Worldbeat
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
(Difference between revisions)
| Revision as of 12:02, 7 May 2008 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) ← Previous diff |
Revision as of 12:03, 7 May 2008 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) Next diff → |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| {{Template}} | {{Template}} | ||
| - | '''Lizzy Mercier Descloux''' (b. Martine-Elisabeth Mercier Descloux, 16 December [[1956]], Paris – d. 20 April [[2004]], [[Saint-Florent, Haute-Corse|Saint-Florent]], [[Corsica]]) was a French singer and musician, a pioneer in the [[worldbeat]] genre, as well as a writer and painter. | + | In [[popular music]], '''worldbeat''' refers to any style of music which fuses [[folk music]], often from non-traditional sources (essentially, outside the [[Appalachian folk music|Appalachian folk]] and [[Celtic folk music|Celtic]] traditions) with Western [[rock music|rock]] or other pop influences. |
| - | + | ||
| - | She grew up in [[Lyon]], but returned to Paris in her teens to attend art school. With her partner, Michel Esteban, she helped establish the store Harry Cover, temple of the [[Punk ideology|punk]] movement in France, and the [[New Wave music|new wave]] magazine ''Rock News''. She struck up friendships with [[Patti Smith]] and [[Richard Hell]] when visiting New York in 1975, and both contributed material to her first book, Desiderata. She and Esteban moved to New York in 1977, meeting Michael Zilkha with whom Esteban formed [[Ze Records|ZE Records]]. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | With guitarist D.J. Barnes, Mercier Descloux formed the performance art duo Rosa Yemen, and recorded an eponymous mini-album for ZE in 1978. The following year, ZE released her solo debut LP, "Press Color". Self-taught as a guitarist, she revealed herself as a supreme minimalist within the [[No Wave]] genre, concentrating on spindly, single-note lines combined with wrong-note harmonies and funky rhythms. Although the record had poor sales, she toured in the USA and Europe. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | [[Island Records]] boss [[Chris Blackwell]] bankrolled the sessions in the Bahamas for her second album, "Mambo Nassau", with keyboardist [[Wally Badarou]] co-writing and producing. The album was heavily influenced by African music as well as art rock, funk and soul. Although again unsuccessful in the USA, it won her a contract with CBS in France. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Returning to France, she released two singles before travelling through Africa, drawing on the music of Soweto for the infectious "Mais où Sont Passées les Gazelles ?"('But where have the gazelles gone?'), a hit in France in 1984, and the award-winning album of the same title, with producer [[Adam Kidron]], with who she then recorded "One for the Soul" (1986) in Brazil with the jazz trumpeter [[Chet Baker]], and "Suspense" (1988) in London with the British musician [[Mark Cunningham]] of [[Mars (band)|Mars]]. She also acted, composed film scores, and wrote poetry. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | In the mid 1990s, she moved to Corsica and devoted herself to painting and to writing an unpublished novel. In 2003, she was diagnosed with cancer, from which she died the following year. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | ==Albums== | + | |
| - | *''Rosa Yemen - Live In N.Y.C July 1978'' (1978) | + | |
| - | *''Press Color'' (1979) | + | |
| - | *''Mambo Nassau'' (1981) | + | |
| - | *''Lizzy Mercier Descloux'' (1985) | + | |
| - | *''One For The Soul'' (1986) | + | |
| - | *''Suspense'' (1988) | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | + | ||
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
Revision as of 12:03, 7 May 2008
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
In popular music, worldbeat refers to any style of music which fuses folk music, often from non-traditional sources (essentially, outside the Appalachian folk and Celtic traditions) with Western rock or other pop influences.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Worldbeat" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
