My first encounter with banjo playing was when I encountered Bela Fleck's mad solos in a version of Dave Matthews Band's. i.e., DMB's excellent torrent of a song 'Two Step' (this is another live version). And after that, for the longest time, I thought of Bela Fleck as this wild woman who came down from a remote Appalachian 'hollow' to blast me out of the chair with her banjo (note to self: hollow banjo half rhyme, use it in a poem); and soon after a close friend F, who is also a great live music afficiadno, disabused me of such romantic notions.

Bela Fleck is infact a man, who travels around minstrel like, with his virtuiso (Victor Wooten is a MOFO bass genius, as can been seen this clip and this clip!!) filled band called The Flecktones. And boy, if you think banjos are for the hillybillies, you better take a look again.

As they used to say in the gold rush parts of Jojaah (i.e., Georgia, the state I live in) "thar's gold in them thar hills!" Also speaking of Jojaah, in the blockbuster movie on backcountry whitewater rafting redneck horrors, 'Deliverance', based on poet James Dickey's novel of the same title, one of the best scenes is this fantastic banjo guitar duel.

Finally, on a plane ride few years ago, in one of those in flight magazines, I encountered this a profile on Alison Brown, who turned from an investment banker for Smith Barney, post Harvard, post UCLA business school, into a star banjo player! This goes on to show that redemption is still possible apres signing up for the suits. Also while I didn't find any clips featuring Alison by herself she can seen playing the banjo here. On a final note she was also for a little while a member of the excellent bluegrass band Alison Krauss & Union Station.

Also isn't banjo a nice resonant word?

It was only recently that on YouTube I run across Roy Orbison, or more appropriately, he steamrolled me. In this sense I am greatful for my collosal ignorance of popular western music because it enables me to revel when I uncover for myself old motherlodes such as Orbison's music.

Almost all of us, i.e., consumers of Hollywood movies have actually heard Orbison's music before because he is none other than the songsmith who wrote "Pretty Woman", the catchy pop song that is played over and over 'in that whore with golden heart meets selfish business man who finally sees the light' confection of a movie with the same title. However as one admirer of Orbison best put it in an Amazon.com review, Roy was "the Man, the architect of numerous symphonic, Ravel-like love song, and the singer of singers."

Luckily for us, numerous songs from Roy's magnificient live concert 'A Black & White Night', featuring other great musicians like Bruce Springsteen, k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt are available for our viewing pleasure over at YouTube. And here three songs from that concert:

Running Scared Dream Baby Pretty Woman, which ends with some firework guitar jammin.

....

I had linked to Orbison and k.d. lang's great duet 'Crying' some time before. Also here is 'End of the Line' by the folk rock super group Traveling Wilburys put together by George Harrison, and of which Roy was a member.

This post is for two 'maadars' known as Kupps Mama and Kutti

Mastero Illayaraja, Illu as I & my friends fondly refer to him, is one of the greatest music directors ever to score music for Indian movies spanning many languages (Tamil, Telugu, Hindi etc). When compared to other music directors in this music scene, including ascendent stars like A.R. Rahman, Illu's music has that unqiue DNA or signature that indicates to the listener that this music can only be Illu's and no one else's. My great friend K, a fellow Illu enthusiast - sometimes I think our friendship began the instant I discovered a casette tape of Illu's album "How to Name It" in his hostel room - holds that Illu is the only composer ever who could sythesize and transmute,begining with one measure of Tyagaraja and one measure of Bach, into objects of marvel.

While many listeners of Indian film music would be no doubt familar with numerous hit songs Illu compose music for, I think his work on background music for the movies is equally (if not even more) great. In fact there are some Indian movies (for people who accuse me of having become a 'firangi', yes, there are Indian movies I like and enjoy!) whose motifs in my memory are indexed by the background music scores Illu composed for them.

So I present you some of these (YouTube doesn't allow mp3s, but then I discovered Bolt!). You would need Flash installed in your browser to listen. Simply hit play on the tracks below. Also note that there is some fun dialogue interspread with the music that you may enjoy if you understand Telugu.

The first three tracks come from the Telugu hit, 'Geethanjali'.

"I luuuav you"

"Searching for Geetha"

"Question for Granny

This track is from "Mouna Raagam", originally made in Tamil, and later dubbed into Telugu as well:

"A Man Is Shot"

This one from "Saagara Sangamam", a movie for which Illu won one of his three National Awards:

"Let's Take A Photo"

"After The Storm"

Okay, finally I can't resist linking to the epynonymous track from "How to Name It":