The Naigani Serenaders – Volume 1

Recorded live in the lounge-room ‘studio’ of the Koroi family home, Vuci Road, Nausori, Fiji by Dr Robert Wolfgramm – former Lecturer at Monash University, Editor of the Fiji Daily Post newspaper and Editor of the New Fijian Translation of the Holy Bible.

In the early 1990s, this sheltered white boy from Beaumaris undertook studies through the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Monash University, Frankston. In my second year I met and was taught by the amazing Fijian Sociologist Dr Robert Wolfgramm. From him I learned fundamentals in the Sociology of Indigenous and Ethnic Relations, the Sociology of Religions and the Sociology of Popular Music. Robert changed the course of my life. We became close friends, he invited me to stay for a couple of months with him in his ancestral village of Qamea in group of small, remote islands north of Taveuni.

As our friendship progressed I served as Best Man at his wedding to Lupe Koroi and when we returned to Australia, Robert suggested that me and steel guitarist Terry McCarthy (now with The Special) join with members of the local Frankston Fijian community Luke Cama (RIP), Male Lete and George Atu in forming a Fijian-language singing band called ‘The Bula Brothers’. Recording for SBS radio and playing festivals and community events, the Bula Brothers stayed together for 6 years, forming life-long friendships and shared memories.

Fast forward about 10 years, Robert announced that he was to take over the role of Editor of the non-Rupert Murdoch owned daily newspaper in Fiji, the Fiji Daily Post. Robert stayed in the job for several years, providing the only non-coerced voice in the island’s political climate, before at gunpoint, the newspaper was shut down by the military coup government led by Frank Bainimarama.

Despite the stresses and fear for his life and that of his family that Robert experienced, he chose to remain in Fiji and do his bit to keep up the spirits of his people. Robert joined the team tasked with providing the first Fijian translation of the Bible for over 100 years, updating erroneous translations, and correcting out of date historical and European Colonial oversights inherent in the earlier translation. Christianity is of course a huge part of life in the Islands.

To lighten his spirits from the heavy burden of the biblical translation, Robert used his love of music and technical nouse towards ‘his soul music’, the music of Fijian grog (or kava) bands. The music unique to the Pacific Islands and he decided to record it en plein air as best captures the dynamic and soulful spirit of the singers and instrumentalists of Fiji. Too often a ‘safe’ and clinical studio-approach has been taken to Developing World musics, so when I received a CD in the post in 2012, it was so incredibly refreshing to hear the music as it should be played and heard, live and lively, recording outside on the porch, kava in reach, long into the night. Cheap instruments sure, but such raw beauty. The Musicologist in me delights here the absence of standardized Western tuning, so ingrained in most ‘Folk Musics’ since the invention of the piano-accordion, that one barely hears diverse cultures anymore, rather merely exhibits of a homogenous ‘World Music.’ Here is something different; proudly OF its culture, something you cannot replicate elsewhere.

Anyway, enough about politics; this music is BEAUTIFUL. Truly SO Beautiful. Play it on a summer’s day when you want to deeply relax. The voices soaring, the polyrhythms bewitching. True art is made here.  Add kava into the mix and the high is even further extended, but even with plain water the effect is captivating. Delightful and beguiling.

The Naigani Serenaders are: Siriaki Boleasi (guitar, vocals), Dan Johnson (uke, guitar, vocals), Tevita Matakarawa (uke, guitar, vocals – now deceased), Iowane Salaibula (guitar, vocals), Jone Soro (uke, guitar, vocals), and Iliesa Tadulala (uke, vocals).

The Naigani Serenaders Vol. 1 is available through i-Tunes and Spotify

As a footnote, I thought it might be interesting to add that Robert is a nephew of the legendary steel guitarist Bill Wolfgramm and father of the vocalists ‘The Wolfgramm Sisters’ who have worked with everybody from INXS to the Avalanches, to Ed Shearan. And in the 1970s, Robert released his own gospel records on the Galilee label.