Dienstag, 31. Mai 2011

Super Eagles - Viva Super Eagles (Gambia, 1968)

The Gambian band Super Eagles were pioneers of popular music in the Senegambian region at the end of the 1960s/start of the 70s, delivering a progressive blend of afrocuban, pop, soul, bluebeat, Congolese rumba, highlife and ndagga music. Using Wolof lyrics & rhythms, ndagga is the basis of what was to become 'mbalax'. During their five year existence, the Super Eagles became one of the best travelled bands in West Africa.

Apart from the LP 'Viva Super Eagles' they released 4 singles, recorded in the Ghana Film Studios, which at the time was one of the few West African studios with sophisticated recording facilities.

Tracklist:
(A) VIVA SUPER EAGLES (Touray,Cham)
      DOHI GUDI BAHUT (D.Ndiaye)
      GAMBIA SU NOUS RAEW (O.Ndiaye,Jobe)
      ADUNA POTI NDALA (Cham,Gassama)
      LOVE'S A REAL THING (Touray,Jobe)
      HEY JODE (Lennon,McCartney)
  (B) GAMBIA ZAMBIA-AFRICAN UNITY (O.Ndiaye)
      DON'T DO THAT TO ME (Touray,Jobe)
      TAGU NEIN LEIN (Cham,O.Ndiaye,D.Ndiaye)
      ALIEU GORI-MAMI (O.Ndiaye)
      FALSE LOVE (Touray,Valentine)
      GAIL GAIN CHI RABI (Trad.)

Super Eagles - Viva Super Eagles (Gambia, 1968)
(192 kbps, front cover included)

Samstag, 28. Mai 2011

Gil Scott-Heron - Live at the Village Gate, New York 1976 (Bootleg)

The poet passed away. But his music will stay.

Enjoy this great show with some fantastic live tracks from Gil Scott-Heron playing the Village Gate in New York in 1976.

Tracks:
01. Intro Jam
02. 17th Street
03. Must Be Something We Can Do
04. It's Your World
05. Home Is Where The Hatred Is
06. Johannesburg

Gil Scott-Heron - Live At The Village Gate, New York (1976)
(320 kbps, front & back cover included)

Gil Scott-Heron is dead - Rest in peace!

Sad, sad news...

Gil Scott-Heron died yesterday in a New York hospital aged 62, after becoming sick on returning from a European trip.
His style melded jazz, blues political expression and spoken-word poetry on songs such as "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", which critiqued mass media in the 1970s.
His influence on generations of rappers and hip-hop artists has been demonstrated through sampling of his recordings by artists, including Kanye West.
Although Scott-Heron was often called the "Godfather of Rap", it was a title he rejected.
“It might have been that there was music in certain poems of mine, with complete progression and repeating 'hooks’ which made them more like songs than just recitations with percussion,” he wrote, in an introduction to a collection of poems, in 1990.

Instead, he referred to his work as “bluesology” or “black American music”.

Scott-Heron’s most recent album "I’m New Here", released last year, was widely acclaimed and brought him to the attention of a new generation. As news of his death was announced, modern artists including Chuck D of Public Enemy paid tributes.
Throughout his musical career, the poet and musician took on political issues of his time, including apartheid in South Africa, and nuclear arms. Before turning to music, he was a novelist, who published a murder mystery, called The Vulture, at the age of just 19.

Freitag, 20. Mai 2011

Dock Boggs - Legendary Singer and Banjo Player (Folkways, 1964)

Dock Boggs was just one of the primeval hillbillies to record during the '20s, forgotten for decades until the folk revival of the '60s revived his career at the twilight of his life. Still, his dozen recordings from 1927 to 1929 are monuments of folk music, comprised of fatalistic hills ballads and blues like "Danville Girl," "Pretty Polly," and "Country Blues." Born near Norton, VA, in 1898, Boggs was the youngest of ten children. (He gained his nickname at an early age, since he was named after the doctor who delivered him.) Boggs began working in the mines at the age of 12. In what remained of his spare time, he began playing banjo, picking the instrument in the style of blues guitar instead of the widespread clawhammer technique.

Boggs began picking up songs from family members and the radio. He married in 1918 and began subcontracting on a mine until his wife's illness forced him to move back to her home. He worked in the dangerous moonshining business and made a little money playing social dances.

His big break finally came in 1927, when executives from the Brunswick label arrived in Norton to audition talent. He passed (beating out none other than A.P. Carter), and recorded eight sides in New York City for the label. Though they didn't quite flop, the records sold mostly around Boggs' hometown. He signed a booking agent, and recorded four more sides for W.E. Myer's local Lonesome Ace label. The coming of the Great Depression in late 1929 put a hold on Boggs' recording career, as countless labels dried up. He continued to perform around the region until the early '30s, however, when his wife forced him to give up his music and go back into the mines. Boggs worked until 1954, when mechanical innovations forced him out of a job.

Almost a decade later, in 1963, folklorist Mike Seeger located Boggs in Norton and convinced him to resume his career. Just weeks after their meeting, Boggs played the American Folk Festival in Asheville, NC. He began recording again, and released his first LP, "Legendary Singer & Banjo Player", later that year on Smithsonian/Folkways. Two more LPs followed during the '60s, although, like his original recordings, they too were out of print not long after his death in 1971.

The revival of interest in early folk music occasioned by a digital reissue of Harry Smith's "Anthology of American Folk Music" finally brought Boggs' music back to the shelves. In 1997, John Fahey's Revenant label released "Complete Early Recordings (1927-1929)", and one year later "His Folkways Years (1963-1968)" appeared.


Dock Boggs - Legendary Singer And Banjo Player (1964)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Montag, 16. Mai 2011

Dr. Alimantado - Born For A Purpose


Doctor Alimantado was born James Winston Thompson in Kingston 1952.
He grew up in the ghetto of the city's west side, an area notorious for its poverty and violence.

The fine but only sporadically productive Doctor Alimantado made two albums for the Greensleeves label in the mid-'70s. After completing the widely praised "Best Dressed Chicken in Town", he released "Born for a Purpose", which consists of second-string material from the same recording sessions and is consequently not quite as consistently excellent. Still, there are some great tracks here, notably the exquisite title song (presented in an extended 12" mix), an ode to Muhammed Ali that is strongly reminiscent of some of Glen Brown's work of the same period, and a paradoxically cheerful-sounding song of warning entitled "Careless Ethiopians Repent." Doctor Alimantado's clear, sweet voice is a constant delight throughout, and his skill as a DJ is almost matched by his singing ability. The backing rhythms are provided by a shifting cast that includes members of the Revolutionaries, Roots Radics, and the Aggrovators and, while no producer apart from Doctor Alimantado himself is given credit, at least a couple of mixes bear the strong stylistic mark of Bunny Lee.

(256 kbps, front & back cover included) 

Donnerstag, 12. Mai 2011

Johnny Cash - Live At Newport 1964

This is a soundboard recording by Johnny Cash at Newport Folk Festival, Newport, RI, July 25, 1964 in a very good sound quality. Enjoy it!

Tracklist:
1. Intro by Pete Seeger / Big River
2. Folsom Prison Blues
3. I Still Miss Someone
4. Rock Island Line
5. Don't Think Twice It's Alright
6. I Walk the Line
7. The Ballad of Ira Hayes
8. Keep on the Sunny Side

Johnny Cash - Live At Newport 1964
(320 kbps, front cover included)