FRIDAY MUSIC: Leonid and Friends, by JD

Recommendations sometimes come from unexpected sources. This came from Martin Armstrong believe it or not. On his blog he posted a video of Leonid and friends.They are a Russian 'covers' band playing the music of Earth Wind and Fire and Chicago. They are very very good and sometimes better than the originals but this will be a two part post because the singer deserves a post to herself and the full band will be next week.

The singer is called Ksenia Buzina, no I can't pronounce it! She was born in Siberia and speaks and sings in seven languages as well as having degrees in law and economics. She sounds too good to be true but she really is a great singer as well as being very good looking.So here is part one

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Leonid and friends, part 1 featuring singer Ksenia Buzina

Born in the Transbaikal region of Siberia, in the city of Chita, Ksenia Buzina is credited as being the first Russian singer understood by over a billion people on earth. That’s because Ksenia sings and speaks Chinese fluently and has her own Chinese album and music videos.

Ksenia didn’t stop there. Besides Russian and Chinese she can also speak English and can sing in English, Chinese, Italian, Armenian, Kazakh, Bulgarian and French. She joined Leonid & Friends in September 2016 with the debut of the song Wishing You Were Here and has become an integral part of the band’s vocal landscape both in the studio and live performances.

http://leonidandf.com/

Ksenia Buzina - Hear My Voice (Vocal & Piano)

Ksenia Buzina - Satisfaction (The Rolling Stones cover)

Ksenona - Tian Lu (Небесный путь) 天路

Leonid and Friends,: KSENIA BUZINA. 5/17/2022.

The Speck of Dust - Leonid & Friends

The Great Umm Kulthum

I first heard a recording of this legendary Egyptian singer in the mid-Seventies when a housemate, an escapee from Yemen, played it with friends. The live performance was as thrilling because of the audience reaction as for the impassioned delivery of her song.

Apparently her performances could last up to five hours, but here is a sample from her Enta Omri (You Are My Life) given at Paris' Olympia Théâtre in 1967:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umm_Kulthum
• https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/Umm_Kulthum

If ever you're tempted to write...

 A moment I can't forget is Peter Richardson as Al Pacino in The Comic Strip Presents' episode 'The Strike.' The writer has scripted a lengthy impassioned speech and the Hollywood superstar dismisses it with:

'I can say all that by the way I stand.'

At what point did movies run away from words? Maybe when Hollywood's Golden Age European émigré / refugee writers left the scene.

Anyhow, a classic, and thank goodness it's on Youtube:

FRIDAY MUSIC: Ray Ellington, by JD

Henry Pitts Brown (17 March 1916 – 27 February 1985), known professionally as Ray Ellington, was an English singer, drummer and bandleader. He is best known for his appearances on The Goon Show from 1951 to 1960. The Ray Ellington Quartet had a regular musical segment on the show, and Ellington also had a small speaking role in many episodes, often as a parodic African, Native American or Arab chieftain (but also often, with no attempt to change his normal accent, in counter-intuitive roles such as a female secretary or a Scotsman).

• https://www.theseagoonmemoirs.com/post/ray-ellington
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Ellington

Ray Ellington - The Irish Were Egyptians Long Ago

Ray Ellington - The Three Bears

Ray Ellington:Goonshow 1955

78 RPM – The Ray Ellington Quartet – The Teddy Bears’

The Ray Ellington Quartet Plays Mr. Sandman

MOVIE NIGHT: 'The General'

 Buster Keaton's masterpiece - first regarded as a failure:

Proxy War Poll

 Which proxy warfighter do you support?

1) Kiev regime

2) Hamas

3) Both

4) Neither

FRIDAY MUSIC: Dr John; Voodoo NiteTripper! by JD

Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. (November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019), better known by his stage name Dr. John, was an American singer and songwriter. His music combined New Orleans blues, jazz, funk, and R&B.

As a young man, Rebennack was interested in New Orleans voodoo, and in Los Angeles he developed the idea of the Dr. John persona based on the life of Dr. John, a Senegalese prince, conjure man, herb doctor, and spiritual healer who came to New Orleans from Haiti. This free man of color lived on Bayou Road and claimed to have 15 wives and oven 50 children. He kept an assortment of snakes and lizards, along with embalmed scorpions and animal and human skulls, and sold gris-gris, voodoo amulets which supposedly protect the wearer from harm. Gris-Gris became the name of Dr. John's debut album, released in January 1968, representing his own form of "voodoo medicine".

Not sure how seriously he took voodoo but it became part of his stage persona along with some spectacularly colourful clothes and show.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._John
• https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/dr-john-musical-legacy-and-influence/

Dr. John & Eric Clapton - Right Place, Wrong Time 1996

Dr. John - Such a Night

Dr. John - Swanee River Boogie (new upload)

Dr. John - Didn't He Ramble ; Closer Walk With Thee

Dr. John - Goin' Back To New Orleans (Video)

Dr John "I Walk on Gilded Splinters" Live in Brooklyn