On Singing Srengenge,(tracks 1 & 3) band members are Imel Rosalin, piano, musical director, producer; Rudy Zulkarnaen, bass; Sophie Markie, drums;Asep Aung, Sundanese flute.
Poems are by Sitok Srengenge.
Melodies and vocals Jan Cornall.
On Failing In Love Again,(tracks 3 & 4) Elizabeth Drake is pianist, musical director.
Jan Cornall, melodies, lyrics and vocals.
Influences
Brecht, Weil, Lotte Lenya, Milva, Nico, Edith Piaf, Gilbert and Sullivan, Nana Mouskori, Sarah Vaughan, Billy Holiday. Peggy Lee, Ella Gitzgerald, Flora Purim, Astrid Gilberto, Carlos Antonio Joabim, Patti Smith, Calypso, Latin, African, Irish, Dangdut and so many more...
Sounds Like
People are always tellling me of someone they heard who reminded them of me.
Like the Dresden Dolls. I have been away from music for so long. Failing In Love Again was a cult hit in Australia - then we disappeared. We weren't entrepreneurial then, we didn't have internet. For twenty years I didn't sing - just like Patti Smith - busy with family and writing. Now I'm back! My latest CD Singing Srengenge, sounds like... I dunno - you tell me!
Jan Cornall is an Australian song writer, singer, cabaret artist, jazzpunk musician, performance artist and writer.
The four tracks you hear here are from 2 CDs - Failing In Love Again( all Jan's lyrics and melodies) recorded in 1980, and Jan Cornall, Singing Srengenge (Jan's melodies, Sitok Srengenges' poems)recorded in 2006.
If you want to know more about how Jan started writing songs read on....
Jan wrote her first substantial song in 1974 while hitch hiking across the USA with friend/photographer Ruth Maddison. Stuck on the freeway near the Badlands at sunset wasn't their idea of fun, until two mother f***ingly huge semi trailers screeched to a halt and let them climb on up. It was the road crew for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, driving the gear across the continent for a big gig!
Next morning at the Nevada/Utah border Jan sat on a rock and watched the sun rise penning her first famous acapella C&W song - Cross Nevada - I'd love to sing it for you sometime!
After a month or two in Southern Mexico (which is where they were originally headed) staying with Mexican poet Marguerita Dalton at her El Vergel hacienda, Ruth returned home to her three kids ( they were happy to see her!) and Jan headed for an address in Wolf Creek, Oregon. In Eugene, on a tree planting crew, she met Simone (then Paula) Treacy, a poet and artist who became Jan's life time inspiration and muse. In a little house thyey shared by the freeway in the pouring Eugene rain, Jan started writing calypso songs and learning percussion from Scotty who played with a reggae band (it was such a new sound!) called ......(damn i can't remember). They performed some of Jan's songs - Tropical Brainstorm,I Wanna Go To Trinidad.The Eugene WOW Hall was the happening place and it was there they got to know the latin band Upepo, who became their favorite band. Simone and guitarist Charles Croft fell in love, and Simone became Treacy Croft. Around this time Jan wrote her famous song Monogamy Shbedogamy (featured here) about the political incorrectness of being a couple ( it was the 70's remember).
In Portland Jan went to a Performing Arts Marathon where she performed a couple of songs and was impressed with the all girl latin jazz band Baba Yaga who were advertising for a drummer. Jan convinced them to take her on even tho' she only knew a couple of rhythms. She soon got lessons from a drummer called Dave, was ensconced in the band and not long after, scored a job as percussionist for dance classes at Jefferson High. Baba Yaga recorded an album.
You can view it with cover notes (even cartoons by Jan) on www.queermusicheritage.us/sep2006.html and find out how much it is worth - now over $200 it seems. Jan's song Monogamy Shbedogamy made it onto the album.
Jan had to leave the band mid tour because of visa problems but stayed a while in Vancouver, Canada, where she met Belles. Belles looked like Annie Oakley, played mandolin, and led a band of girls who stole from the rich to give to the poor (themselves).
Jan and Belles busked outside liquor stores in the snow and drank wine with the singer Ferron. (Where the hell are these girls now, Jan wonders?)
Belles and Jan hatched a plan to go to England via San Francisco. They took the White Rabbit hippy bus from SF (with all the seats taken out and mattresses on the floor) across country, but got snowed in in an Oklahoma truck stop. Their bus slid into a fairyland New York City a couple of days late and took shelter with a friend on the lower east side.When they lay down to sleep on the living room floor of the slum apartment, snow flakes swirled in to kiss their cheeks through a hole in the wall.
In London Jan met members of the band Ova and a woman trumpet player called Rob ?
She, Belles, Jan and Joy took another bus Athens and the Greek Islands. On the way back J and B discovered the Zanzibar Womans Cafe in Rome and played in a leftist underground tavern in Genoa on the day after Italian President Aldo Moro was shot. J and B ended up in the south of France at a friend's chateau where they parted ways. Jan returned to London to hang out with old friends, Phillip Brooks and Vivien Altman, squatted in Brixton squats and marched with Rock Against Racism to greens where Poly Styrene and the X Ray Specks and the Clash pounded out their message to pogo-ing crowds.On the verge of staying away for good, Jan returned at the end of 1978 to Australia with a bag full of songs and ideas, to an opportunity that would change the direction of her life for ever.
In 1979 Jan was invited by Kerry Dwyer to apply for a writer's residency at the Pram Factory in Melbourne where she wrote her cult musical hit, Failing In Love Again. In 1980 with musical director and pianist Elizabeth Drake, they began touring a post punk cabaret version of the show, performing along the way alongside Jeannie Lewis, Margaret Roadnight, Robyn Archer and Janie Conway.They recorded a cassette tape of the show which Jan evenually transferred to CD previewed here for you to enjoy again or for the first time!
Hey everyone
Just a remind that the Sharpie Poetry Slam Competition deadline is approaching soon!
If you would like to perform at The Studio - Opera House with all the spoken word legends in Australia, send us a video with your best poem using cue cards, a la Bob Dylan.
For more info go to myspace. com/thenightwordsfestival
So hurry! Support the spoken word scene and be part of The Night Words Festival 2008!
Cheers
