Скачать или смотреть Tribute to Wally Bastian , the king of Sri Lankan Baila

“Wally Bastiansz” was born on June 9, 1914 in Piyadigama, a small village about 2km north of the coast between Galle and Gintota, Sri Lanka. Wally was a singer-songwriter who developed the style of “Chorus Baila” in Sri Lanka in the 1940’s. Bastiansz was a police officer attached to the traffic division and also played in the police marching band when he began his music career. This provided him the exposure to then popular international music and tunes, some of which he later adapted to his “Baila” tunes.

His songs dealt with everyday life and simple people. One of his hits, titled “Nurse Nona”, was an ode to a hospital nurse lady, who was none other than his own sister Felicia Florence “Dolly” Jayasekera nee Bastiansz (died 1996). Florence gave up her job as a nurse in 1944 after her first child was born; later in 1969, she moved her family to the Bastiansz family ancestral home to take care of their ailing father, Hinton Wilmot Bastiansz. The old Bastiansz residence in Piyadigama, where Wally Bastiansz and all his 8 siblings were born, is now occupied by one of Florence’s sons.

Parasidu Colompure is sung by Sunil of Gypsies and Saman De Silva