Month: April 2020

 
A renowned Somali musician and oud player, Mohamud Ismail Hussein, commonly known as Hudeydi, died on Tuesday night in London, as a result of complications of COVID-19.The 92-year-old musician had been popular among Somalis in the Horn of Africa and around the world since the 1950s, when he started performing in theaters and at concerts throughout the region.“He was a musician, poet and songwriter in his nearly six-decade-long career. I cannot sum up his rich music history,” said veteran Somali artist Abdi Dhuh. “I can say he immensely contributed to the Somali arts scene.”He becomes the second high-profile Somali claimed by COVID-19 in London. A week ago, former Somali prime minister Nur Hassan Hussein died of coronavirus at a London hospital.Hudeydi was born in 1928 in Berbera, North West Somalia.  In a recent interview with VOA Somalia’s Qubanaha TV show, he said that he started playing oud, when he was 18 years old. “If there’s an oud lying near me, I couldn’t resist it but grab and play it,” he said.
 
He made a name for himself in Somalia during the 1950s and 1960s, performing in Somalia’s theaters.Another Somali artist, Mohamed Hassan Barrow, said “Hudeydi was a Somali music and national icon, patriot, and I remember him with the love songs he wrote and how he played oud.” Somali artist Fadum Ali Nakruma, who performed some of the songs Hudeydi wrote, described him as a “father” for many Somali artists.“He was like a father for us, and we remember his love for oud playing. We really [will miss] a legend,” she said.Hudeydi moved to Britain in 1974, where he continued to create music and perform. In 2018, the International Somali Awards honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in London.Seynab Abukar contributed to this report.
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John Prine, an American singer and songwriter whose blend of folk and country  earned him a devoted legion of fans and reverence from music greats such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen over a five-decade career, died Tuesday at age 73 from complications of the novel coronavirus.   Prine was admitted for the disease late last month at a hospital in the southeastern city of Nashville, Tennessee.  He had survived two separate bouts of cancer, the first in 1998, and the second as recently as 2013. The Kentucky-born Prine was working as a postman by day and singing in Chicago clubs at night when he was discovered by singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson in 1970.  Kristofferson was instrumental in securing Prine a record deal with Atlantic Records, releasing an album that contained such songs as “Angel from Montgomery,” about a middle-aged housewife dreaming of a better life, and “Sam Stone,” about a drug-addicted Vietnam war veteran, that would eventually become folk-country standards. Although mainstream success eluded him, Prine’s songs were covered by a cross-section of blues, country and folk singers including Johnny Cash and Bonnie Raitt, who scored a major hit with her version of “Angel from Montgomery” in 1974.  His work earned him two Grammy Awards and scores of other honors, including membership in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Prine is the latest figure of the U.S. arts community to die from COVID-19. They include Ellis Marsalis, the father of jazz luminaries Wynton, Branford, Jason and Delfayo, and a respected musician and educator in his own right; jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli; jazz trumpeter Wallace Roney; rock singer-songwriter Adam Schlesinger; country singer Joe Diffie; and playwright Terrence McNally, whose groundbreaking plays such as “Love! Valour! Compassion!” focused on the lives of gay men.
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John Prine, the ingenious singer-songwriter who explored the heartbreaks, indignities and absurdities of everyday life in “Angel from Montgomery,” “Sam Stone,” “Hello in There” and scores of other indelible tunes, died Tuesday at the age of 73.  His family announced his death from complications from the coronavirus.  Winner of a lifetime achievement Grammy earlier this year, Prine was a virtuoso of the soul, if not the body. He sang his conversational lyrics in a voice roughened by a hard-luck life, particularly after throat cancer left him with a disfigured jaw.  He joked that he fumbled so often on the guitar, taught to him as a teenager by his older brother, that people thought he was inventing a new style. But his open-heartedness, eye for detail and sharp and surreal humor brought him the highest admiration from critics, from such peers as Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson, and from such younger stars as Jason Isbell and Kacey Musgraves, who named a song after him. In 2017, Rolling Stone proclaimed him “The Mark Twain of American songwriting.” 
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A silver lining of the current pandemic is that rescue dogs are finding foster homes at higher than normal rates right now, according to the Humane Rescue Alliance, an animal welfare organization in Washington, DC.More people have also reached out about adopting than was the case pre-coronavirus, says Ashley Valm, director of adoptions at the organization’s two shelters.  Lucky dog Just ask Tom Drescher and his wife, Becky Nolin, who, after browsing online for a few months, finally settled on a terrier Pitbull mix named Goldie.  “My wife and I had been talking for quite a while about the idea of adopting a dog,” Drescher told VOA during an interview via Zoom. With both now working from home, they decided it was a perfect time to make the move.  “We kept coming back to Goldie’s profile because the photos were charming and there was a streamed video of her and we decided that it would make sense for us to get over to the Humane Rescue Alliance shelter,”  said Drescher. WATCH:Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
A dog waiting to find its forever home in its kennel at a Washington-area shelter operated by the Humane Rescue Alliance. (Courtesy Humane Rescue Alliance)Valm said while the shelters are doing everything they can to prepare for more animals, she hopes people will use this opportunity to help ease that burden.  “I think right now a lot of people are struggling with anxiety, uncertainty, maybe an adjustment in their routine, workload, working from home — there’s a lot to be focused on,” she said. “And adopting an animal – or taking an animal into your home as a foster – can provide some relief just in the form of having something positive to focus on.”    Tom Drescher couldn’t agree more.  “I think for all of us, there’s a lot of uncertainty about how our lives look now, and that continues to be true in lots of ways,” he said. “But having Goldie around and as a companion, it’s given us something to do that feels really rewarding.” Drescher added, “If you’re wondering whether or not it will in fact provide the boost of enjoyment and entertainment and love in your life, for us it definitely does and it’s definitely worth it.”   
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