Tony Bird
Sunday, October 23, 2011
At The TRANZAC, 292 Brunswick Ave, Toronto
Tickets: $20.00 / $18.00 Flying Cloud and TRANZAC members
Door: 7:00 p.m.
Starts: 7:30 p.m.
“The finest, most impressive folk poet in years” -The Village Voice
With a mesmerizing intensity, a unique voice, vision, guitar style and persona, Malawi born songman Tony Bird is a complete original. Growing up in southern Africa in the era of colonialism and Apartheid, Bird developed a sharp, conscious universal eye. His expansive repertoire ranges from topical and historical commentary to love songs, musical tone poems and exotic travelogues and stories that roam from bushmen to bicycles. Tony Bird has been called “The Father of African Folk-Rock,” yet he is even more. He’s an inventive, passionate, theatrical performer who delivers the moving, searching anthems of a mature poet.
Bird had two early vinyl albums released on Columbia in the ’70s, “Tony Bird” and “Tony Bird of Paradise.” The latter garnered acclaim in a 1986 People Magazine critics’ poll as one of the top 10 albums of all time. “Sorry Africa,” his 1990 Philo/Rounder release, features fellow southern African musicians who have supported a line of African roots and world music stars from Hugh Masekela to Miriam Makeba and Harry Belafonte, as well as Paul Simon’s South African-influenced “Graceland.” Bird’s early releases pre-dated Simon’s by at least a decade and more.
Bird’s rich geographic and cultural background has spawned a music of diverse influences. Drawing from the southern African mbaqanga and kwela rhythms, Afrikaans boeremusiek and even calypso, along with western traditions of folk, blues, country and rock, his music is an original amalgamation of all these styles, which he loosely describes as “African Folk-Rock.” He creates the sound of a full band with his unique slapping, percussive guitar picking, a clicking mouth and an energetic stomping left foot. With a raw organic quality, his grainy voice breaks into growls, whispers and falsettos contrasted against sophisticated painterly lyrics.
A new CD is in the works which will feature the same “name” musicians, including one song with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who became enamoured with Tony’s music when he toured with them in the ’80s. In the early ’90s, he also toured with South African stars, the late Simon Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens. After a six year hiatus due to hand problems, Bird returned to performing and touring in 2003.
For more information on Tony Bird please visit www.mangotime.net.
