Will Ridenour - Will Ridenour CD

Will Ridenour - Will Ridenour [COMPACT DISCS] Duplicated CD : This CD is an instrumental, intimate venture into traditional and original West-African Kora music. Most of the songs are solo or multi-tracked kora. Acoustic guitar compliments on 4 songs, percussion (jembe, dunun, shekere, karinyan) on another. Most of the songs were composed for a wedding celebration in December '06. All are original except for 'Alla La Ke', which is a part of traditional kora repertoire. The Kora is a 21-stringed bridge-harp from West-Africa originating, according to oral traditions, with the Senegambian Mandinka of the Kabu Empire, which encompassed parts of present-day Guinea-Bissau, southern Senegal, and the Gambia. The strings are made of fishing line and they resonate through a large, halved calabash gourd stretched with a cow hide. The Kora traditionally is played by mandinka jalis and mande jelis, a special caste of society that work as musicians and oral historians. They are walking libraries of information, artisans of sound and speech. Will Ridenour comes from Greensboro, North Carolina, USA, and his mission is 'not to become an African Kora Player. That is impossible. No matter how long a canoe lies in the river, it will never become a crocodile. My hope is to bring the beautiful instrument, the mus