If you are looking for the perfect Christmas gift for a friend or family member who loves the band U2 (hint, hint, mom) then you are in luck.
Some of Africa’s top musicians just paid tribute to U2’s lead singer Bono and his humanitarian efforts by recording a new album of the rock band’s cover songs.
In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2 features singer Angelique Kidjo, hip-hop band African Underground All-Stars and Soweto Gospel Choir cover some of the Irish band’s best-known material. The new album also includes a performance by Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry who teams up with Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars on U2’s 1983 song Seconds.
The album’s co-producer Shawn Amos says the tribute CD has “a lot of the familiar hooks but they are played in cadences and with instruments that are indigenous to African people.”
Buying the new tribute album will not only help you check a gift off your list you will be pleased to know your money will be going to a good cause. A percentage of the album’s sales will be donated to the Global Fund charity, which fights HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
But, Bono isn’t the only singing legend receiving a rare honor.
Elton John was recently gifted a specially made bird-feather cloak for his many visits to Maori communities.
“It’s the Maori equivalent to an Academy Award” and means the 60-year-old British singer is an honored member of the Ngati Te Whiti sub-tribe, according to the group’s chairman.
The opulent cloak has bird feathers woven into a fine flax mat and is held across the shoulders with a drawstring. According the tribe’s chairman, the presentation of the bird-feather cloak to John “is significant as it’s rarely given.”
Finally, the former hometown of legendary crooner Ray Charles is welcomed their late son back to his roots with a bronze likeness of the singer. A revolving, lighted bronze statue of Charles was unveiled in Albany, New York on Friday in the middle of a new downtown plaza that bears the R&B legend’s name.
The city’s most famous native son, born in 1930, died in 2004 at age 73.
Charles was born in Albany and moved to Florida with his mother when he was young, but he frequently returned to his hometown to visit family.