Something from Okinawa

From the nz-folk list:

I particularly like the indigenous music of Okinawa, whose culture is quite distinct from what we recognise as "Japanese". (There are several Okinawan languages. The region has, in historical times, variously paid tribute to China or Japan and was, at one time, an independent kingdom.
The traditional music is central to the local sense of identity in the way that the music of Brittany, Scotland, Galicia or the Basque country is.)

Among the bands that have popularised Okinawan traditional music in Japan, Hawai`i and elsewhere are Shjoukichi Kina and his band Champloose. Here's a video of a slower song. It's played at a live gig, and the band includes the Chieftains and Ry Cooder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmeJJiXc5oo

Here's something more typically traditional:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWkgWg4-6kw

Marcus Turner

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Hi Marcus

Recently, I heard (and was really taken with) some Okinawan folksongs by a singer called Choki Fukuhara, who started his own record-label in Osaka, Japan in the 1930s and released 78s. The Okinawan instrument he played, called the 'sanshin' (similar to the Japanese 'samisen') sounds really like a banjo.

I found this site with a sound clip of Fukuhara: http://rca.open.ed.jp/web_e/music/cards/list/fukuhara.html

And I also found some information here: http://www.pref.okinawa.jp/bunshin/english/con2/06_7shin.html

Cheers

Mike (Michael Brown)