Description
The Dalit Drum is a collaborative album project by the British singers and songwriters Paul Field and Garth Hewitt, independently released in 2001, manufactured and distributed by ICC.
Songs written to highlight the oppression of the ‘Dalits’ (formerly known as ‘Untouchables’) in India. The songs were written by Paul & Garth in India and incorporate location recordings of dalit drummers and musicians. Produced by Paul Field. Credits include Garth Hewitt, Paul Field, Abi Hewitt, Cliff Richard, Annie McCaig (of Nutshell fame), Mark Williamson, John Perry, Ramani Leathard, Rubita Ajanthakumar, Arju Pararajasingham and many Dalit Drummers and musicians, recorded on location in India.
Dalit is a Sanskrit word which means crushed, broken or oppressed, and it’s used in the Indian sub-continent to describe a group of over a quarter of a million low-caste people, previously known as the ‘untouchables’, whose plight has received worldwide media publicity of late. Veteran troubadours Garth Hewitt and Paul Field have produced this album to highlight the casteism that still pervades much of Indian culture and to add their musical voices to the growing international clamour for something to be done. Leaving aside the politics, the music is full of rootsy rhythms and Eastern-style melodies, with plenty of drums to the fore, which were recorded earlier this year when Garth and Paul visited India to research the album – the significance of the drum for the Dalits is that as drummers they had to touch the skins of dead animals and this is what made them untouchable. Highlight for me of a very worthy project is «Indian Sun», which Paul wrote after seeing a young child whilst in India, and the song explores the thought that this child is still blissfully unaware of the concept of prejudice; it also features lead vocal by Sir Cliff Richard (who himself, of course, was born in India). I’ve heard a few politico-Christian albums down the years that have ended up merely as histrionic rants; Messrs Hewitt and Field have crafted a thoughtful set of songs and if this album doesn’t leave its mark on your conscience, then you’ve got a heart of stone. [Trevor Kirk, Cross Rhythms, September 2001]
CD tracklist:
01. Shadows Of The World (vocals by Abi Hewitt)
02. Dance Away The tears
03. He’s Holding On
04. Dark Moon
05. Raise The Flag (vocals by Rubita Ajanthakumar)
06. I Am The Drum
07. Vicious Circle
08. Cast Out Caste
09. Indian Sun (vocals by Cliff Richard)
10. Dalit Voices
11. One Of Us
Note: CD contains a mini documentary of the Dailt Drum in form of a video clip (8min 3secs 352×288 VCD resolution) and a 5Mb PDF entitled “TheDalitDrum.pdf” . Available at Bandcamp: https://paulfield.bandcamp.com/album/the-dalit-drum-2
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