The first little Dottie guy to get a Malagasy preliminary name is a Tri-color cutey who we now call "Gary" after D'Gary, a great acoustic guitarist, composer and arranger. D'Gary, whose real name is Ernest Randrianasolo, was born in Madagascar's capitol, Tananarive [aka "Tana"], in 1961. I worked with a relative of his who was minister of the Parc Zoologique Tsimbaza in Tana. D'Gary is one of the only Bara tribes people to rise to popular music fame. The Bara people are cattle herders and cattle rustlers not unlike those of the American Wild West a century and a half ago. Their frontier towns are wild places where spears are employed like six shooters, especially when there's a dispute in a bar after a cattle drive. But I digress. D'Gary is a thoroughly contemporary and refined city slicker. His group is called "Jihe." Like the other Gasy pop stars here you can often find D'Gary's music for sale in CDs at Amazon.com, Borders Books and Barnes & Noble. My favorite D'Gary album is "Horombe." Meet Gary...

His Tri-color bro (below) is now "Miary" [pronounced "me-ARE-ee"]. Miary Lepiera--a young guitarist, vocalist, composer--is one of the very latest and certainly most avant garde of all Malagasy pop stars. Miary's group plays Europe all the time and in fact consists of people from all over the world--his lead vocalist is a Greek woman. Next to the music of Rossy (which is a cross between traditional Malagasy music and New Age symphonic rock style), I prefer Miary Lepiera's music the most. Many contemporary Malagasy, however, criticize Miary Lepiera's music as too eclectic and not Malagasy enough. In Madagascar as in the West, when you get critics riled you are probably doing something right! Check out his CD "Soro."

Click below to see the other two brothers and their great new names.