Writer and musician Chris du Plessis will present Murder Ballads and other less cheerful cadences from the Afrikaans poetic archives on Sunday November 3 at the Alma Cafe in Rosebank, at 6pm.

“I’m not sure precisely where or when the original notion surfaced to put old Afrikaans poems and verses from the first half of the previous century to music but I remember turning two C Louis Leipoldt poems into songs at Rhodes University for Lit-class,” Chris says.

He says later, during the so-called Eerste Alternatiewe Afrikaanse Musiekbeweging (First Alternative Afrikaans Music Movement ), he helped market the Voelvry-tour as arts editor of the original Vrye Weekblad, which co-sponsored the event. He grouped together some old friends he had jammed with since school and composed a song for the Houtstok-event called Sy’s Afrikaans Maar Sy Wil Net Engels Praat.

Shortly after this, Chris says he was commissioned to produce/direct a late-night music-comedy programme for the SABC called Not Quite Friday Night. One of the main goals was to provide a platform for musicians and groups that would not have otherwise had the opportunity to appear on TV.

“A heavy-metal band from Mitchell’s Plain didn’t pitch one week,” says Chris, “so I wrote a really silly song overnight, gathered the team again and with two other Rasta-friends from Yeoville we filled the gap on the show as Die Radiators with the tune called Somersllied (aka Fokkit Maar Dis Warm).”

The later to be Idols-judge Dave Thompson, then still with BMG records, liked it enough to sponsor a CD but when they started receiving invites to music festivals and TV-shows they were hampered by a shortage of songs so Chris included his two Leipoldt-tunes in the repertoire.

Fast forward to the Covid-19 pandemic and he put more verses from an old Afrikaans anthology to music - a mix from nature poems and anecdotal rhymes to poems with more Gothic themes including murder ballads, drunken laments, war poems and tales of inner turmoil. The accompaniment ranges from traditional folk tunes and ballads, to Zulu street guitar music, reggae, bluegrass and Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Tickets cost R160. Email bookings@almacafe.com to book.

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