Blasts from the Past: 40 Overlooked Masters Who Still Stire our Souls

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Umm Kulthumm (1904?1975)
The greatest diva who ever lived? Any cab driver in Cairo will tell you it was Umm Kulthumm, the turbo-throated Egyptian beauty whose voice still resonates from radios and tape decks wherever the Arab diaspora has spread. Kulthumm (or Kalsoum, or Kalthum?transcriptions vary) went from peasant girl to singing stateswoman for Egypt and the Arab world, partly because of her populist appeal and quick embrace of new media?radio, TV, film?but mainly because of her incredible voice. She became, and remains, the ?Voice of Egypt.? (CD: Umm Kalthum 2000; Piranha, 2001)
?Keith Goetzman

Kabir (1440?1518)
Born a Muslim in northern India, Kabir studied with a Hindu guru?but in his rough-hewn spiritual verse he declares independence from both faiths, praising a God beyond sects and slamming greedy gurus and pompous imams alike. With the fierceness of a Zen master, he encourages seekers to shun illusion and embrace their own truth: ?I?ve burned my own house down,? he sings. ?Now I?ll burn down the house of anyone / Who wants to follow me.? (Book: The Kabir Book, translated by Robert Bly; Beacon Press, 1993)
?Jon Spayde

Th?odore G?ricault (1791?1824)
A chaotic genius, G?ricault helped overthrow the chilly neoclassicism that dominated art at the beginning of the 19th century. His most celebrated work, The Raft of the ?Medusa,? upset the canons of French art by using the gigantic scale of history paintings to tell a tale right out of the newspapers: a scandal-tinged shipwreck. The sensation that this overwhelmingly dramatic and up-to-the-minute painting caused blew fresh air into the art establishment and helped set the stage for the triumph of romanticism. Later, he plumbed psychological depths in his portraits of the insane patients of a doctor friend. G?ricault rejected formal art training, studying instead in galleries of the Louvre (until he was banned for fighting); he had an affair?and a child?with his own aunt; and he died young after a fall from his horse. (Book: G?ricault: His Life and Work, by Lorenz Eitne; Cornell University Press, 1983) ?Joseph Hart

Henry Cowell (1897?1965)
A playful innovator who followed his own ear rather than convention, Henry Cowell composed enduring modern classical works. He taught himself the piano as a boy, and despite his extensive later musical training, his compositions retain the sense of playful discovery?ranging from sensual, atonal works for scratched, rubbed, and plucked piano strings, to charming and intricate little songs. His fascination with rhythm and international musical traditions keeps his music approachable and intellectually engaging. A formidable theorist, he invented new notations and explored topics ranging from the then new ?mechanical recording? to music theory. Cowell published scores of essays (with his uncredited wife, Sidney Hawkins Robertson Cowell) that helped turn obscure contemporaries and disciples like Charles Ives and John Cage into luminaries. (Book: Essential Cowell: Selected Writings on Music, by Henry Cowell; McPherson & Co., 2002)
?Joseph Hart

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