Murder Ballads with Chris Du Plessis

Journalist and TV-producer Chris du Plessis’ prominent career in the media has always been accompanied by musical endeavours and this is his latest.

“I’m not sure precisely where or when the original notion surfaced to put old
Afrikaans poems and verses from the first half of the previous century to music but I
remember turning two C. Louis Leipoldt poems into songs at Rhodes University for
Lit-class,” Chris explains.

Later, during the so-called Eerste Alternatiewe Afrikaanse Musiekbeweging (First Alternative Afrikaans Music Movement ), Chris helped market the famed Voelvry-tour as Arts Editor of the original Vrye Weekblad which co sponsored the event.

He grouped together some old friends had jammed with since school and composed a song for the milestone Houtstok-event called Sy’s Afrikaans Maar Sy Wil Net Engels Praat.

Shortly after this, Chris was commissioned to produce/direct a late-night music- comedy programme for the SABC he called Not Quite Friday Night. One of the main goals was to provide a platform for musicians and groups that would not have otherwise had the opportunity to appear on TV.

“A heavy-metal band from Mitchells’ Plein didn’t pitch one week,” Chris relates, “so I wrote a really silly song overnight, gathered the team again and with two other rasta-friends from Yeoville we filled the gap on the show as Die Radiators with the tune called Somersllied (aka “Fokkit Maar Dis Warm”).

The later to be Idols-judge Dave Thompson, then still with BMG records, liked it enough to sponsor a CD but when they started receiving invites to music festivals and TV-shows they were hampered by a shortage of songs so Chris included his two Leipoldt-tunes in the repertoire.

Fast forward to Covid-19 and he put more verses from an old Afrikaans anthology to music - a seemingly unrelated mix from celebratory nature-poems and mirthfully anecdotal rhymes to poems with more gothic themes including murder-ballads, drunken-laments, war-poems and tales of inner turmoil. The accompaniment ranges from traditional folk tunes and ballads, Zulu street-guitar music, reggae, bluegrass and rock&amp &roll.

The more he researched the verses, the more interesting the facts which emerged about their creators and socio-political circumstances in South Africa and it was all eventually packaged into a performance sealed with Chris’ ironic sense of humour and personal life-sketches.

“I hope purists will forgive me for adding or omitting certain words or phrases to fit the tunes,” Chris says, “but it’s all hopefully for the good cause of blowing new life into the amazing wordplay and make this particular nostalgia funny and sexy
again.”