Sharing a birthday, as she does, with a whole host of randomly-assorted notables such as much-missed "national treasure" Dame Vera Lynn, the simply faboo Ultra Naté, the Roman poet Ovid, William Hurt, Henrik Ibsen, Holly Hunter, Sir Michael Redgrave, Hal Linden, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Theresa Russell, Paul Junger Witt, Carl Reiner, Spike Lee, David Thewlis and Sister Rosetta Tharpe...
... the sublime Miss Natacha Atlas is 60 years old today!!
A longtime favourite singer here at Dolores Delargo Towers - we have three of her albums in our vast collection, including the marvellous Ayeshteni as pictured above - Miss Atlas was born in Brussels to a British mother and Egyptian father, and hers was a bit of an esoteric "hippy" upbringing by all accounts (despite being brought up in less-than-exotic Northampton in the East Midlands). It was almost inevitable that she would end up in the entertainment industry, taking up belly-dancing and eventually becoming the core singer of the arthouse fusion music group Transglobal Underground - whose blend of techno and house with less familiar Asian, Arabic and African rhythms hit the zeitgeist of the late 90s amid a rise in popularity of "World Music".
She is probably most familiar to a wider audience for her collaboration with David Arnold on his Shaken and Stirred James Bond theme covers project, to which she contributed this:
Here's another couplet of familiar tunes of hers [I have featured both here before, bien sûr]:
This one is a perfect example of the "fusion music" style of Transgobal Underground (who produced it for Natacha's solo debut album Diaspora):
A fitting one for today, the Spring Equinox [it's all uphill from here, folks, as the days officially become longer than the nights!]:
And to finish, a bit of high camp...
Makes me want to whop me tablah out and get shimmying... Lord knows, I've got the belly for it!
Many happy returns, Natacha Atlas (born 20th March 1964)
