Missing In Action

I am not going to around here much between now and mid-April. I would not want you worrying so I thought I should mention it now.

The reason is because I won't be in the UK much. I fly off tomorrow afternoon for a work trip to Mumbai after which my schedule goes: a side trip to Udaipur in Rajasthan to see the sights, home for two days, work trip to Brussels, home for four days, a visit to Cape Town to see Mother Goggins and other family members, home for three days, one more work trip - this one to the bleak, desolate island of Mauritius - before finally coming home for a lie-down.

I'll try to do an occasional post while I'm home doing my laundry and changing my socks but just in case I don't manage it I thought I would prepare a mini version of my tour for you covering all the stops. So we have a song about Mumbai (Mr Dixit himself is from Mysore) followed by musicians from Rajasthan, Brussels, Cape Town and Mauritius.

I'll be seeing Khateÿm live while I am in Brussels as a sort of phonetic warm-up for seeing Khayem while I am in Bristol later in the year. They are teaming up with an outfit called Mange Ferraille for an evening of metal drone bouzouki music. That's far too mainstream for some of you hipsters I expect, but I'm not afraid to be naff.

The only aspect of the grand tour that I wasn't looking forward was the amount of flying - it involves six flights of 10-12 hours duration - but then I remembered the wise words of Chris Farlowe. Air travel is thing of the day!

"I'm In Mumbai Waiting For A Miracle" - Raghu Dixit

"Hari Om Shiva Song" - Dewara Family

"Soukout" - Khateÿm

"Woza" - Louis Moholo-Moholo's Viva La Black 

"Eliza" - Georgie Joe

"Air Travel" - Chris Farlowe

Maybe one day they'll make a movie of my adventures.

Too Many R.I.P.s

There are just far too many good artists dying at the moment. In the last five days alone we've lost Jerry Butler, Gwen McCrae, Ken Parker, Bill Fay and Roberta Flack. This has to stop.

RIP to all of them but particularly Ms Flack who I had the pleasure of meeting once forty years ago when I was a youthful security guard at the Barbican in London and she performed there. I was designated to act as her minder at the merch stall. Very gracious she was too.

"Need To Belong" - Jerry Butler

"Maybe I'll Find Somebody New" - Gwen McCrae

"My Whole World Is Falling Down (Extended Mix)" - Ken Parker

"The Healing Day" - Bill Fay

"When It's Over" - Roberta Flack

The Wikki-Wookie Song

It is sometimes claimed that resistance is futile but that is not a charge you could level at Brother Resistance.

His Brotherness was a leading purveyor of the Trinidadian music style known as rapso, a combination of rap and soca pioneered in the 1970s by Lancelot Layne, Trinidad's equivalent of Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets.

Brother Resistance himself was active as a recording artist from 1981 to the mid 2000s, initially with the Network Rapso Riddim Band and then under his own name. He sadly passed away in 2021 aged only 66. Today's selection are the opening two tracks from his 1986 album "Rapso Take Over", the second being the dub version of the first.

"Star Warz Rapso" - Brother Resistance

"Rapso Space Dub" - Brother Resistance

The break-dancers among may have spotted that the title of this post is a very poor pun on "The Wikki-Wikki Song", the sub-title of Newcleus's 1983 smash "Jam On Revenge". Here are assorted young folks of the era doing their thing to it, followed by Brother and Band from around the same time.

Bedsitter Images

Sir Khayem of Dubhed has been working his way through the 1990s using his customarily excellent mixtapes as a year by year guide.It is all a bit dangerously modern to me but I tune in to learn about what the young people are listening to.

If you happened to dip into the comments section of his recent review of 1994 you will find some desperate individuals trying to outdo each other by boasting about the squalor of the bedsits they lived in at the start of their working lives. C won thanks to the bloodstained clothes she found left in the wardrobe (and she has now followed that up with another trip down Memory Lane over at her place).

All the bedsit talk got me thinking about Al Stewart's 1967 debut album "Bedsitter Images". It is somewhat patchy - 1969's "Love Chronicles" was a great leap forward - but it has its moments, including these two.

I have been a fan of Al for many years, partly due to the influence of my cool Auntie who first heard him when she used to hang out at the likes of Les Cousins back in the day. She and I saw him live at the Albert Hall some years ago and I am off to see him again when he tours in October. He will be turning 80 just before then and this is billed as his last tour of the UK and Ireland. If you are keen to catch him the full tour dates are here.

"Bedsitter Images" - Al Stewart

"Beleeka Doodle Day" - Al Stewart

Some more Al, then some more bedsits. I encourage you to join in the chorus on Al's song. All together now - "Pork Sausages!"

Maximum Stax

On the flight back from a work trip last week I had time to watch all four episodes of the HBO documentary series 'Stax: Soulsville U.S.A.', which was originally broadcast last year.

It is definitely worth watching for the vintage clips of the performers and of the social context of the time like the Memphis sanitation strike and the King assassination. But as the series progressed I found myself getting a bit irritated, for two reasons.

The first was that proceedings became increasingly dominated by Al Bell, a man who appears to be a stranger to self-reflection. According to him he was the prime reason for the label's rise but bore absolutely no responsibility at all for its demise, being just a victim of circumstance and a racist plot.

To be fair he undoubtedly made a major contribution from the time he arrived as director of promotions in 1965 and later as co-owner and then sole owner. Arguably the label would not have survived Atlantic Records severing ties in 1968 and taking the whole back catalogue without him. It is also true that CBS treated Stax very shabbily after Mr Bell signed a distribution deal with them in 1972 shortly after becoming sole owner.

But at the time he took over Stax had just had chart-topping singles and albums from the likes of Jean Knight, Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers and the studios were generating fees as a result of being hired by the likes of Elvis Presley. Yet they were bankrupt in under three years, and you have to suspect that some of the decisions Mr Bell took - such as trying to expand into the rock and pop markets - may have contributed. 

The second irritation was all the artists who didn't get a look in. Quite rightly there was a lot of focus on the likes of Booker T & The MGs, Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding and Sam & Dave and the clips of them live on stage are fantastic (especially Sam & Dave).

They managed to fit in a clip featuring one of Mr Bell's late signings, the Scottish Queen of Soul herself, Lena Zavaroni (no disrespect intended to Lena, but possibly a sign that they had lost their way a bit by then). But somehow across the four hours that the series lasts they could not find room for the likes of Eddie Floyd, William Bell or even the mighty Staple Singers (which must be bordering on sacrilege).  

In summary, its a good series but it could have been better still with a more balanced commentary and by including more of the many amazing artists on the label.

Here are some of those who did not make the cut, and one who did.  

"Born Under A Bad Sign" - Albert King

"Big Bird" - Eddie Floyd

"Backfield In Motion" - Mel & Tim

"My Main Man" - The Staple Singers

"I'm Gonna Cry A River" - Little Milton

"I Forgot To Be Your Lover" - William Bell

Monday's Long Song

I don't often join in the Monday's Long Song thing as there are several other top notch blogs that already have it well covered, as you can see from the list on the right. But when I do I like to go proper long. There's none of those weedy seven or eight minute efforts here.

It is that spirit that we bring you some vintage Hausa Afrobeat from Kano in Nigeria. If you have 17 minutes 44 seconds to fill there won't be many better ways of doing so than giving this a listen. And after that you can go over to the BBE label's Bandcamp page and listen to some more.

"Wakar Alhazai" - Tabansi Studio Band

Needless to say I could not find any videos of the Studio Band, so here instead are their fine compatriots Mad Melon and Mountain Black with Monday's Long Video. Nine minutes long, the music starts about a third of the way in.

Go!-A-Go-Go!

Last week I featured the groovy pop sound of Chinese American Bear. In the comments on the post the ever astute Khayem observed that their "joyous energy" reminded him of The Go! Team, a band that I have long admired.

A quick search through the archives revealed that, apart from a couple of videos, the Team have not featured on these pages since way back in 2012. Time to put that right.

Here is a track apiece from their three most recent albums, "Semicircle" (2018) and "Get Up Sequences Part One" and "Part Two" (2021 and 2023). Set your energy to joyous and go, team, go!

"Mayday" - The Go! Team

"A Memo For Maceo" - The Go! Team

 "Look Away, Look Away" - The Go! Team (with Star Feminine Band)

Other energetic Go's are available.