My camera fell in the river just before this shoot at SXSW (yet still worked!), and someone tried to spit on us from the bridge above, but the folks with badges smiled and did not ticket us, and even the birds were quiet when gypsy-woman Kali Mutsa sang her songs to the stones and the water.
A self-invented daughter of sorts to the great Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chávarri del Castillo, aka Imma Sumack, Kali Mutsa is the alter-ego of Chilean soap-opera star Celine Reymond.
Orphaned at a young age, Kali wandering the world as a belly-dancer, until she was adopted by royalty. As a woman, she gave birth to several children -- one of whom, born with wings, and kidnapped by the circus, she sings an ode to on-cam.
Kali Mutsa is playing SOB's in NYC tonight as part of a particularly dynamite line-up, alongside The Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra, who are keeping a great music alive. The Grammy Awards' recent category kill-off shows how fully clued-out the NARAS, RIAA, et, al., are.
You can get information about tonight's show HERE. I'll see you on the dancefloor, expect to get sweaty.
Thanks, as always, to the hard-working publicists, managers and artists (for this shoot, Monica Diaz, Ryan Dawes and Celine) who made my Under The Iron Bridge sessions at Austin so much damn fun. See you next year, if some marketing manager, or tool-of-a-producer for an advertainment monopoly doesn't steal my spot.