The New Singing Wells website News
We are proud and pleased to announce the latest version of The Singing Wells website. We hope this will make it easier for you to find and explore our recordings of East African Traditional Music. Here are some of the added features of the new site: Stories Most of what we do is story-telling, in the music that we record, the pictures we take, the people that we meet and the journeys that we make – so we have split our stories into easy to read a…
The Singing Wells supports Ketebul Music’s ‘Kenya at 50’ project News
…television. He also launched the career of Jean Mwenda Bosco – who toured Kenya promoting Apsro products. He was a friend of, and supporter of Ally Sykes, who was the first person to begin a Jazz Orchestra in Tanzania, and played a part in the drive for Independence in Tanganyika. Colmore appointed Sykes as his agent in Dar es Salaam for Hi Fielity promotions. In later life, he was involved less in music and his business interests widened to incl…
The Beat of Kenya News
…were donated to the museum in 2011 by a Canadian who had worked in Maseno, Kenya in the late 1960s. During the course of his work there, he was often invited to gatherings in the villages around the area where musicians would be part of the evening. At the end of the evening, the musicians would usually sell their instruments to foreigners in attendance. The donor purchased 5 instruments in this way: two drums, one from the Luo tribe, the other fr…
A quick summary of the Singing Wells Project News
…sewhere. We do this with ‘Influences’ artists… Like Winyo, an unbelievable Kenyan musician that was blown away by the music of the Batwa and couldn’t help but joining Jovah in song: 5. Singing Wells is about bringing together tribal music and wonderfully talented young performers like Akello from Uganda… We brought Akello to Northern Uganda. She joined almost every band. Here she is with the Watmon Cultural Group singing Amari… Or with the Adungu…
73,603 views on YouTube News
…place, this is the Nyerere Wa Konde Music Club from Sita Village, Gede in Kenya’s Malindi District. It was the very first video we uploaded to YouTube following our field visit to the Coast Region to record the music of the Mijikenda tribes. Is second place is a video from our field visit to Kisoro in south west Uganda where we met and recorded the wonderful Batwa people. The music is performed by Kamuntu ‘Tiny’ Moses accompanied by our Influ…
The Influences Series from Singing Wells News
…ere is the video of the new ‘Influences’ version, featuring musicians from Kenya, Uganda and the UK collaborating in this a unique song to celebrate and support Singing Wells. 71 Hours to Monday Our very first ‘Influences’ song was 71 Hours to Monday. An original song from Abubilla Music re-mixed to include percussion from Sau Paulo and vocals from Nairobi. (Read more about the background to this track here) For more videos from the Influenc…
Listen to more ‘Influences’ tracks from Singing Wells News
…an Influences track performed on location in the field during our visit to Kenya in march 2012 to record the music of the Kajenjin tribes. One of the most exciting moments of the trip was discovering this extraordinary musician from Kapsokwony, Ben Kisinja. His music is typical of the Sabaot tribe and he plays the ‘burkandit’ – a guitar simliar to the nyatiti played by the Luo tribes. Here he performs with Eddie Grey, one East Africa’s leading Jaz…
The First Singing Wells Influences Session Story
…s in the Industrial area of Nairobi, and driven to Malindi – a town on the Kenyan coast. The evening rush hour traffic in Mombasa meant we had a night drive up the coast road to Malindi. The next day however, we were treated to the sight of the coast road by daylight. The lush greenery and bustling activity of traders along the roadside not apparent the night before. We turned off the main road, and picked up our fixer Ndeche. We journeyed further…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…Osusa, one of Kenya’s most successful record producers end up in a remote Kenyan village, teamed with me, an American businessman, and a sound engineer from Gateshead? The Singing Wells project is a result of a chance meeting between two music labels on two separate continents. Tabu Osusa founded Ketebul Music in 2007 with a goal to record and promote traditional East African music. Tabu laments the fact that the music heritage of the region is b…
Winyo performs with Batwa musicians for ‘Influences’ News
…eatures song collaborations between contemporary musicians and the music groups we have discovered during our field recording visits. When the Singing Wells team visited Kisoro in SW Uganda (Nov 2011), we were joined by Winyo, a singer/songwriter from Kenya. Here is a video from that trip and the music is performed by Winyo collaborating with Tiny Moses, a wonderfully talented musician from the Micyingo Batwa community. The track was recorded at…
‘Missing’ – Singing Wells fundraising song for 2013 News
…March 2013 saw the release of an original track from Abubilla Music, re-mixed for the Influences series. The song is called (The only thing that’s) Missing and it was first recorded for the Abubilla Music album Misery Marmalade and other Spanish Jams. Here is the video of the new ‘Influences’ version, featuring musicians from Kenya, Uganda and the UK collaborating in this a unique song to celebrate and support Singing Wells….
Meet our ‘Influences’ artists News
…a Winyo has joined the Singing Wells team of three recording field trips – Kenya (Coastal Region); SW Uganda and Kenya (Nyanza Province). Eddie Grey As an artist, Eddie Grey has been considered a fore runner in the entertainment circles and specifically for his contribution to jazz in East Africa. His roots in music begin long before he first touched an instrument. He was born in what he describes as an ordinary family in a modest country side set…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…ht is calling for boarding… There’s another line at the gate to go through Kenya security. Big queue and one very angry mzungu who was fed up. We all had to take off our very dirty boots which was unpleasant. Final line up to go through boarding gate which was a walk down stares on to tarmac and up to our very nice and pleasant Kenya Airways flight. We left and landed on time and all bags were waiting. We felt pretty sure that no baddies could hav…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…a Massai, the founder of Msergo Mwatela Group, from the Coastal regions of Kenya. He originally performed with his father’s group and then he founded this group in 2007. They use a number of styles, most notably Sengenya, which we covered fully in our March 2011 field recordings in Malindi. We interviewed Swalhe Mwatela Massai and his grandson, Ali Tungwa : Q to the grandfather: In contrast to Uganda, we have seen many villages in Kenya where th…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…sed in different file sizes for ‘road posts’, formal trip reports and then latest versions of the Singing Wells book. And finally, we need to be able to archive EVERY THING. We feel it is very important that if someone later has a particular interest in a group or an instrument that they will find all we’ve recorded on that topic, even if it doesn’t feature initially into our ‘output.’ So, learning how to do all this in the middle of a field trip…
How music archives can help communities News
…l be on the road in Uganda, travelling to the north of the country for our latest field recording visit. It’s a good time to reflect on the importance and relevance a project such as Singing Wells. Why should we record and archive traditional music? Our objectives are not about archiving music for the sake of it. We do not see ourselves as ‘fossil collectors’, merely recording the music and dance performances of traditional groups and then…