Saints and Singers

This is a personal travelogue through the music and the culture of the Indus Valley as presented by the German writer and musician, Peter Pannke and photographer, Horst A. Friedrichs in 1997. Very little was known in the West about Sufi music when Peter Pannke first travelled to Pakistan in 1969. What he discovered was not only the music but also the words and images, the colours and customs which make up the extraordinarily rich cultural tapestry of the Indus Valley. The author's second visit to the country was in 1997, in preparation for a festival of Sufi music, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Pakistan in Germany. Travelling up and down the Indus, he found the music to be even richer and more varied than he had remembered. He met the musicians himself, recorded their songs, and listened to their stories. Since then, not only has the appearance of some of the Sufi shrines changed, but also many of the musicians portrayed in this book have passed away. This book guides the reader to the heart of the Sufi traditions through a combination of text, photographs and the music itself, and the two Music CDs that accompany this book.