Happy New Year! To launch World Music into 1998, I thought it would be appropriate to take some time to ties up some loose ends collected over the last little while. First of all, I always appreciate your mail, and your requests for features. I always try to respond within a reasonable time, and take your considerations seriously.
I recently got some mail from Mele in Hawaii, who would like to see a feature on Keali'i Reichel, a very popular artist in Hawaii with strong traditional roots in Hawaiian language and culture. I personally am not familiar with his music, but have sent a request to his record company in Hawaii for more information. Shelley, another World Music regular reader, is looking for information about a male vocalist named John Gary. According to Shelley, John Gary "recorded some Irish Folk Songs in the 70's, "Danny Boy" and a few others. I can't find him anywhere but I am told he had several albums. Can you help me?" Well, I tried to -- I did several searched on John Gary but came up with no information about his life or career. He does have some recordings available though, through several of the online shopping sources. If someone has more information about John Gary, please email me, and I will pass your information on to Shelley personally.
Although New Age artists isn't really my domain, Mark wrote to me asking if I knew of any good sites for Yanni. Yes I do: there is the Unofficial Yanni Web Page,
which features photos, information, music clips, and a mailing list which you can join. There is also his Official Site at Windham Hill, and if that still isn't enough, there is the World of Yanni I don't
know if that last one is official or not, but someone took the time and expense to purchase a domain name.
Several weeks ago I wrote a feature about languages and music, mostly about how to overcome a language barrer when you are listening to music from abroad. I promised to provide you with some
more sources for translation, and I always make good on my promises, so here I go! A-1 Translators has translators for every language. They reqire payment, but after all, you get what you pay for.
Tatyana Collins is who you should contact if you need translations from Eastern European languages, especially Russian. But humans are not the only ones who can do translations these days -- thanks to
the advances of modern technology, machines can provide draft translations in real time. This method definitely lacks the human touch in more ways than one -- for example, word order and certain rules of grammar are lost in the translation, but as long as it's not legal documents or anything super important
the quality is usually good enough if you just want to get the jist of the lyrics or magazine article. Comprende offers real time online translations, and is currently seeking beta testers.
Once again, I wish a Happy and Healthy New Year to all my readers, and please keep sending me your messages! Even if I can't help right away I keep all requests on file -- something is bound to turn up eventually!
