Zulu Guitar’s Pioneering Tricksters
Cowboys, Troubadours and Jilted Lovers (1950-1965) is the sub-title of Matsuli’s brand new Zulu Guitar Blues compilation. We release this on 16 May and pre-orders are now open at this link: https://matsulimusic.bandcamp.com/album/zulu-guitar-blues
Before this compilation, there has been no window for appreciating the diversely beautiful roots of Zulu Guitar Music that emerged in South Africa’s shellac recording boom post 1950. Story-tellers and master musicians appropriated outlaw personae, re-purposed country and western, Hawaiian and other styles, in ways that stretch and challenge our notion of “the Zulu guitar”. Translations in the liner notes offer us glimpses of pugnacity, melancholy and heartache, all coloured by the paternalism that circumscribed the singers’ apartheid-dominated lives
Upon listening to them, Joe Boyd retorted: "Amazing! Like stumbling on a treasure-trove of unheard Charlie Patton and Blind Willie McTell 78s, but imbued with the spirit of Mahlathini and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
It's a single 180g vinyl LP with 18 tracks (25 on download via bandcamp) housed in a full colour gatefold. With rare photographs, an essay and song translations this package should delight anyone with a passing interest in deep music from South Africa.