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WOMAD Charlton Park 2010

Thankfully, festival season in the UK this summer has been blessed with glorious sunshine. However, checking the weather forecast online, a Met office prediction of torrential rain in Malmesbury did cause a minor panic. So, that was it. Trip's off! Until we discovered it was a forecast for the Malmesbury in South Africa, our fears were allayed and we embarked to Wiltshire on our annual mission to WOMAD.

This year’s WOMAD boasted the usual outer-national line up. Over four days you could travel through the global musical spectrum taking in big name artists like Salif Keita or Gil Scott-Heron alongside WOMAD regulars like Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali and the Drummers Of Burundi plus new projects like Nick Page and Bernard O’ Neill’s Syriana. Being working folk, we didn’t arrive on site until Friday evening but even as we pitched camp, the sound of Safroman’s distinctive Congolese guitar drifting across from the BBC Radio 3 stage immediately lulled us into the groove. We headed off in search of Kinshasa’s amazing Staff Benda Bilili. Life affirming and joyous, that’s the only way to describe this innovative combo. We eventually succumbed to the prospect of Tokyo jazz-punk excess at the hands of Soil & “Pimp” Sessions. As expected, Shacho and the boys were tearing up the place and a sea of punters were bouncing up and down in time the band’s furious attack.

Staff Benda Bilili

And so it went from there on in… rushing here, rushing there… until you realize you can’t do it all, so what follows is my own highlights plus the observations of my fellow musical travellers:

Womad regular Kirsty Wright is equally at home dancing to deep house at Club Shelter in NYC or standing beneath a blue sky listening to the vodoun inspired funk of Orquestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou. She reflects: “I’ve been coming to WOMAD for about 15 years now and I always leave inspired, thinking, why can’t the world always be like this? Chatting to a lovely group of teenagers in the wicked Guyanese food tent raving about an Iraqi musician, it really hit home how important this festival is in breaking down barriers. Unlike other festivals WOMAD is all about the music and the vibe that is made by a really open minded and mixed crowd who are there to be educated as well as entertained. The respect the crowd gives both performers and also the environment always blows me away."

“Heading over to catch Cedric Watson on the new Charlie Gillett stage I must admit I wasn’t expecting such a deep and contemporary performance later that night," says writer Andy Thomas. "I was aware of zydeco of course, mainly through Charlie’s excellent compilation Another Saturday Night, and I knew the story of the music of black Louisiana. But I also thought this was a music of the past hardly relevant in 2010. Cedric and his band Bijou Creole blew those preconceptions skywards with an incredible set of blues drenched music. A really fresh and different sound - Southern Soul with a difference – Charlie would have loved it.”

Indeed. I’ll second that. The Lafayette based protector of the Cajun and Zydeco tradition filled the night air with some sweet and at times swampy music that embraced waltzes and the blues. Accordion, fiddle, badass guitar and a funki dread on the washboard! While Cedric made us reflect on the impact of the implications of the Gulf Of Mexico oil disaster on his own community, it was still ‘laissez les bon temps rouler!’

On Saturday, it was the turn of another American, Krystle Warren, and according to Mondomix’s Jody G: “With a bluesy repertoire of songs made for late night heart-wrenching, how would Krystle fare at 4pm on a sunny afternoon? Fantastically as it turned out, this singer from Kansas City has the most extraordinary voice which just drips with emotion. She growls, she howls, she shreds souls. No wonder Rufus Wainwright and kd lang are massive fans.” Jody also waxes lyrical about the late night set of Cerys Matthews. “She closed Saturday night with a magical set of Welsh folk songs and pulled a big crowd to the BBC Radio 3 stage which nestles among the trees. At night this leafy area over in the Arboretum really comes into its own, all twinkly lights and dingly dells, and it was the perfect setting for these rootsy acoustic tales.”

Andy Thomas was also struck by the sense of continuity that permeates much of the music at WOMAD. For example, the excellent Dele Sosime – a keys player and bandleader who served his apprenticeship with Afrobeat supremo, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, and Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali – the nephews of the late great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. It was hanging out, in front of the open air stage, that Rizwan and Muazzam’s intense and ecstatic vocals - underpinned by hand claps, tabla and two harmoniums – shook me to the soles of my feet. The spirit of Nusrat was among us!

“The BBC World Routes mentoring programme gave us the pairing of Khyam Allami & Andrew Piccioni: the Iraqi Londoner worked his evocative oud playing around his Italian elder’s brilliant percussion. The reverential hush in the packed crowd was well justified.” notes Andy.

Another brilliant collaboration came in the shape of Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara. The Siam Tent was packed and rocking. Fresh from a string of gigs Justin Adams (electric guitar/ngoni) and Juldeh Camara (riti) had clearly developed a deep sense of communication. Their hi-energy fusion, where the rhythms of the Niger meet the ghost of Bo Diddley, definitely hit the spot with the crowd and had them running to the WOMAD shop to buy the CD.

Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara

Jody G also has a real soft spot for those modern day collisions of rootsy meets digital and that found her in the Big Red Tent on Friday night: “It was time for the electro-dancehall beats of Montreal DJ/producer Ghislain Poirier and MC Face T - a smoking set, powered by body-shaking basslines and the place was packed with Womad’s growing tribe of teenagers – a welcome blast of energy. And on Saturday night Sofrito Sound System was a must. Great tropical discoteque mayhem from DJs Hugo Mendez and Frankie Francis, playing vintage Latin and African tracks plus global electro and dub vibes. As their enthusiastic MC Mighty Crime Minister rightly reminded us (several times!!) the music they play: compas, beguine, soukous, plena, cumbia, coupe decale… was always meant for the dancefloor. It’s thanks to outfits like Sofrito that a new generation is getting into worldwide sounds direct at the dance.”

There’s always a discussion to be had about the food. The legendary Leon’s was nowhere to be found and while my teenage son was happy with a hog roast and chocolate & churros, I have to BIG UP: Yam The Cassava... top food... real plates...wikkid dumplings, plantain... peppered steak... snapper... gwaan... substantial and tasty! It was this year’s watering hole for the whole Mondomix posse.

As the WOMAD carnival parade passed through the site on the Sunday evening I caught my good bredren, Crispin ‘Spry’ Robinson (percussionist with Jerry Dammers’ Spatial AKA ) leading the drum circle of his fellow students from SOAS. He was on fine form and extolling the virtues of the Gambian rhythms they’d just been exploring. This is his overview: “Womad highlights for me were many and various: Salif Keita’s storming and unstoppable band; the infectious and entertaining La 33 from Colombia playing hard-driving classic salsa with a hiphop attitude; Landing Mane and his crew of fierce Senegalese drummers; the unexpected and understated delights of Finnish accordion and double bass duo Lepistö and Lehti…the list goes on. The weather was like the vibes: gentle and warm and thoroughly delightful. A great year.”

  Salif Keita

As I missed Gil Scott-Heron. I asked Spry for his view on the set. It was a complex reply, as losses in our own lives cloud any “romanticism” about Gil’s unrepentant use of narcotics. On the other hand, an associate who had spent the weekend working in the Kids Tent, experienced an hour and half set that mesmerized and vanished in the blink of an eye. And The Shrine’s Max Reinhardt adds: “Gil Scott-Heron really did bestride the whole event like a colussus, the coolest shaman imaginable... inspite of all the stories and the reputation the maestro gave a flawless but edgy performance. You never knew where he was going to take you except towards the liberation of your soul and ears.”

It seems that prior to Gil’s set Afro Celt Sound System tore up the site. Apparently, Simon Emmerson and co. looked visibly shocked at the rapturous audience response. We could go on and on… but just to tie things up I have to say that the music of Salif Keita was on a higher plane, delicately crafted, deceptively spacious and rhythmically intoxicating. Also, I had been told to look out for Rango and we discovered them in the Siam tent whipping up a metallic percussive storm that has its mystical, soul-cleansing roots in the Sudan before being transported via slavery to Egypt in the 19th century. The call and response vocal, lyres with electric pick-ups, hypnotic percussion and Hassan Bergamon’s rango – a 190 year old balafon – combined to create a force that was deep. That they were chosen for the final set of WOMAD 2010 says it all! Until next year.

Rango

Paul Bradshaw / Straight No Chaser

Photos at Womad Charlton Park 2010 by Philip Ryalls

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// ALSO

• WOMAD 2010
• Womad 2011
• Musiques Métisses Festival June 2000
• WOMAD at the TOWER OF LONDON 19 & 20 September 2009 - win tickets!
• Djon Maya (clip)
• South Sudan Referendum
• South Sudan Referendum, South Sudan Referendum
• Mariachi El Bronx, Mariachi El Bronx
• Froots Awards 2008, fRoots 2008



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