![\"Kongar-ol](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Kongar-ol-Ondar_2.jpg\")
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Tuvan throat singer Kongar-ol Ondar has died. Saw him several times after Jim Ed Norman signed him to Warner Nashville and co-produced his Back Tuva Future<\/i> album for the label in 1999. The album featured true \u201ccountry crossover\u201d titles like \u201cTuva Groove\u201d and \u201cLittle Yurt on the Prairie,\u201d and guest artists including Willie Nelson, Randy Scruggs and Bill Miller.<\/p>\n
I laughed out loud when I read The New York Times<\/i> obit on Ondar\u2014admittedly an inappropriate response.<\/p>\n
But writer Margalit Fox\u2019s description of Tuvan throat singing, the demanding Central Asian vocal art that Ondar excelled in and requires the singer to produce two or more notes simultaneously, was just too artful and funny.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the uninitiated,\u201d wrote Fox, Tuvan throat singing \u201csounds like the bewitching, remarkably harmonious marriage of a vacuum cleaner and a bumblebee.\u201d I\u2019m not sure I would have said it quite that way, but I do wish I had her facility.<\/p>\n
Fox further noted that the \u201csmall, round and beatific\u201d Ondar, who died July 25 in the southern Siberian region of Tuva at age 51, was a superstar there, \u201clike John F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley and Michael Jordan kind of rolled into one,\u201d she said, quoting from Genghis Blues<\/i>, the Oscar-nominated 1999 documentary about throat singing.<\/p>\n
But Ondar\u2019s reach, Fox said, \u201cextended far beyond the region,\u201d with international performances including prestigious gigs at the Kennedy Center and \u2026 the Grand Ole Opry!<\/p>\n
Yep, I was at that Opry gig, which must have been around Fan Fair or CMA time, 1999, and during the Back Tuva Future<\/i> sessions. Ondar came out in full regalia, during Bill Anderson\u2019s segment.<\/p>\n
Bill had been briefed just moments before by David Hoffner, the longtime playing and songwriting partner of Michael Martin Murphey, who had become a top Nashville session musician. Like Jim Ed, he was a big fan of the brilliant and eccentric Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, who was himself a fan of Tuva and Tuvan throat singing.<\/p>\n
![\"Kongar-ol](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Kongar-ol-Ondar-265x300.jpg\")
I was backstage when Hoffner explained everything to Bill, whom I met in a La Crosse, Wisconsin high school gym, shortly after I started writing about music in the mid-1970s. Even before then, I knew he was a genius from his songwriting. But how he managed to absorb Hoffner\u2019s necessarily complicated explanation of Ondar and his music in a manner of seconds, then relate it in rich detail but simple English seconds later to a packed Opry house, even I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
As Hoffner recalled in an account on his website, Bill compared Ondar\u2019s music to American country music. \u201cHe mentioned that the Tuvans sing about their sweethearts and their horses. Kongar-ol sings high like Bill Monroe, he plays a banjo like Grandpa Jones, and he wears flashy clothes like Porter Wagoner. He’s singing \u2018country music from another country.\u2019 By the time Kongar-ol stepped onto that sacred stage, the audience was primed and ready. He didn’t disappoint and received a tremendous ovation.\u201d<\/p>\n
I contacted Jim Ed, now at Curb Records as \u201cchief creative advisor,\u201d after Ondar died.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were doing a record with Bill and Steve Wariner, and Bill was incredibly gracious to do this incredible introduction for Ondar,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd here we had this guy from Tuva with an interesting story attached to him, and his dream of playing the Opry. An indigenous cowboy singer from Tuva!\u201d<\/p>\n
And I got to Whispering Bill as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in a fog that night and had no idea what I should say, but I’m glad that history recalls that I didn’t make a fool out of him\u2014or out of myself,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat a memorable occasion!\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, I remember many inspiring moments from years and years of going to the Opry, none more so than when Bill Anderson introduced Tuvan throat singer Kondar-ol Ondar to the Grand Ole Opry.<\/p>\n
It was like they\u2019d grown up together. Brothers from a much different mother.<\/p>\n
Jim Bessman<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KONGAR-OL ONDAR Tuvan Throat Singer Tuvan throat singer Kongar-ol Ondar has died. Saw him several times after Jim Ed Norman signed him to Warner Nashville and co-produced his Back Tuva Future album for the label in 1999. The album featured true \u201ccountry crossover\u201d titles like \u201cTuva Groove\u201d and \u201cLittle Yurt on the Prairie,\u201d and guest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4976],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10640"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10640"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10647,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10640\/revisions\/10647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}