Nick Gold | |
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Occupations |
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Years active | 1996–present |
Labels | World Circuit |
Nick Gold is a British record producer, multi-instrumentalist and music executive. He is the former CEO of World Circuit Records and the organiser of Buena Vista Social Club, a Cuban musical ensemble which he established in 1996. Gold is a two time Grammy Award winner. In 2006, The New York Times described him as a "Musical Matchmaker". [1] [2]
Gold graduated from the University of Sussex with a degree in African history, his father was a TV producer, [3] prior his graduation he started his career working in a jazz record store in London where he discovered about Arts Worldwide, an organization ran by Anne Hunt and Mary Farquharson that puts up British concerts tours for musicians from Latin America and Africa. The organization would go on and created a record company to produce recordings after high demand from audiences who wanted records. [4] Preceding the creation of the label, the organization hired Gold as the pantologist of the label and was given first appointment to find a recording studio and a producer for Kenyan musical group, Shiratti Jazz. According to the New York Times, that was his first time in a recording studio and the first time he saw a mixing console. [5]
Around early 90s, Gold bought the organization and took over. Prior that, Gold invited American musician Ry Cooder and Malian singer Ali Farka Touré in london where they passed a guitar to and fro and came to an agreement to work together in the future. [6] In 1996, he intended to bring two Malian guitarists to Cuba for sessions with Ry Cooder and a group of Cuban musicians, as an inspection in Afro-Cubanism but the guitarists didn't make it to Cuba because they were not given visas. Gold would go on and congregated more Cubans of varying ages and performing styles and founded Beauna Vista Social Club. [7]
Gold produced 1984 Grammy award-winning studio album by Ali Farka Touré, Cherie, he co-produced Buena Vista Social Club's 1996 debut studio album Buena Vista Social Club. Gold is also noted for his production, engineering and coordination credits on Toumani Diabaté, London Symphony Orchestra, Afro-Cuban All Stars, Afel Bocoum, Tony Allen, Orchestra Baobab, Djeli Moussa Diawara, Fatoumata Diawara, Cheikh Lô, Oumou Sangaré and Hugh Masekela. [8]
In 2018, Gold sold World Circuit Records to Bertelsmann Music Group.
Ryland Peter Cooder is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer, record producer, and writer. He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work, his interest in traditional music, and his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.
Buena Vista Social Club is a 1999 documentary film directed by Wim Wenders about the music of Cuba. It is named for a danzón that became the title piece of the album Buena Vista Social Club. The film is an international co-production of Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Cuba.
Rubén González Fontanills was a Cuban pianist. Together with Lilí Martínez and Peruchín he is said to have "forged the style of modern Cuban piano playing in the 1940s".
Buena Vista Social Club was a musical ensemble primarily made up of Cuban musicians, formed in 1996. The project was organized by World Circuit executive Nick Gold, produced by American guitarist Ry Cooder and directed by Juan de Marcos González. They named the group after the members' club of the same name in the Buenavista quarter of Havana, a popular music venue in the 1940s. To showcase the popular styles of the time, such as son, bolero and danzón, they recruited a dozen veteran musicians, some of whom had been retired for many years.
Afro-Cuban All Stars is a Cuban band led by Juan de Marcos González. Their music is a mix of all the styles of Cuban music, including bolero, chachachá, salsa, son montuno, timba, guajira, danzón, rumba and abakua.
Ibrahim Ferrer was a Cuban singer who played with the group Los Bocucos for nearly forty years. He also performed with Conjunto Sorpresa, Chepín y su Orquesta Oriental, and Mario Patterson. After his retirement in 1991, he was brought back in the studio to record with the Afro-Cuban All Stars and Buena Vista Social Club, in March 1996. He then toured internationally with these revival groups and recorded several solo albums for World Circuit, before his death in 2005.
Buena Vista Social Club is a studio album by Buena Vista Social Club, an ensemble of Cuban musicians directed by Juan de Marcos González and American guitarist Ry Cooder. Produced by Cooder, it was recorded at Havana's EGREM studios in March 1996 and released on September 16, 1997, through World Circuit internationally and Nonesuch Records in the United States. It is the only standard studio album exclusively credited to the Buena Vista Social Club.
Talking Timbuktu is the 1994 collaboration album between Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré and American guitarist/producer Ry Cooder. The guitar riff from the song "Diaraby" was selected for the Geo-quiz segment of The World PRI-BBC radio program and was retained by popular demand when put to a vote by the listeners. In 2009, the album was awarded a gold certification from the Independent Music Companies Association which indicated sales of at least 100,000 copies throughout Europe.
World Circuit is a British world-music record label, established in London in the mid-1980s, that specializes in Cuban and West African recording artists, among other international music stars. The label's founding principle was to be an artist-led company with all aspects of each release tailored to the artist. This continues to be the label's way of working. World Circuit celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2006 by releasing World Circuit Presents..., a 2-disc retrospective compilation album. In 2018, World Circuit was acquired by BMG Rights Management.
In the Heart of the Moon is a 2005 record by Malian musicians Ali Farka Touré on the guitar and providing vocals and Toumani Diabaté on the kora. The album was recorded in the "Toit de Bamako" conference room on the top floor of the Hotel Mandé overlooking the Niger River in Bamako, Mali. It is the first in a three-part series released on World Circuit Records entitled "The Hotel Mandé Sessions" followed by Savane and Boulevard de l'Independence. The album's title is derived from Touré's own more lengthy descriptive title for the recording session; "A very important meeting in the realm at the heart of the moon."
Savane is the final solo album by Malian musician Ali Farka Touré. It is the third and final part of the Hôtel Mandé Sessions, featuring Touré and Toumani Diabaté, recorded by World Circuit head Nick Gold. The album was released posthumously by World Circuit on 17 July 2006, more than four months after Touré's death.
Juan de Marcos González is a Cuban bandleader, musician and actor, best known for his work with the Buena Vista Social Club and in the 2021 Sony Pictures Animation film Vivo as the voice of Vivo's owner, Andrés.
Manuel "Puntillita" Licea was a Cuban popular singer. Puntillita was active in the 1940s and 1950s, and later gained notice when he joined other elderly Cuban musicians to form the Afro-Cuban All Stars and the associated group of singers who recorded the Buena Vista Social Club with American guitarist Ry Cooder.
Manuel Galbán was a Grammy-winning Cuban guitarist, pianist and arranger, most notable for his work with Los Zafiros, Ry Cooder and the Buena Vista Social Club. He died on July 7, 2011, of cardiac arrest at his home in Havana, Cuba.
Mambo Sinuendo is a studio album released by Cuban performer Manuel Galbán and producer Ry Cooder. The album was the first number-one album in the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart for Galbán and the second for Cooder, and won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Album at the 46th Grammy Awards.
Ali Ibrahim "Ali Farka" Touré was a Malian singer and multi-instrumentalist, and one of the African continent's most internationally renowned musicians. His music blends traditional Malian music and its derivative, African American blues and is considered a pioneer of African desert blues. Touré was ranked number 76 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 37 on Spin magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
African blues is a genre of popular music, primarily from West Africa. The term may also reference a putative journey undertaken by traditional African music from its homeland to the United States and back. Some scholars and ethnomusicologists have speculated that the origins of the blues can be traced to the musical traditions of Africa, as retained by African-Americans during and after slavery. Even though the blues is a key component of American popular music, its rural, African-American origins are largely undocumented, and its stylistic links with African instrumental traditions are somewhat tenuous. One musical influence that can be traced back to African sources is that of the plantation work songs with their call-and-response format, and more especially the relatively free-form field hollers of the later sharecroppers, which seem to have been directly responsible for the characteristic vocal style of the blues.
AfroCubism is a Grammy-nominated album featuring musical collaborations between musicians from Mali and Cuba. It was released in 2010.
Jerry Boys is a classically trained British record producer, and engineer, noted for his works with The Beatles, Omara Portuondo, Pink Floyd, Ibrahim Ferrer, The Kronos Quartet, Everything but the Girl, The Shadows, John Lee Hooker, Richard Thompson, The Rolling Stones, Ali Farka Touré, Steeleye Span, Shakira, R.E.M, Buena Vista Social Club, Sandy Denny, Olivia Chaney, Toumani Diabaté, Shirley Collins, Yehudi Menuhin, Orchestra Baobab, Manfred Mann, Level 42, and Ry Cooder.
Buena Vista Social Club is a 2023 stage musical, with a book by Marco Ramirez and featuring the music recorded by the ensemble musician group Buena Vista Social Club.