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Genghis blues

Threat advisory: High - High risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

Paul Peña played blues with the greats T-Bone Walker, BB King and Bonnie Raitt. In 1995, the blind blues man became the first American ever to compete in an unusual contest of throat-singing held in the Republic of Tuva.

Fifteen years ago Peña stumbled on a series of unheard sounds on Radio Moscow. Multiple voices emanated from a single vocalist and the sounds gripped him like nothing he had ever heard. For the next decade he worked to produce similar overtones with his own voice and to incorporate throat singing into his blues music.

Unexpectedly in 1993, Peña discovered that Tuvan throat singers were on their first concert tour of the USA. After the performance the deep-voiced blues man broke into his own self-taught style of throat singing and serenaded the musicians with Tuvan traditional songs. The throat singers were amazed by Peña's mastery of the Tuvan art form and likened his rich voice to the sounds of tremors in the earth. They insisted that "Chershemjer" (Earthquake) travel to Tuva for the next triennial throat singing contest which would be held in 1995. Eleven years after he first heard throat singing, Paul Peña entered the National Theatre of Tuva to make history.

Genghis blues travels with Peña on his journey to Tuva and documents the development of his friendship with Tuva's throat singing champion Kongar-Ol Ondar (described as Tuva's JFK, Elvis and Michael Jordan rolled into one) who had invited Peña three years earlier.

Persons of interest

  • Richard Feynman .... Himself (archive footage)
  • BB King .... Himself
  • Kongar-ol Ondar.... Himself
  • Paul Peña .... Himself
  • Roko Belic .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

And you thought yodelling was a strange pastime.

Throat singing - in all its manifestations - is simply another way to make sounds with human vocal equipment. In Western countries the most dynamic use of the throat et al is opera with its rich tones and broad range, closely followed by winning the AFL grand final (woo hoo!). In Tuva they have found a way to sing more than one note at a time and to use the harmonics to produce notes a human being cannot technically sing. If you want something wild to add to your choral repertoire then Sygyt, Höömeï and Kargyraa are it.

As for the documentary, well, you can tell that Adrian and Roko have been exposed to a lot of docos in their formative years (their mother told them that their TV was broken and could only receive one station: PBS) and this is a pretty darned good imitation. It has all the necessary ingredients for a documentary: historical influences, defining events, real-life drama and revelation. Paul would be enough of a subject for a documentary by himself, as would the republic of Tuva, combining them creates a rich study in cross-cultural understanding. The alert critic (ie me) notices that Genghis blues is a first effort, not through any lack but because the voice of its creators is non-existent. The best documentarians have a particular style that influences the way you see the subject without being an overt piece of propaganda. The Belic boys are still finding their feet but if they keep making docos like this they won't have long to go before they're standing tall.

Security censorship classification

M (Low level coarse language)

Surveillance time

87 minutes (1:27 hours)

Not for public release in Australia before date

Film: 30 November 2000 - Valhalla

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