Dikir barat and me

A few days back, a friend of mine e-mailed me a mp3 dikir barat song (Kelantan folk song). It was quite a long time since I last hear a dikir barat song and that was the first time I hear it in mp3 format. We chatted about the old times and how I love Seman Wau Bulan's dikir barat songs (Seman Wau Bulan a.k.a. Semae Wa Bule in Kelantan dialect, was a famous dikir barat singer). My friend informed me that he passed away last month due to heart failure. I didn't know that until he told me. Sad...

I still remember some of his famous songs. He was famous for his Wau Bulan song (where he got his nickname). He recorded many albums, but being locally (I mean really local, here) produced, I don't think they were available in many record stores, let alone the bigger ones. His songs are catchy and some are even funny. I still remember the song "Korea" which he penned in conjunction with the Olympic Games in Korea back in the 80's. That was one really funny song - I was laughing my heart out when I first listened to the song played from my friend's cassette player (those days, cassette player was the in thing). I bet anyone who listened to the song would concur to my statement.

His voice was beautiful and captivating - I would say, a cross between Nat King Cole and SM Salim - I bet many people would agree.

I still remember, during my college days, we had to perform a dikir barat during our college's open day (ahh... another nostalgic moments that was... maybe in my next blog..). Semae Wa Bule's songs inspired me as I crooned my version as I played the part of Tok Jogho (Juara).

I must round up my friends for a karaoke session....