Chakoun/Yellow Bird

  1. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    I made an impromptu trip to the Caribbean last week and this tune is my celebration. Also in tribute to the life of the wonderful Harry Belafonte, who sang this song.

    I chose Yellow Bird because it is a tune that has been with me for a long time - since Davey Graham (a Scot of Caribbean heritage) recorded it way back in the 60s. But after recording this I discovered that the tune originated as a setting of a poem called Choukoun, by Oswald Durand, who is regarded as Haiti's national poet. So, I have credited the original composer, Michel Mauleart Monton. The poem was written when Durand was imprisoned for his political activity in the mid-nineteenth century. He is separated from the woman he loves and part of the poem addresses a bird on the ledge of his prison cell (hence the song is also known in Haitian Creole as Ti Zwazo - little bird). The English version picks up that element and builds the whole song around it. Harry Belafonte, being the sort of person he was, sang a version with no yellow birds or banana trees, which was much closer to the original.

    The illustrations are some of the flora and fauna of Grand Cayman, taken on my visit. Not a yellow bird in sight.

  2. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Very enjoyable Richard, and nice to hear a caribbean rhythm on SAW.
    I’ll try this tomorrow.
    This brings back memories, the song and Davey Graham too. He was giving a guitar workshop at the Gryphon music shop (1989/90?) in Palo Alto, California on a saturday and I just happened to see a friend at a garage sale who told me to run over there because she’d just heard that someone had failed to show up so there was a space free.

    Unfortunately I still couldn’t make it, but there you go! One of those things.
    I did buy one of his books though (from Gryphon a couple of days later).

    YELLOW BIRD .abc file
  3. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Years since I last heard this song, Richard. Your interpretation of it here is really great and I love the calypso rhythm you have used on it. It sounds full of sunshine and joy.
  4. Frithjof
    Frithjof
    Looks and sounds like a beautiful postcard from your Caribbean trip you may send to all your friends and acquaintances.
  5. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    I didn't know this song, so I listened to it sung by the Goombye Dance Band, The Brothers Four and the Mills Brothers on YT. Not bad, but I prefer your mandolin version, Richard.
  6. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    Thank you, all. As I hope you can tell, I had great fun doing this. The percussion is far more suitable than it was the last time I used it. I am tempted to try some more in this vein, and I certainly hope others will have a go at this one.

    It is indeed a musical postcard, Frithjof, but I have held back sunsets (to use on something pending) and most of my chickens. Grand Cayman is overrun with chickens - there is actually a penalty for feeding them. I shall search out some chicken repertoire (nearly wrote recipes).

    Simon, I listened again to Davey Graham's version after I did this one. I'm afraid, as with much of his stuff, it isn't quite as good as one remembered it. He was an imaginative innovator rather than a particularly accomplished player, I think. There is something very rough about his playing, even on studio albums. It took his followers - Jansch, Renbourn, Carthy etc - to really execute his ideas. I heard him play in Oxford 15 years or so ago, not long before his death, and it was the unhappiest experience I have ever had at a gig. Graham was just terrible - his playing was incoherent. The phrasing was all over the place and it was full of bum notes. It was excruciating because one so wanted him to do well. He was supporting Martin Carthy, who gave his usual perfect performance and was also clearly very solicitous of his mentor. I have since heard that this was not uncommon late in his career (and some suggest it was associated with alcohol or drugs). Anyway, it was very sad.

    (Also, unfortunately the title of the thread is one thing that cannot be edited. Choukoun is apparently spelt several different ways, but the one I have used in the thread title is not one of them. Chakoun a son goût, I suppose.)
  7. John W.
    John W.
    Interesting choice of tune/song, Richard, and you’ve done a great job creating the sound, rhythm, feel of the genre.
  8. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Nice paragraph there Richard. Very balanced and nuanced.

    Hmmmn. Drugs and alcohol… maybe he just done got old.
    Ageism can be a factor too. The audience has expectations.

    I guess his fanbase became pretty laidback.
  9. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    Thank you, John. It's a real departure for me, so I'm pleased if it works.

    And thanks, Simon. At the time, I thought it was just age. He was of course some years younger than I am now! I've since read online that he smelt of alcohol at some late gigs. And he did have documented substance abuse issues earlier in his life. I just don't know. I do know that I felt for him.

    I've been thinking about Davey some more. He was such an important figure. Partly it's the technical innovation (DADGAD and all that). But more than that, he was genre-busting. A Davey Graham gig or recording in the 60s might be a traditional tune, then a Baroque piece, then something from North Africa, then the Caribbean. No one did that then, though he would have fitted in nicely at the SAW group (didn't play the mandolin, but it would have taken him five minutes to rectify that).
  10. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    Very tropical and delicate, a touch of Death in Paradise (where is Richard Poole when you need him). This is a new angle on Belafonte for me, though, because he will forever be chained to that dinner scene in Beetlejuice...
  11. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    Thank you, Bertram. This was my first visit to the Caribbean and, having watched Death in Paradise, I was relieved to discover that it was much safer than I had been led to believe. I suspect you are the only person who thinks of Harry Belafonte that way, however.
  12. Malk
    Malk
    Bertram I confess to having also sung about mr tallyman while raising a rum glass or two to Mr B. If you want a different perspective on his repertoire search for a bucket with a hole and his version of what I understand to originally be the german song 'Ein Loch ist im Eimer, Karl-Otto, Karl-Otto'
  13. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    Oh Malcolm, I thought he was singing in honour of Mr Telemann, over whose works I have laboured long and hard recently.

    And did you know that coincidentally 30 May (which it just about is on your side of the Atlantic), is National Hole in the Bucket Day? Today (the 29th) is National Paperclip Day, in case you were wondering.
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