It's been a rainy, cold past 24 hours here in the NYC area, a perfect setting to begin my first blog.
I'll be posting clips of some of my favorite music and recording artist who have been a big influence on me as a music producer, composer, and singer. And also music that I've discovered over the past days, weeks, months and years.
One of my favorite artists of the 70's was Lee Michaels, famous for his soulful style of singing and playing the Hammond organ. I particularly loved that his 'band' consists of only him on the Hammond organ and his drummer, "Frosty."
I discovered Lee's blog here on Blogger just moments before I began creating my blog, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Lee is now getting into the music of my favorite African recording artist Issa Bagayogo.
I can think of no better way to launch my Rob Duncan's Funkin Music Blog than to feature one of my favorite songs by Issa Bagayogo.
But first I'll share a little background on this wonderful African artist.
Issa Bagayogo is from West Africa. His home country of Mali is one of the ten poorest nations in the world. As a young boy Issa demonstrated a natural talent for playing the Ngoni, which is a three-stringed lute popular in Western Africa. In Mali this instrument is used for more sacred contexts, so the young musicians who wanted to avoid controversy invented a six-string version.
This remains as Issa's primary instrument.
I was struck by the soulfulness in which Issa plays this beautiful stringed instrument. Over recent years Issa has merged his traditional West African musical style with more jazz and electronic elements, which combined create a beautiful canvas of rich emotion. He's one of the few recording artists that I can literally listen to for hours.
Here's one of my favorite songs of his, "Toroya" from his Tibuktu CD.
And on that note, I give you Issa Bagayogo:
