Music in Africa : BIMAs 2023: Angélique Kidjo, Letta Mbulu and PJ Powers to receive Lifetime Achievement awards Ano Shumba's picture (by Ano Shumba) →

African musicians and social activists Angélique Kidjo (Benin), Letta Mbulu (South Africa) and PJ Powers (South Africa) will be honoured with Lifetime Achievement awards at the 2023 Basadi in Music Awards (BIMAs). "I am very honoured to be receiving a Basadi in Music Award from South Africa,” Kidjo, a five-time Grammy Award winner, said. “South Africa has a special place in my heart since I first heard about Miriam Makeba when I was young. She was a role model and then a mentor. It is important to celebrate women in music so that many young singers can be inspired to pursue their dream.”

Read More

American Songwriter : Glen Hansard Announces New Solo Album ‘All That Was East Is West of Me Now’ (by Lorie Liebig) →

Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard will share his first new music in four years this fall. His fifth studio album, All That Was East Is West of Me Now, is set for release on October 20 via ANTI Records. The nine-track project was born from five intimate, unpublicized concerts that the Grammy-nominated artist played in his local pub in November 2022. “I told no one. We set up in the corner and played to the locals, some of whom were only half listening,” Hansard says in a statement.

Read More

Smercornish : Joan Baez in Ukraine: A New Voice of Hope July 31, 2023 (by Irwin Redlener) →

UCAP board member Joan Baez & UCAP co-founder Karen Redlener in Warsaw at a program supporting refugee children from war-torn Ukraine [...] "Joan Baez meets dozens of children, mostly 5 to 15 years of age, in the sunshine of a beautiful summer’s day. They sing to her, and Joan sings to the kids. They are dancing and laughing – and finally surround Joan, enveloping her with hugs. An extraordinary moment." Karen Redlener said.

Read More

Interview Jane Birkin - Toast to Freedom →

Throwback on the interviews we did with the #ToastToFreedom artists for Amnesty International..
Here is #JaneBirkin :
"People have far more power if only they know it. I have always believed that if millions of people sent letters that chockablock the front doors of some ministers, some presidents, and just by the sheer weight of the letters, of the appeals, then they would have to look."

Read More

This year's "Blues-Louis" award at the Lahnstein Blues Festival goes to: CARL CARLTON →

As part of the festival, the renowned Lahnstein Blues Prize, the “Blues-Louis”, which has been awarded since 1997, will this year be awarded to guitarist, singer and composer Carl Carlton. "For decades he has been the most popular German blues guitarist, both nationally and internationally," the organizers explain.

The laudatory speech will be given by the author, moderator and music journalist Volker Rebell.

Read More

Deadline : Jane Birkin Dominates Front Pages As France Mourns Death Of British Actress & Singer; President Declares Her A French Icon (by Melanie Goodfellow) →

Jane Birkin graced the front pages of most French newspapers on Monday as France mourned the death of the late British actress and singer who enjoyed icon status in the country that she had called home since the late 1960s. “Our tears can’t change anything,” proclaimed Le Parisien newspaper, which first broke the news of Birkin’s death at the age of 76 on Sunday. Libération ran with the simple headline “Without Jane”, while regional newspaper Le Maine Libre referred to the late actress as “The Eternal English Bride of France”.

Read More

Jane Birkin, actor and singer, dies aged 76 →

Rest in peace, Jane Birkin. We were so honoured to have you part of Amnesty’s Toast to Freedom.

“France’s favourite “petite Anglaise”, the British-born singer and actor Jane Birkin, has died at her home in Paris aged 76. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, paid tribute to Birkin, saying she “embodied freedom and sang the most beautiful words in our language”.

Read More

New York Times : Jane Birkin, Singer, Actress and Fashion Inspiration, Dies at 76 (by Constant Méheut and Alex Traub) →

Ms. Birkin released “Oh! Pardon tu dormais…,” her first album of her own songs written in English, in 2021. “The results are an emotional tour de force from an artist who has never gotten her musical due outside of France,” the music writer Ben Cardew wrote in a review for Pitchfork. Ms. Birkin also continued to act, including in films by Agnès Varda and plays by Patrice Chéreau. She was also popular in France as an activist for women’s and L.G.B.T.Q. rights as well as for her British accent when speaking French, which the French found endearing. “The most Parisian of the English has left us,” the mayor of Paris wrote.

Read More

Lithub : More Than Just A Pretty Face: On the Multifaceted Marianne Faithfull (by Elizabeth Winder) →

Marianne planned to be known, but a pop princess career was the last thing on her mind. She’d be an artist of some kind—she’d go to Cambridge, or the Royal Academy of Music to continue classical singing. She idolized the young Vanessa Redgrave, who once came to talk to Marianne’s theater group. Perhaps Marianne would also play Rosalind, or Imogen in Cymbeline, or even sing Tosca in Covent Garden. Awake long in the night in her convent room, she bent over her workbook, filling page after page of potential stage names, pen names, fantasy names. In time she would realize her real name was her own.

Read More