Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…here’s a typically day of ‘file management.’ Nick starts by going ‘audio’ and Andy or Steve answers “rolling.” Then for some reason, due to Patrick’s strange way of talking, Nick then says ‘Camera 1?’ and Patrick answers “Camera 1 is speeding”. We have no idea why, but it means that Jimmy and Vicki have to respond with “Camera 2 (or 3) is speeding.” Now with all systems go Nick starts with ‘This is Macedonia with their fourth song Uganda Land of…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
…ld us about the history of the group, which was founded in 1982. The group and its song Uganda Land of Freedom is legendary in the Teso region (the name for the collection of villages around us). Joshua While you read the rest of this, why don’t you play the Magic Moment of the band as a good soundtrack to their story? During the civil war these villages were under rebel control from 1989-1992. The rebels came into the village to kills the men and…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…person has a chicken to sell you and the poor creature is swung around by its feet for hours and days before being sold. Every ninth person is selling nuts or grasshoppers from a bucket or woven basket. Every seventh person is selling fruit of some type from a woven basket,. Every fifth person is sitting next to a blanket that is laid out to display their wares. You get a lot of blankets with eggs, but sometimes sunglasses, nails, electic sockets…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – night recording at Fort Murchison Story
…the case and it shouldn’t be surprising. Most good musicians play off the band and if you ask them to play the song just with their part find it all a bit strange. So too for African village groups. They don’t go into studios and ‘lay down their track’ in some great over-dubbing session. They perform with a troupe, and they feed off of and help drive the dancing and the other instruments. The song Apako Oranga had an amazing Ndara riff and we want…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – Pakwach to Widiang’a, Nebbi Story
…s the celebration of the chief. It features the spectacular Ndara, the Bul and Agwara and involves a lot of rolling around. We loved it so much we recorded a ‘magic moment’ – there was even more rolling around then usual and the 150 kids around us had a great time. We then took the time to solo each instrument given the quality of the musicians. The started with the Rigi Rigi, where Owach Tartizio sang Obimo. We then featured the Adungu, with Okum…
Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…ghting (and it is a pretty good tussle) before they are encouraged by the band and woman dancers to calm down, solve their differences and forgive. Given the recent wars in Uganda and given that we are in formally held Kony territory, this song is pretty important. https://youtu.be/_u4-hVbcVV0 In the same vein, their second song was Lweny Dong Pee, a message to the government to bring back the children of conflict, many of whom remain displaced or…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…ring and exiting this rather large ‘Set’ and performing the chorus. Akello and Andy then led the 350 singers through ‘We Are All One’ as a backing chorus. Very fun! As we were closing down we were greeted by the Chairman of Acet who was very gracious in welcoming us. He walked away with lots of photos and a Singing Wells 2012 shirt! He also got one of our Polaroid pictures. This is a new innovation for us – every group gets to listen to their song…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…c and did a paper on drumming in Ghana. So Vicki switched seats with Jimmy and talked to Andrew about the Singing Wells project for an hour. We then all settled down to watch Ted before landing about 8 hours later in Entebbe. All bags were gratefully recovered and we took a taxi for an 8 minute journey to the Airport Guesthouse Entebbe, where we were greeted by our old friends, Jan Willem Van De Kamp (the owner of this hotel and the Travelers Rest…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…rs stayed the morning as well. We had a full crew to support Ben – Johnnie and Bishop on guitar, Nina and Winyo on vocals. Watch this space. We also continued our work to capture new artists for Missing – Global Remix, our 2012 fund raising song. We had Prasad Velankar, a wonderful Indian percussionist join us to put on new percussion. He plays the Tabla at the speed of light and transformed the song. He was so good, we decided to put together a m…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…d to bring them back to the Nairobi studio. That led to 10 Batwa musicians and 5 Batwa babies travelling from Kisoro to Kampala to Nairobi and recording some great songs over the course of four days. We now want to repeat this for every field visit and decided to invite the Otacho Young Stars, the great find of our field visit to record the Luo, and Ben Kisinja, the great Kalenjin musician we recorded earlier this week. Saturday was all about the…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…erned sarongs, decorated with golden designs and lines, looking like trees and fruits. Hunter felt the costumes represented the landscape. Eddie did three Influences sessions – two with the first group playing guitar on ‘Ribwege’, a song about protecting their culture, and on ‘Rirenecg’, a prayer song. With the second group he focused on the song ‘Chang’aomen’ – a song about a woman who gets married and moves away from home and brings special gift…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…ce. In fact, we were confused for a CNN crew! You can read more about Iten and its famous athletes here: Running with the Kenyans From Iten there is a beautiful tarmac road that leads to Nokuru travelling down the Rift Valley. We will take this ride tomorrow. For today, however, in the words of Robert Frost, we ‘took the road less travelled.’ We left Iten on a red, dirt road. The athletes ran on the sides and our car and jeep travelled in the midd…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…g her arms to the beat. Then she would begin to sing, and then she would stand and sway, and then she would begin to dance around and gradually would join the band. She simply couldn’t help herself. That is the power of music. We will try to put together a video clip of her best moments. Lomuke Group We recorded 9 songs: Anya Kar, Chepo Laleiyo, Kirap, Kiter, Kiyuar, Asoiyen, Adong’o and Montonyo. The women were dressed in white, carrying sticks a…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…nt we had to abandon the day, leaving a separate village and two groups stranded and wet. As we write this we are working out how to see them this week. Chelagat Lebo – ‘Chela’ Finally, we have been joined by Chela. She’s amazing and was there taking down the tent during the deluge. It should be noted that most of the Singing Wells crew were in the vans by this time. Chela is a professional documentary maker and Kathy interviewed her in detail. Th…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…The surviving bull, Sigerer, was re-taken and brought back to Kitale. In celebration, the owner slaughtered poor Sigerer to feed the posse. As Kathy pointed out to Teriet, the real hero of the song was the dog, not poor Sigerer, who’s sole role was really to walk to Uganda and back and die. Masirtarit Finally, we recorded the ill-fated Masirtarit, a wonderful female folk choir with great songs. They had waited all day for their turn only to find…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…. He is one of 6 children – he has one older sister and two older brothers and a younger brother and sister. He lives with his three brothers in an apartment in the Umoja district of Nairobi. Pato graduated from Pumwani High School in 1999 where he was always the ‘camera guy’, volunteering for every school project involving photography. He then worked in computer software before founding Foxhole Entertainment with some school friends – they focuse…