mariama (the solstice)

a song by baaba maal from the baayo album . a friend reminded horsemouth of it by posting a picture of a turtle dove (they migrate from senegal). the lyric translation claims it is about a 'little brown dove' (possibly the non-migratory laughing dove that occurs right across the region all the way over to afghanistan). but horsemouth seems to remember the lyric booklet for the album claiming it was about a turtle dove.

maybe that it's been translated to the nearest equivalent bird.

baayo  follows on from djaam leeli 'the adventurers' as an acoustic album with blind singer and guitarist mansour seck (which horsemouth also recommends highly). at the start of their careers they set off as itinerant musicians to wander round senegal playing where they could to hone their craft (seeing as they weren't griots - from the musician caste - this was a pretty risky and unorthodox thing to do).

horsemouth went with amelia to see mansour seck play (in the late 80ies, early 90ies maybe) - 'oh he's blind' 'yes' 'I just thought he was a bit stoned' .

a lot of baaba maal's work of the time has a problematic of 'making it', of crossing-over, of finding the magic formula that would open western ears (and wallets) to senegalese music (it was the same with youssou n'dour at the time). the gigs were often insanely great, the albums less so (re-recorded and remixed for the western market). sometimes you could find cassettes of the original african version of the album.

horsemouth's copy of it has gone west, he may have to track one down.

solstice - the sun stands still in the sky (well ok no it’s just at the most northerly point in its rising and setting and begins to reverse back the other way). the days begin to get shorter. but the warmth has been building up and up and we enter summer proper.