Witch: the glory and tragedy of Zambia's psych-rock trailblazers | Music theguardian.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theguardian.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
02 July 2021
Leading lights of the Zamrock scene, Witch were fronted by Jagari: rock star, gemstone miner, convicted felon and the African Mick Jagger
(Image credit: Utopia Media)
Of all the great Zambian Afro-garage-psych-prog-funk-rock ensembles, Witch (an acronym for We intend to cause havoc ) may well be the greatest of the all. The band kick-started the Zamrock movement in 1972 with their privately pressed
Introduction album, and singer Emanuel “Jagari” Chand - the nickname a tribute to Mick Jagger - become the country s biggest rock star.
At the height of their fame the band could play stadiums across Southern Africa, but as tastes changed in the 1980s the Zamrock scene faded, with the nation crippled by economic collapse and the arrival of AIDS, which killed several of Jagari s former bandmates. Later, he was arrested for importing Quaaludes - a charge Jagari still denies - and was sentenced to two years in prison.
The Enduring Appeal of Italian Composersâ Dramatic âLibrary Musicâ
Compositions made from the 1960s through the â80s to soundtrack films and ads have found new homes on hip-hop tracks and compilations. New artists have been inspired, too.
The record collector Lorenzo Fabrizi, who runs the label Sonor Music Editions, discovered a warehouse of albums containing library music in 2011.Credit.Sonor Music Editions
June 9, 2021Updated 5:23 p.m. ET
One day in the summer of 2011, Lorenzo Fabrizi rode with a friend to an abandoned warehouse far outside of Rome. The custodian of the building, who said he had bought it for around $100, let them inside to look at its contents: 10,000 vinyl LPs, by Fabriziâs estimate. They were welcome to take as many they wanted, the owner said; he was brewing beer in the space and had no use for them.