Alisha Sufit

Alisha Sufit
Background information
Born 1946 (age 68–69)
Hampstead, London, England
Associated acts Magic Carpet
Website http://www.alishasufit.com

Alisha Sufit (born 1946, Hampstead, London, England) of an English mother and Polish Jewish father, is best known as the singer-songwriter with the 1970s band Magic Carpet.[1] She is also a visual artist, poet and author.

Life

Sufit was a pupil at the Arts Educational Schools, London, where she studied dance and drama. Later she attended Chelsea College of Art, London, and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. On leaving art school she began playing guitar and writing her own songs, performing in clubs and colleges around the UK. Her repertoire consisted of her own compositions plus traditional and contemporary folk songs, self-accompanied on acoustic guitar and Appalachian dulcimer.

In 1971 Alisha Sufit joined with ex Chelsea College of Art fellow student Jim Moyes plus two musical friends to form the psychedelic progressive folk-rock band Magic Carpet. The line-up consisted of Alisha (vocals, guitar), Clem Alford (sitar, esraj, tamboura), Jim Moyes (guitar) and Keshav Sathe (tabla, Indian percussion). The band made one eponymous album, Magic Carpet, described as "one of the finest Indian-influenced psychedelic folk albums of the 1970s". After a launch at the 100 Club in London, a performance at Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth's Wavendon, radio airplay on Pete Drummond's Sounds of the Seventies on BBC Radio, plus several club and festival appearances, the group disbanded in 1972.

During the 1970s and 1980s Alisha Sufit played as supporting artiste alongside numerous musicians of the era including The Enid, Fairport Convention, Terry Reid, the guitarist Davey Graham (also known as Davy Graham), the Incredible String Band, amongst others. She was invited to appear at the Incredible String Band's I.S.B. Convention concert in Leeds in 1994.

By the 1980s Sufit was developing a repertoire of jazz standards and also writing her own jazz-oriented compositions. She made numerous performances accompanied by such musicians as Peter Ind (bass), Pete Sabberton (piano), Chucho Merchan (bass), Nick Weldon (piano), Dave McCrae (piano). The Magic Carpet album began to receive acclaim some 15 years after its release, the original LP now a sought-after collectable on the international vinyl market, currently re-released on CD by the Magic Carpet Records label. It was also reissued on EMI heavyweight vinyl, a signed limited edition that quickly sold out.

Sufit continues to work and write, with a catalogue of more than 200 songs. In 1993 she released the album Alisha Through the Looking Glass, on both CD and heavy-weight EMI audiophile vinyl. The album consists of 12 songs with instrumental contributions by Ray Warleigh on saxophone, Bernard O’Neill on bass, Magic Carpet percussionist Keshav Sathe on tabla, Mamadi Kamara on congas and percussion, Chris Haigh on fiddle and Alan Dunn on accordion. In 1994 Alisha Sufit released the album Love and the Maiden, a signed limited edition CD collection of her early recordings with sleeve notes by UK guitarist Davey Graham.

In 1996, Magic Carpet sitarist Clem Alford and Alisha Sufit collaborated again to record the album Once Moor, subtitled Magic Carpet II, featured in Sound on Sound magazine.[2] In 1999 she contributed two tracks to the compilation album Women of Heart and Mind, a collaboration of women singer-songwriters, and in 2005 she was included in the compilation album Many Bright Things, contributing her own composition Silver Witch, accompanied on mandolin and bass by Frank Defina.

In 2008 Alisha Sufit's song The Phoenix, from the Magic Carpet LP originally released in 1972, was included in the double CD album A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble (Exploding in Your Mind) released by Platipus Records and compiled by FSOL and The Amorphous Androgynous. The album was highly praised in the media by Noel Gallagher of Oasis who invited Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans of FSOL to remix the Oasis single Falling Down. Alisha Sufit appeared as featured vocalist on the track.

She also joined the live band The Amorphous Androgynous for performances in Kazan and Moscow in 2008, and in Kiev and at the Green Man and Electric Picnic festivals in 2009.

Alisha Sufit recorded The Beatles song Let It Be with The Amorphous Androgynous band for the commemorative anniversary album, Let It Be Revisited, released with Mojo magazine October 2010 [3]

Falling Upwards, a first novel by Alisha Sufit was published in November 2012 in ebook format.[4] The paperback version was published in December 2012.[5][6]

Discography

Compilations:

Featured vocals:

References

  1. ↑ Richie, Unterberger. "Biography: Alisha Sufit". Allmusic. Retrieved 13 April 2010.
  2. ↑ "MAGIC CARPET: Recording A '90s Album With A '70s Ethos". Soundonsound.com. Retrieved 2014-08-20.
  3. ↑ "MOJO Issue 203 / October 2010 | MOJO". Mojo4music.com. 2014-07-20. Retrieved 2014-08-20.
  4. ↑ "Falling Upwards eBook: Alisha Sufit: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-08-20.
  5. ↑ "Magic Carpet Books UK". Magiccarpetbooks.co.uk. 2012-12-21. Retrieved 2014-08-20.
  6. ↑ "Falling Upwards: Amazon.co.uk: Alisha Sufit: Books". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-08-20.

External links