Albania!

Image from Folk and Popular Music of Albania
32.5" x 16"
oil on wood, 2011

Aah...Albania! I once flew over it on my way to Greece for a vacation. Greek records I have quite a few but as far as I'm aware there are only three songs in my record collection recorded in Albania. All made it one time or another into a Top 100. All are of folk music and at least two of them were originally commercial 78 shellac discs from before 1945. The latest is Vome Kabà by Jonuzi Me Shokët, recorded in Tirana in 1930. It appears on Sprigs of Time, a compilation of old 78s I acquired last year. I never found an image of Jonuzi Me Shokët or of any of the other Albanian performers I have on record but still had to paint a painting. In my running list of songs for the Top 100 2010 Vome Kabà used to have a star in front of it to designate that it still needs a painting. That star had been staring at me for almost half a year before I finally typed in the words "Folk Music of Albania" and clicked "image" on my Google menu bar. Of course there exists a record named Folk Music of Albania and I'd seen it before, they used to have in the Columbus library system. Not interested in its graphics I found Folk and Popular Music of Albania right next to it and on the cover two vintage photographs of the cutest (Albanian, I assume) girls appear. It's unlikely that there are female performers on Vome Kabà but it didn't keep me from painting one of the girls (the cutest of the cutest) as a placeholder. I wish I had that record Folk and Popular Music of Albania, or Folk Music of Albania for that matter as it would fit so nicely with Folk music of Rumenia and Folk Music of Yugoslavia, that also appear in this year's list.