More Saidi Hardcore from Mutamassik

From her new (August) LP, Rekkez. 

"Wishik" (Your Face)


"Dr. Aida."


My 2005 review of mutamassik's Masri Mokkassar: Definitive Works is here.

This sums up the interzone project, more or less

sorta. kinda. exactly.

Vigon, '60s 'soul man' of France: a Moroccan, real name Abdelghafour Mouhsine

I just learned about Vigon thanks to Jeff, who posted an AFP article on Facebook. I used Google Translate, and then modified the translation. (My French is very far from perfect, so if yours is better, please correct any mistakes. The original is here.)

Vigon, Moroccan "soul man," emerges from obscurity 40 years later

AFP, Oct. 9, 2008

PARIS (AFP) - He was a vegetable vendor in Morocco before discovering soul at U.S. bases and then becoming a minor star in Paris in the '60s: thanks to a reissue, Vigon, the singer with an amazing voice, is experiencing a second youth [revival], 40 years later.

"What is happening now is what should have happened 40 years ago," marvels the affable sexagenarian, delighted that a new audience discovering his music.

The Barclay (Universal) label reissued in early September an album of his songs, "The End of Vigon," in its vinyl series "Back to Black" and its CD vintage series "Vinyl Replica."

Critics were quickly excited about his covers of great soul / rhythm 'n'blues songs of Bob & Earl, Ray Charles and Bo Diddley, discovering, amazed, that in the "sixties" France had a singer to rival African-American masters of the genre.

Critics highly praised the velvety voice of Vigon and the song arrangements, the strings and the hot sweet brass worthy of Motown or Stax, yet "made in France."

"Even when it came out 40 years ago, there was not this much enthusiasm!" smiled the Moroccan, in dark glasses, elegant clothes, and the mock [?] air of elegant black-American singer Sam Cooke.

Vigon took that nickname from his childhood, when he mispronounced the word "wagon" in school.

He was born Abdelghafour Mouhsine in Rabat in 1945. At first working as a greengrocer with his father, he fell madly in love with R & B at the U.S. military bases in Kenitra and Sidi Slimane and he learned the standards phonetically, since he does not speak English.

"I was going to the grunts' [troufions] dances every Saturday, and there, they bought the records that came from America on the week of their release," he recalls. "Twist and Shout" by the Isley Brothers, it was sung in Morocco before the Beatles covered it!"

In 1964, he was on vacation in Paris and went to the Golf Drouot, the Mecca of rock music. He went on stage, bluffing the public and then joined the Lemons, along with another young man named Michel Jonasz on keyboards.

The group scoured the [music] scenes, Golf Drouot or Bus Palladium, made [assied] its reputation and opened the first [concerts] [in France] of Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Little Richard, the Who and the Rolling Stones.

"In late September, I went to see Stevie Wonder at Bercy: when I think of that time we spent in night clubs and how crazy it was!" exclaims Vigon, who will sing Saturday and Sunday a Cidisc (Convention of record collectors) in Paris and then on Oct. 15 at the Petit Journal Montparnasse.

One of his singles, "It's all over", was released in 1968 on the American label Atlantic. [check out "It's all over" here, on youtube] The previous year he released his only song in French, "Un petit ange noir" [on youtube here].

He returned to Morocco in the mid 70's for two weeks. "I stayed 23 years!" he enjoys explaining that he was a singer in a hotel in Agadir.

In 2000, back in France, where 60's retro fashion was once again popular. Vigon the showman performed regularly at private parties, and his fans included other artists from Morocco, the comedians Gad Elmaleh and Jamel Debbouze, at whose wedding he sang.

"I'm sometimes asked if America did not tempt me. But I never imagined, coming from Morocco, so it's not bad!" he assures. "Kid, I slept on a sheepskin. Now, in hotels, they say: 'Do you like the room?' It makes me laugh!"

The entry on Vigon on the French wikipedia tells us that Vigon's recordings were a critical, but not a commercial, success. And that he and his group, opened for Otis Redding, Bo Diddley and Stevie Wonder, at their first performances in Paris, at the Olympia, in September 1966. The video of "It's all over" (link above) features a number of photos of Vigon with the acts he opened for, including this one, with Mick Jagger.

Please check out this scopatone of Vigon performing "Harlem Shuffle," originally recorded by Bob and Earl in 1963. It's a pretty divine cover, and the dancers are pure sixties go-go.



And here are the jackets for some of Vigon's releases. The EP with "Harlem Shuffle" and "Un Petit Ange Noir."

This single has a cover of The Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody." The hair is to die for.

The cover of Vigon's only single released in the US, on Atlantic. Quite remarkable, given that Aretha Franklin also recorded on Atlantic at the time. Not to mention Solomon Burke, Clarence Carter, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Percy Sledge, Joe Tex...


Here's a photo of Vigon with his soul review, at the Olympia. Looking very James Brown.


Here's Vigon (looking like Jimi Hendrix) with French pop star Claude François, known for, among other things, penning "Comme d'habitude," the original version of "My Way." What I wonder is, what language did these two speak when they met. Claude François, like Dalida, was born in Egypt, in Ismailiya. His mother was Italian, his father, who worked as a shipping traffic controller on the Suez Canal, was French. In 1951 the family moved to Port Tawfik. The family moved to Monaco when Egypt nationalized the canal in 1956. If I remember correctly from David McMurray's article "La France Arabe" (in A. Hargreaves and M. McKinney, eds., Post-Colonial Cultures in France), Claude used to speak Arabic when he got together with Dalida's brother Orlando, who also served as her manager. But perhaps the gap between Vigo's Moroccan dialect and Claude's Egyptian was too great.

This is what Vigon looks like today.


Many of the photos are from this informative blogpost.

While writing this up, I came across another article, from Jukebox, which I will summarize soon. In the meantime, it's here.

interzone radio podcast & playlist, august 3 show

podcast is: here

playlist here

peace!

interzone radio, podcast for 6/1/10 + muslimgauze + Gaza's DARG Team

the podcast for the june 1 show is here

playlist is here

as you might imagine, as I was preparing this show, I was thinking a lot, obsessing in fact, about Gaza.

(a very good commentary on the Israeli assault on the Freedom Flotilla, from Merip, is here).

so, among the tracks I played were Muslimgauze's "Curfew, Gaza," from the album Zul'm. an earlier post about Muslimgauze can be found here. if you go there, be sure to read the comments. and thanks to Nabeel, I learned about this site, where you can download, for free, the album El Tafkeera: Re-mixs in Remembrance of Muslimgauze. It's produced by Islamophoniacs. (I love the name.)


I also played a track by a rap group from Gaza that I quite like, DARG Team (DARG stands for Da Arabian Revolutionary Guys). You can go here (at palrap.net) to listen to some of their very fine tracks. (And PalRap is a great place to access all sorts of Palestinian rap. But it helps to know Arabic to navigate the site.)

podcast & playlist for may 25th's interzone radio show

podcast for the show is here.

the playlist is here.

enjoy.

much love,

deejay teo

interzone radio: podcast & playlist for may 18, twenty ten

the podcast for the show is here


playlist is here


congratulations to Greg Leding!


salaams


deejay teo

interzone radio: podcasts & playlist, may 4 & 11

the podcast for the May 11 show is here

the playlist is here

and

the podcast for May 4th's show is here

+ the playlist is here

peace,

d.j. teo

interzone radio show, podcast & playlist, for tues. feb. 23

podcast for this show is here.

playlist for the show is here.

included in the show is the musical soundtrack to a stunningly beautiful video by Tashweesh. this is a must, must see. Tashweesh is Basel Abbas and boikutt, formerly of Ramallah Underground and Ruanne Abu Rahme, a really brilliant video artist. the still photo reproduced here is from the film. again, please watch it. here.

interzone radio podcast for feb. 2 is up

last night's interzone radio show, hosted by d.j. teo, is now available as a podcast, by going here.

the playlist is here.

lots of great stuff.

i'm particularly fond of the Mexican Orientalism of DJ Tenebros, on "Taliban Guitars #2," which i learned about thanks to jace clayton.

don't forget Haiti:

donate to Partners in Health.

Interzone radio podcast

After a long break that started in July, I've returned to the airwaves and the netwaves. Interzone Radio is back on KXUA, 88.3 FM, every (almost) Tuesday from 6-8 PM (Central Time).

You can listen on the net by going here and clicking on the player on the right of the page. My intention is to do podcasts of the shows from here on in. You can access the podcast of my show (the first ever) of January 19 here. The show was dedicated to Haiti, and featured some Haitian music.

Playlists will be regularly posted here.

Please join me every week. Or if you can't make it, get the podcasts. (I'm trying to figure out how I can offer subscriptions.)

William Burroughs: Interzone

Burroughs and a sphinx. Probably at the Egyptian Museum. (Not sure what the source is...) Thanks, Elliott!

THE MARKET

Panorama of the City of Interzone...

...The blood and substance of many races, Negro, Polynesian, Mountain Mongol, Desert Nomad, Polyglot Near East, Indian--races as yet unconceived and unborn, combinations not yet realized pass through your body...The Composite City where all human potentials are spread out in a vast silent market.

Minarets, palms, mountains. jungle...

Cooking smells of all cities hang over the City...

High mountain flutes, jazz and bebop, one-stringed Mongol instruments, gypsy xylophones, African drums, Arab bagpipes...

(William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, NY: Grove Press, 1966, pp. 106, 108)

The secret of Brazilian pop music?

From no less an authority than tropicalista giant Tom Zé, speaking to the New York Times (1/26/07) about the traditional folk music of Brazil's Northeast, which he says is the source of the "richness and strength of Brazilian popular music":

Mr. Zé also noted that the music of the Brazilian northeast that came from Portugal was itself a result of cultural mixing, especially from the Arab domination there [Portugal] during the medieval era. The lyrics of some songs in the compilation [Musica Tradicional do Norte e Nordeste 1938] date back to troubadors' tales from that era, but the Arab presence manifested itself mainly in a vocal style characterized by a fondness for bent notes.
"That influence is still there in Brazilian popular music today," he said. "I hear it most clearly and beautifully when Caetano [Veloso] sings. He has developed a sophisticated, intensive way to use these modulations that were quite common in the singers we heard there in the backlands of the northeast."

The compilation referred to is recently released 4-CD set drawn from an archive collected in the northeast by a folklore team in 1938.