Ramaya

I was reading the Sunday Newspapers, a depressing exercise in this fast failing state of ours, and decided to read a few blogs to see if there was anything more interesting, or at least less depressing, to read.

Fortunately there was, Cerno a man who I think of as a bit of cartographer (he has lots of interesting stuff on travels routes, maps, google earth images and travel linked photography) had written something on ABBA.

That got me going and ended up writing a long comment on his blog.

Now people of a certain age may remember a song called Ramaya. This is a really super song and it is one of the earliest pieces of music that I can remember hearing. It was an enormous hit in Sri Lanka and for some reason we assumed it was some kind of local song, although we were never sure of the language. In later years, long after the song's popularity had ended, the few who remembered the song thought it was a Malay or Indian song. Only recently did I discover that its origins are African: Mozambique to be precise and it was performed by Afric Simone.

Listening to the song on Youtube brings back a few memories. As an adult it is also possible to appreciate that the song is something of a classic and the benefit of Youtube allows us to enjoy the superb showmanship of Simone. Indeed one can watch the clip purely for the showmanship. He is superbly fit and I've never seen anyone or anything move quite the way he does. See it here
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There is a another long concert (about 20 minutes) here.