Angel in The Morning’- Yanka Rupkina

Linda Ronstadt calls the music "some of the most beautiful I've ever heard."
After listening to the same vocal group's album, Graham Nash declared: "Every musician who considers himself accomplished should listen to (this group's album) and rethink everything he knows (about singing)."
And just who is this group that not only has these pop veterans enthralled but has also stirred enough interest in British pop circles to see its album bounce onto the charts there?
Would you believe 24 women from Bulgaria, who sing Bulgarian folk songs--mostly a cappella--and dress in traditional village costumes.
The women--mostly 30-50--comprise the Bulgarian State Radio and Television Choir, and they will be at the Wiltern Theatre tonight as part of their first North American tour.

"I can't wait to see them," Ronstadt said in a phone interview this week. "I've loved this music for 25 years--ever since a friend of mine played me a record (of Bulgarian music). . . . It changed the way I thought about singing.
"There is such a purity and power to the singing. There are some Arabic singers and some flamenco singers and some Jewish cantors who I think are as good as that, but I've never heard anything better."
As Ronstadt noted, recordings of this highly distinctive Bulgarian singing group have been celebrated for years among some musicians and ethnomusicologists, but the current wave of pop fascination can be traced largely to the release in England late last year of an album titled "Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares" ("The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices").
"Until I saw their picture recently, I didn't know if the singers were old or young . . .," explained Ronstadt. "I thought about going to Bulgaria to find them, but I didn't know whether I'd have to go out to a wheat field and see people standing there with sickles in their hands or whether they would be playing at a gig in a club.

THE MYSTERY OF BULGARIAN VOICES – LE MYSTERE DES VOIX BULGARES
Female Vocal Choir used to be known all over the world as The Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir is an ensemble of rare artistic gift and enormous popular appeal.
These are the singers that won the Grammy Award and endorsement from such pop superstars as Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, George Harrison, Bobby Mcferrin, Midori and many others all over the world.

Can you share with our readers what singers leave you marveling?
… I heard Yanka Rupkina from Bulgaria. She's had an influence on many in pop music. If you ask David Crosby about her, for example, he'd rhapsodize about her, and Emmylou Harris loves her, too. I got to sing with Yanka once, and I was thrilled. She brought me Bulgarian rose, an essential oil. Its scent was intoxicating. Actually, I read about Bulgarian rose later in a great book called The Emperor of Scent (by Chandler Burr). It was about (scientist) Luca Turin. Bulgarian rose is a prized perfume around the world.

Here is a rare recording by Linda Ronstadt made with Bulgarian singer, Yanka Rupkina, from a 2000 Dutch album, Female Passion...Women Of This World....by various artists. "Angel In The Morning"was composed by Robert Jelmer with Bulgarian lyrics by Yanka Rupkina & English lyrics by Patrick Brigham. The song can also be found in a 5 CD set, Linda Ronstadt Collaborations and Rarities, a collection of rare and hard to find duets and tracks compiled by Naughty Dog. A slightly different version of the song is on a 2006 CD, Keranka: the Voice of Bulgaria by Yanka Rupkina, featuring Linda Ronstadt on the World Connection label.

…. This was also when I moved into the picture. Robert had an idea for a track which would be shared by Linda Ronstadt, Yanka Rupkina, the Dutch Symphony Orchestra and chorus. To be engineered and put together in Sofia, he needed some lyrics for Linda to sing. This was when Angel of the Morning – demon of the night – first found its way into being.

…. She goes on to talk about how she also listens to Bulgarian musicians, such as Yanka Rupkina, who she calls a ‘trancendent singer who makes the rest of us look like drooling slobs’ and talks about how hard it was to sing with her because of timing and other issues. It turns out that Bromberg also loves the Bulgarian State Orchestra and its music.

Ronstadt: Somebody told me she was in a plane crash and they hauled her off to the morgue saying she was dead. She sat up in the morgue and surprised everybody. She went off to her place in the mountains and came back with no scars, and she had been burned over some huge percentage of her body. They all said, ‘Yanka, what did you do to get better.’ And she said, “I sang and sang.” And the way she sings, I think you could cure things. Once you’re in that category, there’s no competition.