A history of Kenyan guitar music: 1945-1980
Abstract
- Abstract
- Between November 1979 and April 1980, as part of a trip including several other African countries, I spent 5 months in Kenya. One of the musical projects that I planned to carry out during my stay was to study the guitar finger-styles that were common during the ’50s and ’60s. I did this by contacting Kenyan guitarists who used to play in this style, and by learning to play and sing their songs, as well as by making tape-recordings. In the course of this work I talked a lot with these artists and learned a great deal about their lives and the development of guitar music in Kenya. Although it had not been my original plan to do so, I eventually collected enough information to form the basis of an article on this subject. This information was provided by Joshua Ombima; William Umbima; William Osale; Johnson Ouko; David Jairo; George Agade; Jim Lasco Mugodo; Henry Viduyu; Tobias Oyugi; Daudi Kabaka; David Amunga; Ben Obolla; Fundi Konde; Peter Colmore; Silas Muiruri and Mtonga Wanganangu, without whose generous help this article could never have been written. I should add that, with the exception of the last four named, all my informants belong to either the Luhya or Luo people of Western Kenya. The article therefore has a definite bias towards Western Kenya, the home of so much fine Kenyan guitar music.
Description
- Description
- pages: 17-36
Subjects
People & roles
- Author
- Low, John
Origins & context
- Title
- A history of Kenyan guitar music: 1945-1980
- Type
- Text
- Language
- English
- Parent project
- International Library of African Music
- is funded by
-
Rhodes University
- Place of Origin
- South Africa
- Created Date
- July 7, 1982
Rights & access
- License
- CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0
- Access Rights
- Public
Identifiers & sources
- DRE ID
- eaa-99-021f
- Identifier
-
1114
Value Annotations
Origins & context
- Type
- Publisher, distributor, or vendor stock number
- WissKI URL
- 79178
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