Music from the road
 

Does anyone like to collect recordings of music from the countries and places that they have visited?

Being a lover of music, I have a small collection of a few hundred albums (vinyl, CDs cassettes) and have recently started to look for recordings in countries I visit; either CDs or cassette tapes, cos they are easy to carry on a bike.

For me it is another way of keeping alive good memories of places and people.

If anyone else does this I would be very interested to read about what they found and how they found it.

I've a small collection of kora music inspired by an "open mic night" in a bar I found by chance on my first trip to West Africa twenty odd years ago. I can remember the bar quite clearly but not much else - not even which country it was in! There was some kora music being played on BBC 6Music earlier this morning and it brought a lot of that trip back.

I've been putting a "playlist" together for the across the USA trip we did in 2015. All very cliched so it starts off with Bruce Springsteen (we started from NJ). Then some bluegrass / Celtic roots stuff from the Appalachians and country stuff down as far as the Mississippi ("In my Tennessee mountain home".....). After a quick visit to Gracelands Elvis got us as far as Texas when we swapped over to some traditional blues and then west coast hippy rock as we approached California.

Next month we're touring round Canada. Unless I get inspired we might just have the radio on!

The first recording I recall acquiring was from southern Morocco in 1990. Sadly I lost that tape. I do however have a cd recorded for me by a hotel owner where I was staying in the Atlas, of some musicians playing in the hotel restaurant on a subsequent visit in 2007.

For chilled out riding in the sun I find bossa nova music very hard to beat. Seriously gentle but with terrific rhythm.