groups instruments were home-made. This is the first collection of Guianese folk music ever recorded in high-fidelity.

Request Records SRLP 8039, 1958. 
decryption codes in update comment

Side 1 –

Timber Man
Plimpla
Demarara Boy
Janey Girl
Cumah Fish
Galahala
Sun ah Go Down
Duckalay

Side 2 –

Manin Train
Shetira
Covanjon
Itanamee
Lay Down Bessie
Mackenzie
Guiana
Gangimani

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Carifesta X was held in Guyana between August 22 & 31, 2008. This CD compiles songs from many of the performers who played there.

Carifesta stands for the Caribbean Festival of Arts. It is the region's roving, multi-disciplinary, mega arts festival which attracts a wide range of creative artists from various Caribbean & Latin American countries. Carifesta was the culmination of an idea that arose in 1970 when participants at an Artists & Writers Convention in Guyana complained about the absence of an outlet to showcase the rich cultural heritage of the region & at the same time give recognition to its outstanding artists & art forms.

The origin of Carifesta '72, the first Caribbean Festival of Creative Arts held in Guyana from August 25 to September 15, 1972 lies in history. Two successive Conferences of outstanding Caribbean Writers & Artists in 1966 & 1970 recommended to then Prime Minister of Guyana, Hon. LFS Burnham that they would welcome the invitation to an annual Festival of the Arts.

Prime Minister Burnham had related his vision of a cultural Mecca for the region's people. It was a vision of peoples with roots deep in Asia, Europe, & Africa coming together to share & to perform their art forms. The dream embraced the literature inspired by their peculiar Caribbean temperament, paintings inspired by the tropical jungles & art visualizing their forefathers in the distant past. The music was an ever-present element in everyday Caribbean life.

 Various - Carifesta X Folk Innovation Music, Vision Sounds Records, 2008.

Tracklist –

Ting a ling – Alabama (feat. Fojo)
Brown Girl – Ballys (feat. Fojo)
Daddy Gone – Alabama
This Time na Lang Time – Passion
Lilly Gal – Blackman & Devon Danny
Timber Back a Me – Lil Man
Anora Darling – Lil Man
Uncle Joe – DJ Madanna
Demerara – Mark Hall
Cumma Fish – Spider
Guyana – JB
Ginnie Gal – Lil J
Sukibajena – Izzy
Long Grass – Izzy

Enjoy,



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Probably the most famous star of Guyana would have to be James Warren ‘Jim” Jones. He went right to the top with a bullet. He was an ex-pat from the U.S. who moved to Guyana in the mid 70s to escape the military-industrial complex blues.

In the 1956, Jim Jones opened his first club in Indianapolis, Indiana. Looking for more fault-lines but at the same time a safe place in case of a nuclear war, the group moved to California in 1965. They first moved up to northern California in the Emrald Triangle where the pot was plentiful. Due to their left-wing political & social views as well as their focus on racial integration they attracted many new members from the burgeoning hippie movement. They decided to move to San Francisco to be a part of the Summer of Love.


Everyone who was anyone in the San Francisco scene was in a band, so Jim was no different. He recorded his first album in 1973.


People’s Temple Choir – He’s Able, Brotherhood Records NPC 3, 1973.

Side One –

Welcome
Walking with You Father
Set Them Free
Walk a Mile in My Shoes
Hold on Brother
Down from His Glory

Side Two –

He’s Able
Something Got a Hold of Me
Because of Him
Simple Song of Freedom
Black Baby
Will You

bonus track  - Mass Suicide

Beginning in 1974, the People's Temple started preparing a move to Guyana, where most of the group relocated by 1977, to an agricultural settlement, the People’s Temple Agricultural Complex (more commonly known as Jonestown) about 150 miles northwest of Georgetown, Guyana near Port Kaituma.


In November 1978, Jones decide to have his own Woodstock-like festival. Celebrities from all over the world flew in for the event. U.S. congressman Leo Ryan attended. He was met with a twenty-one gun salute at the airfield. It was killer. 


Jone took his cue from the old San Francisco days & decided to emulate Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters Kool-aid Acid Tests. 





Unfortunately, Jones used grape Flavor-Aid instead of Kool-aid & somehow the LSD got switched with cyanide & Valium. The end results were not favorable. Jones blamed himself & took one for the team.


Side 1 –
Rock’N’Roll Psychosis
Side 2 –
Big Hunk O Love

Enjoy, but don’t do the brown acid or drink the Kool-Aid.



6 comments:

  1. Wow, pretty insulting and uninformed post about my native country. First, we are very tired of being linked to the American mass murdered Jim Jones. Second, Jonestown wasn't just outside Georgetown, but far to the west and much closer to the Venezuelan border. http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/images/01GuyJTMap.jpg
    If you would like to highlight Guyanese musicians, please mention real stars like Eddy Grant, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTSHHoBwSBY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVonwqfQUBA King Fighter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk9V2pgY-AM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7JRubMMB8 , the Yoruba Singers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlCgkdEPzaA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lma8DL74DQA , Eddie Hooper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IAUtzg7Pv0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMmFcPy62z8, and chutney stars like Terry Gajraj http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9tK2jVUDig and Nisha Benjamin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja808cLB3PE

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ken,
      Sorry if you took this post wrong. I in no way meant to be insulting of Guyana. I guess my sarcasm was a bit heavy-handed. I know that one of the first things that people think of about Guyana is Jonestown. I tried to be as sarcastic about it as possible. The black & white photo of the band with the sitar is Brian Jonestown Massacre, a band that itself ridicules Jonestown. The only music I put up of Jim Jones was the People's Choir recording which was meant to show their cult-ness & nothing more. I even tacked on the Mass Suicide bonus track as a cautionary comment. The Jim Jones Revue is a British psychobilly outfit. Again my apologies.

      As to the geography, thank you for the correction.

      Thank you for the links to other guyanese music. I thought that everyone into music at all must surely be familiar with Eddy Grant, as he was obviously an international star. I myself don't particularly relate to the chutney stars. I find the music very derivative & to my ears (undoubtedly not the best) less than fresh.

      Your comment was appreciated. I've been told before that my satire & sarcasm would get me in trouble. I gues it has here.

      Delete
  2. Nothing wrong with a little sarcasm, but the like between Jim Jones and Guyana became stale ages ago (We Guyanese tend to be a little sensitive about the subject). In fact, most Guyanese never knew that the cult had taken up residence in the rainforest. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. M P has been deleted by MEGA, N0 !
    If you can upload it again, it'll be so nice...
    Thanks a lot

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Everything from Japan across the Pacific through South America, the Carribean, & to North America was lost in a snafu on MEGA. I am in the process of re-upping all the files. I have finished Asia & North America as well as Jamaica. I will get to Guyana ASAP. Thanks for your patience.

      Delete
    2. WELL< HERE"S EVERYTHING GUYANESE RE_UPPED...EVEN THE BAD TASTE

      Mad Professor
      yI2O7w2j11ggEE6VTw2OfeXJUe0J7d1O2JJeSK_iAhU
      Bing Serrão
      nOK1rzCpjvhK6Vb4r0V-E2uu8-DAHKHATPy_R2FsaZM
      Ramjohn Holda
      e8dNl75TG3rSVL-O8mrE_tU07i8hBGLsJ_j7wIcKEPc
      Various - Carifesta
      Bh6Hq5vQM0A7TnECjW0Hh3Df7UEx9TFXjsUJZ0teVCY
      People’s Temple
      4cwRIua43BJagYrt1lZr6Cp8fONniPFvTBi9RRYxryI
      Jim Jones Revue
      da1k3ny8ennSo1DMuVc6duwJz8jMMfjoM0NSZLgfvSM

      Delete