Dama & D'gary--The Long Way Home

This is a nice collection of Malagasy acoustic folksy music with sweet harmonies from 1994. Nearly 20 years ago, the guitarists Henry Kaiser and David Lindley took a trip to Madagascar to learn about the musical traditions and musicians of the island. I believe that they wound up putting out 3 compilation CDs of a variety of Malagasy musicians. One of the most noteworthy musical groups they found was Dama and D'Gary.

Apparently, according to the liner notes of the CD, Dama Mahaleo is a legendary performer in Madagascar, a "Bob Dylan & John Lennon rolled into one". That would mean popular and inspirational. D'Gary was at that time a younger, upcoming talented guitarist. Apparently, the American expatriates liked them well enough to think that they merited their own album. And for me, this is a very enjoyable album to listen, mellow with a chanson like cadence that can be found on Nick Drakes recordings. The song Sahara Toy actually has a bit of the Velvet Underground swagger to it. That is a rough approximation of course, as D'Gary has his own fairly distinct style. According to the notes, many of the songs herein deal with everyday life in Madagascar, or about love, or simply about enjoying and celebrating life. Some songs have  more of a political bent to them. But all in all, great music to kick back and relax to after a hard stressful day of work.

While the album has a stripped down quality to it, Kaiser and guitarist Sonny Landreth also perform on some of the songs, and Michael Doucet of Beausoleil plays fiddle. For the most part, they perform tastefully in the background on the recording: the main focus is Dama & D'Gary. I don't pretend to be an expert on this type of music, but I do believe that the type of music on this album would be quite approachable for someone who is looking to find out about other musical traditions from around the world, but still unique enough that you can hear something coming from a completely different perspective. If you are interested in African Music already or folk music you should definitely get this. And the feathery sinuous guitar work by D'Gary is something very special. It is truly a great thing that we have an opportunity to be able to hear wonderful music like this. At least in the US, a lot of exceptional music was unavailable to most people until about 20 years ago. Maybe a lot of people are not hearing it, but at least interested people can now investigate.