How a Tiny Mediterranean Nation Rescued a Flailing Music Industry
During the Great Depression, recording giants His Master’s Voice teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. Enter Malta, the nation credited with reclaiming the music industry from obscurity.
Language.
Useful multitool for the savant-pénétrant, cruel cattle grid for the slack-jawed dimwit.
Avant-garde artsy fart, Laurie Anderson, once proclaimed in her oblique, yet overtly abstract track Language is a Virus, that, “Language. It’s a virus!” Don’t listen to it. It’s excruciating.
To be accurate, Laurie was paraphrasing one of her literary heroes, quasi-pedophile William S. Burroughs, who theorised in his brilliant experimental cut-up novel, The Ticket that Exploded, that yes, “Language is,” indeed, “a virus.” By this exclamation, Burroughs suggests that language, by it’s very existence, exerts total control over the human psyche. Speech is infectious. Words finite. Most of us find ourselves often confined within the cage of language, able to peer through the fence without the ability to escape.
Unless you are Maltese.
Steeped in ancient dialect, Maltese is the only European language that utilises Aramaic (the inaugural language) in its vocabulary. The island nation’s proximity to the Middle East and Northern Africa the expedient influence. As Malta lies smack in the middle of the Mediterranean, a proportionate amount of Latin is also spoken. The subsequent language.
Through centuries past, a plurality of Mediterranean empires have attempted to rule Malta. Consequently, this rolodex of cultural influence has helped evolve the idiom into the utilitarian prototype it is today. The term for this is Siculo-Arabic—an Arabic dialect that developed in Sicily. Add a generous helping of Italian concerns and pleasantries, a pinch of French and German loanwords, and the retroactive ingredient of colonial English, and the recipe for the most intricate dialect on the planet is complete. Forget Esperanto, Malti is the true universal language.
Quirky and esoteric, the dialect is a head-hurt.
For example: telliefa perenni—Malti for perennial loser
bridesmaid—Malti for bridesmaid
THE BRIDESMAID
Bridesmaids play an important part in cultural modernity—drunken introverts require them for release. Loosely speaking, the traditional bridesmaid cherishes her role as accoutrement to the main attraction, just not eight bloody times without being presented a trophy herself. Welcome to Malta, la bridesmaid éternel.
As I obtain lockjaw from another days-old pastizzi on the cobalt of Spinola Bay, I ponder why Malta rarely wins. Twenty Olympic Games appearances and the best muster is sixth place in the trap shoot. Does the household name of William Chetcuti mean anything to you? The native quail must be the most relaxed game bird on the planet.
To be fair, Malta’s population is minuscule (approx. 450,000), one-third of which being alcoholic Englishmen. Hardly the optimum formula for an elite sporting nation. Little wonder the despondent Maltese look to turn their attentions elsewhere.
EUROVISION SONG CONTEST
Serious business in Malta, this ostentatious bastion of middle-class tack sees Maltese entrants as prime contenders each and every year. However, no matter the talent, ultimate success continues to elude the beleaguered nation, with a 23/27 progression to the finals and a second place the best result. Script the bridesmaid.
NOT WEST AFRICAN GHANA
This may only interest the three regulars who frequent the Maltese delicatessen in Melbourne’s western suburbs for their daily Kinnie, but Malta actually holds a significant place in the annals of folk music. The genre is called ghana and, as with many other styles of folk, it is both a joyous and anti-establishment medium.
Ghana’s origins can be traced to the peasant farmers of the late 19th century who sang to pass the time while furrowing fields. The songs were simple and improvised, containing regional slang of daily observations, frustrations, and the opposite sex. Farmers would return to their villages in the evening, gathering in the streets to boast their daily compositions. As popularity increased, ghana was adopted by innkeepers, eateries, communal wash houses, and women singing from the rooftops.
“One could listen to ghana songs accompanied by a guitar or accordion, sung by men and women on sea coasts, and during popular feasts such as Lapsi. Youths used to sing ghana love songs in the open country, or the streets, or in houses during work time.”
By the late 1920s, ghana had blossomed and was creating quite the societal stir. An air of sophistication existed—ideology of the mind, ambition of the heart. Language exceeded the music as ghana’s heavy hitter, with contemporary lyrics baring the roots of lost Maltese poetry and literature. Steaming towards the ancient capital of Valletta, overseas recognition in the form of crowded passenger ships from the Tunisian horizon.
Valletta’s streets bubbled with Middle Eastern hedonists lusting for new sounds to feast upon. Music establishments thrived, while fierce promoters championed the cultural zeitgeist as an unfolding phenomenon sure to entertain the people for decades to come. Once word spread to London, ghana’s fate was sealed.
Back to language.
Doctor Brombos is a defunct satirical newspaper once considered a Maltese institution. From the handful of clippings my grandfather had collected, I gauged the male-oriented weekly in the ball park of the World Weekly News without the paranoia, and with an astute use of vocabulary. Cleverly worded jokes, humorous political observations, cartoons, and candid photos of local identities constructed the majority of each issue, which played an integral role in pre-WWII Maltese culture. Doctor Brombos also played a critical role in the popularisation of ghana, and became the unwitting saviour of one of history’s most iconic record labels, His Master’s Voice.
A BRIEF HISTORY
English multinational His Master’s Voice teetered on the edge of bankruptcy during the Great Depression. Founded in 1899 as a gramophone manufacturer, HMV turned to recording post WWI as a means to generate profit. For the next decade the label flourished, but had diminished by 1929 due to an increasingly competitive market. Meanwhile, recording peers schemed a merger to form a monopoly sans HMV’s presence.
Enter Anthony D’Amato, an HMV distributor who discovered the ghana movement in the pages of Doctor Brombos. Impressed by the talent promenading Valletta at the time, he convinced his bosses to visit Malta. Thus, in 1929, a party of drunken Englishmen invaded the capital.
Approving of the new sound, HMV, in conjunction with local entrepreneur Dr. Fortunato Habib, organised a recording trip to Tunisia for ghana performers, where, in 1929 and 1930, a prolific collection of acetates was recorded. Ultimately, the 78rpms were shipped to England for European distribution, with an occasional crate reaching the United States. In business terms, HMV sold a shitload.
For a brief but crucial period, ghana was HMV’s number one export, reaping triple the percentage of the company’s gramophone sales. Attributing their survival to Maltese folk music, HMV amalgamated with several smaller labels to form the recording giant Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI) in 1931. Who’s the bridesmaid now?
Here’s a joke ripped straight outta Brombos:
Q: How do you make a Maltese cross?
A: Go to bed with his wife.
© Chuck Hagen
