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| Welcome! |
Ladies and Gentlemen, we hope you recovered well from christmass festivities... While waiting for new year's eve party let's go JUMPIN' AT THE BAR LEA, Papeete, Tahiti. By Charley Itchner et l'Orchestre Bar Lea (Tahiti records, 1959). Produced by Eddie Lund who was already behind the record we talked about last week.
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| early sixties orchestra (Quinn's) |
Not much is known about Eddie Lund exept that he was an american piano player who felt in love with the islands of Tahiti the first time he visited in the mid 30's. He then moved there and has been a major influence in modernizing the local folk music into tahitian rock & roll... Modern Tamuré was born! He wrote most of the popular songs of the 50's and 60's (either in french, tahitian or english) and became an icon of polynesian pop culture with many "cheesy" kitch covers of the genre in exotic places such as Poland, Germany or Italy.
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| Papeete nightlife (Quinn's) |
Since the 50's Eddie Lund worked on many records edition (Tahiti records) and internationnal distribution through Criterion (USA) and Viking (New Zealand). He was also active in the night clubs life (playing keys at the Quinn's). This little Ep is a great occasion to feel the atmosphere of one of those early clubs, the "bar Lea".
01 TAMURE BAR LEA
02 TEI TE ARA TAU TINO
03 HAAMOE TO OE CARICATURE
04 TIARE AUTE
Though Eddie Lund was very active producing many records like as this one, he's been also productive with his own band (Eddie Lund and his tahitians) but we'll have more time to talk about this later... We hope you're enjoying the stay!
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| Eddie Lund |
Thanks for another great Eddie Lund disc! He's the best. We met a man named "Muk" Don McCallum a few years ago at the Club Bali Hai on Moorea, and he was one of three Americans that left California in 1961 to build a hotel on Moorea. Muk talked about the wild times he spent at Quinn's and Bar Lea on Papeete, and about how he and one of his partners, Jay Carlisle, formed a Tahitian band of their own, and played mostly Eddie Lund tunes they learned watching him and his bands play in Papeete. I posted a video I filmed in 2005 talking about his adventures through the years, some crazy stories of the hotel, and even visiting Quinn's. That's Cook's Bay in the background, and was filmed in 2005.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&list=UU4GFavRgzR-2NdfCDMp1Rfw&v=-Wg21VlsKq8
Thanks again for the great post.
Thanks for the video! could you please email me: kadaotonkao@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteHere's a few more clips of Muk from 2007, five 20 minute videos at the round table of Club Bali Hai I posted yesterday:
ReplyDelete1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPdCF4u3KiA&list=UU4GFavRgzR-2NdfCDMp1Rfw&index=10
2.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhamxKQQS70&list=UU4GFavRgzR-2NdfCDMp1Rfw&index=9
3.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCJT3_4un5g&list=UU4GFavRgzR-2NdfCDMp1Rfw&index=8
4.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN2tyrLW0CE&list=UU4GFavRgzR-2NdfCDMp1Rfw&index=6
5.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUWreg3LQv0&list=UU4GFavRgzR-2NdfCDMp1Rfw&index=7
He speaks more of his frequent trips to Tahiti when he had a pocketful of money, and of course Quinn's was his main destination. Thanks again for the great music.
Godzzla
You've got such a great blog!
ReplyDeleteWow, this is fantastic! I grew up with this music as my father was aircrew with TEAL and he brought 'Jumping at the Bar Lea' back from one of his trips. Haven't heard it in years. Thanks so much for the memories.
ReplyDeleteSweet! Thank for sharing those memories, If you can access the tresure box containing all those memories, i'd love to get more some sounds and pictures.
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