Peter Gabriel and World Party's Karl Wallinger may have been at the heart of Big Blue Ball, but its soul was a collective that resulted in a CD featuring more than two dozen musicians from nearly as many countries, representing six continents.
Instigated in 1991, Big Blue Ball was made in three sessions, called "recording weeks," at Gabriel's Real World Studios. Ostensibly about giving many of the Real World Records artists time for uninhibited recording, the vibe and energy created by all those talented musicians experimenting together soon became the raison d'être. Additional musicians were gathered for two more recording weeks, in 1992 and again in 1995.
During the sessions, the studios were abuzz 'round the clock, with the constant movement of a global rhythm underlying it all; musicians and singers were all "in orbit around this groove," remembers Wallinger. Americans Joseph Arthur and the Holmes Brothers, New Zealander Tim Finn, Egypt's Hossam Ramzy and Irishwoman Sinéad O'Connor collaborated with, among others, Belgium's Natacha Atlas, France's Manu Katché, the Congo's Papa Wemba and China's Guo Yue. In fact, so many musicians joined in that Daniel Lanois and Van Morrison were among those who didn't make the final cut.
Big Blue Ball has come out in fits and starts, with an earlier version of "Burn You Up, Burn You Down," starring Gabriel and the Holmes Brothers, included on Gabriel's 2003 compilation album Hit, and "Whole Thing," which features Francis Bebey, Alex Faku, Andy White, Finn, Gabriel and Wallinger, on the 2007 soundtrack for the TV series "Long Way Down."
Conceptually, Big Blue Ball reflects an astronaut's-eye-view of Earth as a whole; from space, divisions between peoples seem trivial because we're all just on a big blue ball together. "That idea," says Gabriel, "seemed to make a lot of sense for this project."
Provenance: Box, Wiltshire, England
Latest Release: Big Blue Ball (2008)
© 2008 Nigel Music Media LLC. Used by permission.
Big Blue Ball
