Due to an earworm that I couldn't identify, I have made a discovery of an amazingly talented musician whose name I had never previously heard.
It was a bit of a crazy thing. I kept hearing snippets in my head of a song which I thought was "I Met Her By the River" and when I Googled it turned out to be a song by Richard Marx from 30 years ago called "I Left Her By the River". Never much of a fan of his but it's a catchy sort of tune, I guess.
Anyway, in trying to track down and catch that particular earworm I discovered a Gambian kora player called Dawda Jobarteh. I heard part of the song "I Met Her By the River" on YouTube and ordered his three CD's straight away. They then dawdled across the pond from the UK at a snail's pace - must have been sea snail mail - and finally arrived last week.
He's brilliant. He began his musical career as a percussionist but has family connections to well known kora players. And he is a fusion musician too, so it's not just that sleepy laid-back harp music to meditate to.
Normally if I hear some new music I check it out fairly carefully before investing my hard-earned cash in buying the albums, but after hearing half of the first song I immediately ordered the three available CD's.
I have to admit I have only listened to about half of the tracks on the three CD's because so far I have been in open-mouthed awe at what this man and his musical partners can achieve. It's like when I am immersed in a really good novel and I want to know how it ends but I don't want to rush through the experience because I will never be able to recapture that again.
I have always loved African music and it's amazing rhythms and I appreciate the African musical influences in so much of our music. Sine qua non - without which nothing - is my opinion about jazz, blues, rock music, so many modern genres. Where would our music be without the African influences?
Please have a listen to the music of Dawda Jobarteh. You may not like it as much as I do, you may not like all of his different musical influences and styles, but you might just be able to open up a whole new musical experience that you have never imagined before.