(Richard Haslop)
Coming up in The Mondays At Six At St Clements programme on
Monday (December 4) will be ‘Weirdly’ Richard Haslop. “Come enjoy an early
holiday treat courtesy this entertaining and engaging Durban music luminary who
will “show, tell and play” — and generally enlighten us. Time to slide into the
festive spirit,” say the organisers.
Richard Haslop’s topic for the evening is The Weirdest Music I Ever Heard.
He explains: “In 1903, at the railway station in Tutwiler,
Mississippi, musician, composer and self-styled ‘Father of the Blues’ WC Handy
heard a ragged stranger playing the guitar by sliding a pocket knife across its
strings and singing a repetitive refrain about going ‘where the Southern cross
the Dog’.
“Though he called it ‘the weirdest music I ever heard’, it
changed his life.
“Slide guitar styles, from Hawaiian to Hindustani, from lap
to pedal steel, from the rudimentary one-string diddley bow to some of the most
blistering guitar playing in captivity, have become a regular, evocative and
often thrilling component of folk, blues, rock and country music and several
places beyond.”
Haslop will share the story of the development of the slide
guitar in a programme that will include recordings, stories and demos. (He will
bring instruments and show, tell and play.)
Among other things (such as being a practicing attorney with
a focus on human rights, labour law, arbitration and industrial relations), Haslop
is a multi-instrumentalist, music reviewer, radio personality and one of South
Africa's leading experts on blues and roots music. He has written about music
for national and international publications for more than 30 years; presented a
number of seriously eclectic music shows on SAfm and lectured courses on the
history of popular music at UKZN Music Department.
He has also given talks, lectures and presentations at a
number of festivals and conferences including the Grahamstown and Hilton
festivals and the colloquium on the history of modern African music in Mali. He
has played several musical instruments, solo and in a variety of aggregations
(for more than 40 years).
Look forward to the St Clements regular menu and specials
offered by Steve and his team. Missing again this month will be the programme
founder, Pieter Scholtz, who is currently in Canada.
St Clements is
situated at 191 Musgrave Road. Mondays @ Six run between 18h00 and 19h00. Table
bookings are essential on 031 202 2511. Cover charge is R30 plus per
person requested contribution/donation to cover costs.
Posts
