Three of my prized possessions did not make it to our downtown apartment; the coffee table book pictured above by Seth Patterson and Larry Lof, and VCR tapes of Paul Simon's Graceland concert in Zimbabwe and Bob Dylan's 30th year anniversary concert(Bobfest).
The book can be replaced, but one nugget gleaned was the revelation that no "valley" exists along the southern Rio Grande River, but only a delta.
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| Hugh Masekela |
The historic Graceland concert featured a young Paul Simon(1987) along with African artists like Miriam Makeba, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Hugh Masekela.
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| Miriam Makeba |
We took a group to Little Rock's Robinson Auditorium in 1990 for a Chaka Khan concert featuring jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba.
While the African musicians were well received, Chaka Khan endured a smattering of boos when she performed from the majority African-American audience.
In disbelief I asked those sitting around us why Chaka was being booed.
"She acts too white," was all I could gather.
Masekela played in 1968 #1 hit "Grazing in the Grass," but, his most memorable performance is the train song, "Stimela," about young and old African men conscripted to work the gold mines of South Africa "16 hours a day for almost no pay:"
Hey Jim, I still have the VHS tape that I recorded Bob's 30th Anniversary concert on. You are welcome to borrow it if you think you can make a copy. Neil Young's Tom Thumb Blues and Eric Clapton's Don't Think Twice performances still stand out in my memory!
ReplyDeleteThat's a kind offer. What I found is that no one will copy a commercial tape, only personal ones. The CD released later omits several of my favorite performances of that same concert.
DeleteI've never heard anything like Stimela.
ReplyDeleteDuardo, the limp-dicked stalker from McAllen, continues his obsession with this blog. What is it about "getting a life" that is beyond his comprehension?
ReplyDelete