That's a wonderful site, Hat! By way of thanks, here's another good one, less wide-ranging but a great pleasure:

http://excavatedshellac.wordpress.com/

These two should be on each other's blogroll. I'll see if I can connect them. Thank you again for these pointers.

I only knew Uskadar in the late, great Eartha Kitt's version:
http://vodpod.com/watch/2317270-eartha-kitt-a-turkish-tale-in-turkish-uskudara-giderken

No idea what a Turk would think of her accent, but it's always sounded good to me.

Thanks for the link and the good words, Language! I feel really honored.

To Dan Milton: I do know what (some) Turks think about Eartha Kitt’s version, but it is not absolutely flattering… :)

Oh my, oh my, that site is on my list now and I foresee long evenings catching up on the archives. Thank you very much for the pointer.

(Incidentally, the very first time I heard Bella Ciao was via a klezmer band...)

I keep telling everyone that's an interesting site.

Amazing the influence of American music (folk, jazz, blues, rock 'n roll, r and b) has had on world cultures and politics--especially the Russkies loved rock because of all the anger and venom you can expend using it! Youthful anger! How 'bout a comment from Sting? Isn't he a lutist these days! And Eartha Kitt was from No'th Car-o-lina, dahling.

Ur old fiend,

thegrowlingwolf

(Thanks for the link, Paul.)
The credit should go to AJP, where I found it ...

South Carolina.

One a them Carolinas.... or maybe Dakotas.... nah, that was Peggy Lee.

Or Bob Dylan.

I've been on a Leonard Cohen bender for a couple of weeks now, I loved following the links to Cohen's "Take this Waltz" and backwards to Federico García Lorca's poem in Spanish.

Leonard Cohen's Canadian.

Leonard Cohen can be Canadian if he wants, I don't care. He did a cameo on Miami Vice speaking French and an interview on French TV where he personally supervised the French subtitles of the song he performed. I don't know about anyone else, but the idea of a Canadian godfather terrorizing Miami just doesn't work for me.

Don't know if he speaks Spanish enough to do that Spanish poem himself--he does seem to know a lot of Spanish musicians--but his rendition certainly proves that he's The Bard.

Leonard Cohen is from the anglophone part of Montreal. Like many anglophones in Montreal he speaks French quite well, although you would not take him for a native French speaker. H could certainly hold his own in the conversation with the French interviewer.

(He could ...)

Frank Gehry's Canadian too. (Well, he grew up there).

Also Bachman-Turner-Overdrive and Rush.

Well and Neil Young & Joni Mitchell, of course.

Like many anglophones in Montreal he speaks French quite well,

Really? I was under the impression that anglophones in Montreal are generally very poor French speakers or don't speak French at all. Maybe it's not as bad today, but I thought that was generally true in the 50s/60s when Cohen was growing up. Maybe I've just been fed Quebecois propaganda.

I'll also add that new post up at rio Wang about Akvarium and the song gorod is also very interesting. And anyone who loves the fim Assa gets high marks from me.

Yes, I loved that post and now I really want to see Assa.

Out of consideration for the others, I'll let Crouun have the last word. We'll have to duel it out on some streetcorner somewhere, just the two of us.

Loverboy was Canadian. Canadians don't like to admit that...

Wait, wait, I'm not finnish: all the members of The Band, Glenn Gould, Kate and Anna McGarrigle (and therefore half of Martha & Rufus Wainwright), KD Lang and of course Lord Beaverbrook was a Canadian.

I'm not even counting people like Gordon Lightfoot and Céline Dion.

There's a very good lady pianist who's recorded the whole of JS Bach, but I've forgotten her name.

Joni Mitchell
Neil Young

Corey Hart. Shania Twain. Robert Goulet. Guess Who. Robert Pickton. Karla Homolka.

all the members of The Band

Except Levon Helm, an Arkie like my daddy.

Hat, I have relatives in NW and North central AK. Ever run into any?

Probably not, but that's the Dodson stomping grounds (along with eastern Oklahoma).

My sister lived in SE Kansas for 30 years. Not a good experience, I'm sad to say. partly but not entirely because of the place.

vanya: I was under the impression that anglophones in Montreal are generally very poor French speakers or don't speak French at all.

I said many, not the majority.

AJP: There's a very good lady pianist who's recorded the whole of JS Bach, but I've forgotten her name.

You must mean Angela Hewitt.

Yes, thank you. I did mean Angela Hewitt.