Finding Bembe and McBurnie

Recently I went back to see Wayne, baby in tow, and we reviewed what we've done thus far in preproduction on my album. We're really quite close to finishing the song list and arranging all the tunes. I remembered that the last time I'd been to his place I'd been 9 months pregnant and spent our session lying on his floor, barely able to move. This time the baby was quite good and I only had to nurse him a few times.

We also looked at the tunes I'll be singing on his next album, for which we'll be in the studio next month! There's just some beautiful stuff for that, including a South African folk song in Bantu (I'll have to find a native speaker to help with my pronunciation, though it seems pretty straightforward).

Wayne also wanted me to learn a canto to Obatala and he said I should buy an album that contains all the cantos, called Bembe, released on 1986 by Milton Cardona. The next day I called up Rasputins and asked if they had it. The man on the other line had a distinctive, languid voice and an accent that sounded semi-Carribean. "I know that voice," I thought, but I couldn't place it. When I got to the store, the man found the album to me. "Are you David McBurnie?" I asked. "Yes--do I know you? You look familiar." "Wow--you had me on your radio show a year or two ago." David has a wonderful show on KPFA FM 94.1 called Music of the World, Tuesdays at 10 am. He'd interviewed me when I released my CD, and it was a pleasurable experience because he's so knowledgeable. I'd put that I was a tree climber on my bio, sort of as a joke (I don't climb many trees these days) but he focused on that among other things and we had a great conversation.

So, we had a chance to catch up there in Rasputins in Berkeley. I was pressed for time so I didn't get to hear all his stories but the man is very entertaining! We briefly covered the state of the music scene in the Bay Area and LA, the failure of his distribution company, the fact that he hates iPods, the fact that CD stores are dying, and which were the most authoritative Cuban recordings of the cantos. He acknowledged that Bembe was the best to get, even though it was out of New York, in that it contained all of them on one disc.

If you're looking for recordings of world music or a wonderful radio show of same, David's your man!