Day 5: Recording the Mperwa Dancers Story
…inging Wells audio team – Nick, Andy & Willie – start to set up the mixing desk while Patrick and Steve place the mics… The group gathers in place and the lead vocalist starts her captivating performance.. This older gentlemen joins the performance and takes the lead in most dances… While spectators from every generation take a seat for the performance… Here are the videos: https://youtu.be/zFjbdw9j1io https://youtu.be/W_VV8xEYziM https://youtu.be…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…a songs are about the ‘Parcs.’ Kisoro is quite a small town, population 12,000. On a map we are about as far west and south in Uganda as you can go. Traveller’s Rest: We stayed at the Traveller’s Rest, a hotel famed for being a meeting place for gorilla observers. They write about this on their website: “In 1955 Travellers Rest was bought by Walter Baumgartel, and quickly became a meeting place for people interested in the mountain gorilla. Amongs…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…I joined as apprentice in 2005 and I was 23. The cultural side started in 2007. We started the spot light on Kenya music and other initiatives with Ketebul Productions, the Ministry of Culture and Alliance Francaise. We picked artists from all over Kenya to create an album. This is first move to culture things. Tabu was on the committee for Spot light and he would go out to select folks for the later recordings but the recording happened at the Go…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…Chinese Emperor’s in the 1400’s. Sita is a very small village with about 200 people; we recorded in a subset of the village, where all of Bado‘s brother’s and sisters lived with their families. Bado is the fourth son of Nyerere Wa Konde, who runs the Nyerere Wa Konde Music Club and is the village elder. To reach the village, you go 15 clicks and then another 2 on a dirt road. There are about 7 houses, two cows, lots of chickens, groves of pea tre…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…allow them to undertake the trip to this remote area of North West Kenya, 800 km from Nairobi and home to the Turkana and Samburu tribes and the original ‘singing wells’. When Steve Kivutia (Ketebul Music) presented the idea of recording music at the Festival to the AMF, it seemed a perfect fit with the objectives of the Singing Wells project and the trustees were happy to approve a grant to cover the costs of travelling to the Festival with the n…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Willie Bembe News
…e enjoy having last recording sessions with them at the studio. The “seventeen hour” song is very catchy and Jimmy is dancing all over the place as an African touch is added by Makadem, Winyo and Ayub Ogada. Andy is at the control desk being a magician after tearing down our studio so we can use the new equipment. Jimmy is an amazing song writer I realise. We say farewell and they are off to the airport with a promise to return. Willie Bembe 11 Ap…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…or lunch. Everyone had some food apart from Tabu. I have known Tabu since 2005, and I can count the number of times I have seen him having a meal on 1 hand! After refueling car number 02 (it must have been guzzling the fuel because of the AC), we set off for the second leg of our journey, Voi to Mombasa. Salif Keita’s ‘M’bemba’ CD and Winyo’s in production CD ‘Benga & Blues’ proved to be the favorite cruise music as we kept on switching between th…