more manna.

Gu Mei (real name: Gu Jia-Mi, In English- Carrie Ku/Koo Mei) was born in 1934. Nicknamed "Lovebird" in her youth, at the height of her career she was dubbed "Little Skylark". She hails from Suzhou, in Jiangsu province in Southeastern China. In 1949 she moved to Hong Kong and two years later began to perform, landing a role in a Cantonese film "The Second Wife". By the next year she was acting and singing in Mandarin language films; her first song being called "I Don't Want to Be Apart from You".

In the 1950s she was signed to Great World, Big China and Phillips records, and largely remained a second tier actress. 1958 she went to Thailand to promote one of her movies, and she was invited to stay and make films there, where she became fluent in Thai and gained considerable popularity as a singer and actress in Bangkok. After her return to Hong Kong her popularity continued to increase on into the early sixties, as she continued to act, and her voice became familiar through the title songs of popular films ("Mountain Song" and "Dreams" - the latter is track 4 on this disc). Considered primarily a singer with only a few uneven appearances in films, in 1965 she starred in the Shaw Brothers' movie "The Lark" to great success and acclaim for both her singing and acting.

In 1969 she found herself free of all contracts, and she moved to Taiwan. There she began to host a variety show, "Everyday a Star" on TV. In 1971 she released her final record, a collaborative album with Chen Fen-Lan, another famous singer at the time in Taiwan. Her final movie was a Taiwanese ghost film, "The Bride From Hell". From that time on, she has neither sang nor acted, but instead started to paint. She has had many exhibitions in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, America and Canada. In 1977 she received an award from the Hong Kong Museum of Fine Arts. In May 1998, having not performed in 27 years, she sang as a favor for her brother at one of his concerts. She currently lives in Vancouver, Canada.- remorseful prober via what's in my ipod

another virgin being birthed. grab the only other album i could find from her here at this site.

edit: i stand corrected. gary at bodega pop already beat me to the punch with posting this gem. well, you can't always be king of the mountain eh?

ps thanks gary for letting me know. i bought this at a local store around here, & the dude knew nothing about it, & i couldn't find anything out about her other than on that ipod blog. it makes me feel like a writer for the new york times. pinky promise i will fact check before i just run my mouth.

mali ba.

In the six years since Mali's Habib Koite released his last new studio album, he developed a reputation in the West as one of his country's greatest cultural exports. On Afriki, Koite has fine-tuned his carefully manicured approach to melodic, acoustic-based songs of deep personal and global meaning. Always an engaging singer and songwriter, Koite's guitar is on equal footing here; his playing and the overall musicianship of his band, Bamada, outshines anything they offered in their previous outings. Koite exhibits a newfound sensitivity in his playing, always intricate, evocative, rhythmic and moving. Some of the instrumental work is reminiscent of the folk guitar styles of the '60s, but on tracks like the exquisite "N'Teri," a simple song of thanks, Koite brings in lush orchestration and background vocalists, as well as an array of native African instruments such as the balofon and n'goni. Other tracks, among them the album-opening "Namania" and "Africa" (with horns arranged by James Brown veteran Pee Wee Ellis), a song calling for African self-reliance, apply Koite's guitar, soulful voice and the gap-filling backup singers to a more polyrhythmic setting. "Fimani" reunites Mali with the blues it spawned, while the closing "Titati" is a solo showcase for Koite's lone (but never lonesome) guitar. Some may say that the key to Koite's escalating popularity lies in an eagerness to look outside of Mali for ideas to incorporate with his own; that may be so, but that's not such a bad thing at all if the result is an uplifting, empowering world music that truly does bring together so much of the world, in such a warm and enchanting way. - Jeff Tamarkin

found out about this cat through a rough guide to mali comp a couple of years back, was blown away by the pure emotion of the song, mali ba. tracked this down, & while the album is not as strong as that track, it's still extremely enjoyable.

no time for love.

this here record is a fucking beast of jazzy funk fusion shit with a little heaviness thrown in there for some serious head nodding while moving yr body. alphonse mouzon has played with some of my favorite cats including wayne shorter (!), mccoy tyner, freddie hubbard, & herbie fucking hancock. if that pedigree doesn't make you want to grab this, then i don't even know what to say.