lindsmuse wrote:
Watched him last night - had never see him - I'm originally from JHB so these musicians I've seen in the last year have been new to me - Robin Auld, Guy Buttery and now Tony Cox. I am blown away by them. Tony Cox was something else. He played a shortish set - but so powerful, and so classy. I never have to yearn to see overseas musicians again. It's all here as far as I'm concerned. It's sophisticated and it speaks my language as a S African. African actually ..
Cox is a great story teller. There's something almost visual in some of his compositions. He played as a duo with Steve Newman some years ago. If you've enjoyed Cox and Buttery then you should watch out for Newman.
+1 on your lauding of local musos. We have fab players right here in SA, easily comparable with better known overseas artists.
I think a lot of the subtlety could get lost on overseas visitors and probly when they tour. How can people from other countries possibly access the visuals this music evokes for us. I actually wonder how some of the more African music actually feels / sounds for his overseas audiences ...
Increasingly I think people have to find their own meaning in whatever music, and find things to latch on to. I'm no Touareg and I've never been anywhere near Mali, but I'm enjoying Tinariwen right now.
I have bored GFSA before with accounts of an unforgettable Martin Carthy performance that I saw in London a few years ago. Carthy is a very English artist. There was a party in the audience that night from Spain. They came with an interpreter. After each song the interpreter would stand up and tell them something about what they'd just heard. They enjoyed that performance all right. As the night went on the interpreter's job got harder because the Spanish contingency, like everybody else there that night (including Mrs X-rated who actually stopped knitting, so taken was she by this performance) they fell under Carthy's spell and were whooping and clapping and hollering more and more after each number.
60s England was full of young white people who found something very powerful and meaningful in the work of old blues artists.
He plays the most amazing guitar - can't find anything about it when I google - anybody know anything about it?
See
http://www.tonycox.co.za/guitars.html for details of his guitars. The Smoothtalker is his main weapon.