[FA Worldmusic] Featured Guest: Brian Cullman Tomorrow Night, 11 pm to 2 am, 6/15/08, WKCR "World Music Movers and Shakers"

[Evangeline Kim]

Tomorrow night late in New York City, 11 pm - 2 am, streaming live on
www.wkcr.org 89.9 fm, I'm delighted to invite you all to listen in (if you're
awake) as I welcome a favorite friend and colleague, Brian Cullman, cool
producer, musician and journalist.  We'll hear about his own recent beautiful
CD "All Fires the Fire."  And he writes, "I'm bringing a lot of different
tracks from around the world. Some lovely new songs from Iraq, along with
music from the Sudan, some unreleased tracks from David Lewiston's archive,
along with some private recordings of Nusrat's, some unreleased tapes by Purna
Das Baul & The Bauls of Bengal, some Ladino recordings by Israeli singer
Yasmin Levy, new music from Argentina and Brazil, a wild gypsy version of a
Bob Dylan, and some out of print Bahamian songs."

Here's his wonderful mini bio-memoir below.

Tune in!

Best,
Evangeline


 BRIAN CULLMAN  ALL FIRES THE FIRE

Brian Cullman grew up in New York City with a radio glued to his ear and a
passport tight in his fist. Over the years, that radio has gotten larger as
the world has grown smaller, and he has been a frequent explorer of the
worlds hidden musics , from Iran to Senegal, from Morocco to Trinidad, before
coming home to the sounds of ALL FIRES THE FIRE.

            I started an album 8 or 9 years ago down in New Orleans, but
never quite finished it. I got derailed by the various etceteras of life.
Then, sometime in 2007, a friend whod been a label executive called and said
hed been listening to tapes of the New Orleans sessions and wanted to
release them. I was flattered, but it felt like old news. I got together with
my friends from the band Ollabelle, and a sound started to take shape. I
hadnt been writing much, but new songs kept appearing, Id stretch out my
hand and theyd pull over, like a taxi. Once we got into the studio, we
recorded as live as possible,  just kept everything tied to the story and the
feeling.

ALL FIRES THE FIRE captures the freshness of that spirit coupled with a sense
of sweet release and homecoming. The music is both cosmopolitan and primal,
from the Salvation Army band coda of SWEET COMPANION and the dark gospel of
SOMEBODY CALLING MY NAME, to the casually brutal samba, THE PROMISE.

Theres a long and tangled history behind the album that belies the ease and
naturalness of the music, one that takes in years of bumping into and working
with some of the most visionary musicians of the late twentieth century.

 When I was 15, I met Lillian Roxon, author of THE ROCK ENCYCLOPEDIA, and
decided to ask if my songs were any good.  She said  I should play them for
her friend Danny Fields. So she dragged me & my crummy guitar down to his
house in Chelsea. Danny was the house hippie at Elektra Records, he'd signed
The Stooges & The MC5, and he knew everyone. We walked in, and it was dark,
there were candles everywhere. Edie Sedgwick, Dannys roommate, was in the
corner, in her bra & panties, cutting out pictures from Vogue Magazine. Jim
Morrison was passed out drunk on the couch. Nico, I was told, was in the
bedroom, hiding from Morrison. The phone kept ringing. Once it was Leonard
Cohen, looking for Nico. Danny told him to go away. For all I knew, the
Beatles were in the kitchen, fixing a snack. That was my introduction to the
music business.

A few years on, still in his teens, Brian took a summer job in London and
found a more sympathetic audience for his songs, one that has proved a lasting
connection and inspiration.

 I fell into a crowd of musicians in Hampstead who were all broke, but
immensely supportive: John & Beverly Martyn, Nick Drake, Sandy Denny. They
were excited to find an American who knew their music. John Martyn showed me
his percussive style of finger-picking, Sandy Denny brought me along to sing
back-up with her on a few sessions, and Nick Drake had me open for him at
Cousins, a basement club on Greek Street.

Brian returned to the States and eventually began working with some of the
most inventive players on the scene, including Robert Quine, Syd Straw and
Vernon Reid. But Cullman soon slipped away from performing and began working
full time as a journalist, writing extensively for CREEM, MUSICIAN, ROLLING
STONE, THE VILLAGE VOICE, SPIN & DETAILS, winning the ASCAP/DEEMS TAYLOR award
for excellence in journalism three times..

 His return to music was behind the scenes. He began producing sessions for
friends, producing Lucinda Williams, Sussan Deyhim and Persian-Indian group
Ghazal; collaborating with Youssou N'dour on a record for Senegalese guitar
wizard Jimi Mbaye; producing the soundtrack to the 2007 documentary GYPSY
CARAVAN and scoring Chris Zallas PADRE NUESTRO, winner of the 2007 Sundance
Festival before finally returning to his own songs and his own album.

            Much of the worlds deepest music comes down to a guitar or two,
a voice, a melody and a story, whether its Hank Williams or Van Morrison,
Caetano Veloso or Manno Charlemagne. Thats how I approached this album, with
respect for the simple power of a few chords and a few well-chosen words. I
figured, if I swept the cave and built a fire, the spirits might stop by.

 ALL FIRES THE FIRE will be released on Sunnyside Records in September, 2008.

                                                *******************

Brian Cullman is that rarest of singer-song-writer-instrumentalist-composers -
an artist whose intelligence doesn't overwhelm his humanity; an artist whose
sensitivity doesn't  undercut the fierce mind at work. Cullman knows the star
stuff that we're made of; our nobility, and our treachery, the way we deceive
ourselves-how our greatest loves go unrequited, the funny way our tears turn
into laughter-and back again.

Vernon Reid

 .Quietly devastating. Like Leonard Cohen backed by Garth Hudson and The
Band.

Soundfile (UK)

 People, buy this c.d. or else!

Linda Thompson

"Brian Cullman has found the perfect complement to his meditative songs in
Ollabelle. The sounds they make together bring a smoky jazz club ambience to
the rural Woodstock cabin of one's heart."

                                                                    Steve
Tounsand, Waxidermy