Rattletree Marimba talks to us about the Mbira and Marimba

It's a Friday night and while most regular normal people right now are plucking their eyebrows for a riveting evening ahead, I can't seem to lure myself away from my balcony, completely enticed.  It’s just me with my overzealous chai tea, inhaling the rays of lightning as they ballet across the sky.  This impeccable display of the mighty thunder dancing around the pirouette of lightning makes me think of a comment Joel Laviolette of Rattletree Marimba told me a few weeks ago.  Over (another) cup of chai on the other side of town, he let me know that more lightning strikes in Zimbabwe than in any other country in the world.  This surprising explanation left me pondering just how much there is about Zimbabwe we don’t know about?  Well, for one thing, Zims is part of Sub-Saharan Africa from which one of the most popular music instruments called the mbira originates.  And if we want to talk mbira, then we need to speak with Rattletree Marimba, a Texas based band producing “High-Energy Dance music on GIANT handmade marimbas”.  On reading their website, the mbira has been described as ‘musical rain’, a statement I was very much intrigued by and wanted to know more.  What is the history of this music, the culture, the personality, what makes this instrument so popular, what have been some of the experiences with this band as to how it all started?

Take a look at my interview with Rattletree as I sat down with Joel Laviolette, Marshall Johnson, Blake Brunson, Danny Mee and Jacqueline May to get a glimpse of their vision http://www.rattletree.com