Paul Pena
Saturday, 14 April 2007
As a lover of strange stories I enjoyed the story of Paul Pena very much. He is a blind blues singer from San Francisco. I don’t know his age, but I guess he is 60 or so. In the early nineties he heard on a short wave Russian radio some Tuvian throat singing, which hit him like a hammer.
He tought himself to sing overtones. When coincidentally (?!) a group of Tuvian musicians visit America for the first time, Paul Pena is in the audience and manages to meet these guys. When he shows them his throat singing they immediately invite him to come to Tuva, to take part in the yearly throat singing competition. Paul Pena wins in the category kargyaa (whatever that is) and is chosen audience favorite. A documentary is made of all this, and you can find a link to the makers next to the video. I tried to copy some of the information on their site, but somehow the idiots made that impossible.
This video does not has the magic of the documentary, so try to find a copy of that. It is truly amazing story.