In belated recognition of Sir Elvis Costello's 70th birthday earlier in the week here are a couple of tracks from his 1986 album "King Of America". It is one of my favourite albums of his and a fine reminder of when he went by the name of Mr Show.
It also gives us the excuse to lead off the videos with what is not just the best cover version of a song from "King Of America" but one of the best covers of anything ever in the whole world.
If you are expecting the usual rigorously researched and meticulously mixed playlist today you are out of luck. It is not because I don't care about the music of South Africa, but because I care too much.
By way of background, my family emigrated to South Africa in the early 1970s. I moved back to the UK in 1979 and have been here ever since but a lot of my family are still over there and I visit them at least once a year. As a result I have acquired a huge amount of South African music over the last 50 years or so.
I set off with the intention of trying to bring some order to the chaos, but even after rigorous cutting and hiving off the stars of Tsonga Disco into a separate post I was left with a 'shortlist' of around 100 artists. So then I gave up and just picked 12 songs I like. I make no claims that my selection is remotely representative of the South African music scene. It isn't.
Today's tracks are mostly from the last century (but then so am I). There is more pop, soul and jazz than traditional music. Only Hugh Masekela and Brenda Fassie have any sort of international profile, while some of the others are barely known even in their own homes. And for the MAR slot I have ignored the late great Lucky Dube and gone for a poet and the Kalahari Surfers.
Where the artist in question has music on Bandcamp I have added a link under their name. Other than that you are on your own.
The videos are a bit more orderly. We start with what I believe is still the biggest-selling South African single in Europe and follow that with what I personally consider to be two of the best pop records ever made (watch out for the birds in the Mahotella Queens video). Then we have someone I went to school with, and finally Lucky Dube because I felt bad about denying him the MAR slot.
Later in the week we will reach the 45th stop in our African odyssey and it is a big one. I probably have more music from South Africa that from anywhere else other than the UK and US and we will not have the time to travel down many of the byways and even some of the highways.
Long-standing readers may recall that one of the reasons I started this blog way back in the mists of time was to promote one particular style of South African music, Tsonga Disco. So I thought I should do a separate post dedicated to the stars of that scene rather than risk missing them en route. I will leave it to CC to decide whether this forms part of the official canon or not.
The Tsonga or Shangaan ethnic group are found mostly in the Limpopo province in north-east South Africa and southern Mozambique, although as with the other ethnic groups in South Africa many in the current and earlier generations moved to Johannesburg in search of work.
It is generally agreed that the founding father of modern Tsonga music is the late General M.D. Shirinda, who was the first to merge traditional Tsonga call and response singing and rhythms with modern instruments in the 1970s and who together with his backing singers the Gaza Sisters can be heard on Paul Simon's "Graceland".
Two camps then developed, the traditionalists who more or less stuck with the General's formula and those who headed in more of a poppier direction (Tsonga Disco). The undisputed king of the traditional wing is Thomas Chauke who is still going strong at 72 with roughly 40 albums under his belt.
On the Tsonga Disco side the official lineage is: Paul Ndlovu, who shone brightly but briefly in the mid 1980s before he died in a car crash in 1986; Peta Teanet (1988-96), who also died prematurely when he was shot by a policeman; Penny Penny (1994 to date) and General Muzka (2007 to date).
Papa Penny and General M has both dodged the curse of the disco kings to date, and Muzka has stayed active. Penny had more or less taken up politics full time until the 2013 reissue of his debut album "Shaka Bundu" on Awesome Tapes From Africa led to a revival of interest in his music. He is now dabbling and occasionally performing again.
But perhaps the most important figure in the development of Tsonga Disco in the last 30 years is Joe Shirimani, who is to Tsonga Disco what Giorgio Moroder is to disco.
As well as making great records in his own right Mr Shirimani discovered Penny Penny and co-wrote and produced most of his early records, then did the same for General Muzka and other major artists such as Esta M and Benny Mayengani (who arguably has a claim to be the current king but whose tendency to fall out with and bad mouth everyone he works with including Mr Shirimani makes him hard to praise).
Here is a video from each of them apart from General Shirinda. Astute viewers may spot a passing resemblance between Penny Penny and my own handsome profile in the top corner. Its a coincidence.
I may have mentioned before that I have been a subscriber to eMusic for many years. I wouldn't join now as the current monthly rate is £17 for 40 tracks and all the main indie labels have long since left the platform, but on my historical deal I only pay a third of that and I mostly use it to experiment with some of the considerable amount of African, Asian and Brazilian music on the site.
It was in that spirit of exploration that I invested in a few tracks from "Konkani Songs - Music From Goa Made In Bombay", a compilation on the Trikont label which contains Goan pop songs from the 1950s and 1960s. Some of the artists like Mohammed Rafi were also active in Bollywood, hence the reference to Bombay I assume.
The blurb that goes with the album is very misleading. For example, it claims that konkani is a single musical style whereas it is actually the local language. Wikipedia lists multiple different styles sung in konkani.
It is then claimed that this fictitious single style has its roots in liturgical music introduced to the region in the Portuguese colonial era. Unless they got mariachi bands to accompany the liturgy that doesn't explain Bab Peter.
Best just to revel in the mystery and enjoy the groovy sounds.
I happened to visit Epping at the far end of London's glamorous Central Line one day last week and took the opportunity to pop into some of the local charity shops. One had a small selection of CDs going for 20p each so I took a punt on an album by a 1990s band whose very existence had completely passed me by at the time.
I'm talkin' 'bout Prolapse (to quote a line from the famous 1970s public service announcement featuring the music of Kool & The Gang when they were still kool). They came out of Leicester, although the male singer's accent suggests he hailed originally from fair Caledonia, and released three albums before splitting in 2000.
I bought the third and final album, 1999's "Ghosts Of Dead Aeroplanes". I wasn't too sure on first listen but second time round I found it growing on me. See what you think. If you like what you hear you can find most of Prolapse's back catalogue, including a couple of Peel sessions, over on their Bandcamp page.
Note to our Spanish readers: The views expressed in "Government Of Spain" should not be assumed to represent the views of 27 Leggies.
I have been waist-deep in African sounds in recent months. As a result I have rather neglected my Single Song Sunday duties. But that Charity Chic fellow did a post last Sunday that has prompted me to get back to work. Thank you for the nudge CC.
The song I have chosen to relaunch the series is the Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell standard "Fever". There are many versions out there and we have selected ten corkers for you today.
Of course for every corker there is an equal and opposite clunker, such as Madonna's monstrosity from 1993 to which no decent person should be subjected. Modern Romance are almost as bad. You won't find any of that sort of stuff here.
We start with the original, and in my personal opinion probably still the best. Little Willie John took "Fever" right to the top of the R&B charts in 1956 with his version which sold over a million copies in the US alone.
Hopping ahead to 1958 we have the great Ms Peggy Lee with what many consider to be the definitive version of the song. It's certainly the one that has spawned the most imitators, almost all of the pale variety.
Fortunately for us there were plenty of artists who realised that copying Peggy was a fool's errand and decided to give the song their own spin. Like the two Latin acts that come next - Mexico's leading garage band Los Johnny Jets with their take from 1966, and Cuba's La Lupe whose vocals in her 1968 version defy description.
In 1971 Zimbabwean blues-rockers Otis Waygood decided to give "Fever" a go. George may wish to note the presence of extensive jazz flute on this version. Whether George will be as impressed by the even more extensive vibraphone solos by Roy Ayers he will no doubt tell us in due course.
Roy's rendition was released in 1979, which seems to have been a big year for "Fever" fans. It was in the same year that old Link Wray took a bash at it and naughty Lizzy Mercier Descloux thought it would be big and clever to swap "fever" for "tumour". Turns out she was right. Slightly late to the party were The Cramps, who included this fine take on the tune on their 1980 debut album "Songs The Lord Taught Us".
As you would expect there were several candidates for the Mandatory Reggae Version. Grant Phabao & Lone Ranger nearly took the coveted spot but in the end I plumped for Susan Cadogan and her 1976 release produced by The Upsetter himself.
Peggy Lee's version may be the definitive version but it was not the most successful in chart terms in the US. That honour belongs to The McCoys of "Hang On Sloopy" fame. They took the song to #7 in 1965 (Peggy only made it to #8).
So here they are to lead out the cavalcade of cool videos. But we've saved to best until last.
From Somaliland to Somalia. Or from one part of Somalia to another part of Somalia if you don't recognise Somaliland as an independent state.
Before we get started can I once again express my gratitude to the good folks at the Ostinato and Analog Africa labels for the great work they do bringing the vintage sounds of the Horn of Africa (and other parts of the continent) to a new audience. Each provided two of today's selections.
I have described in several earlier posts in the series how civil wars and regime changes have brought golden ages of the local music scene to a crashing halt, and such was the case in Somalia in 1991. Fortunately a few radio stations and recording studios were able to preserve some great music from the 1970s and particularly the 1980s.
We are going to give the first half of today's set to the three big bands of that era, starting with Dur-Dur Band who glittered more brilliantly than most on the Mogadishu disco scene in the 1980s.
The band broke up and its members dispersed during the civil war but for the last ten years a UK based lineup featuring many of the original members have been performing and recording on and off. They will be playing at the Barbican in London in December. I have my ticket, you should get yours.
There are a number of original Dur-Dur Band albums available on the Awesome Tapes From Africa and the Analog Africa labels. Today's track comes from the latter's "Volumes 1 and 2" reissue. The reformed lineup last year released an album featuring some sessions they recorded in Berlin in 2019 which is well worth nabbing as well.
Next up we have Iftin Band, formed by the Ministry of Education in the mid-1970s with the expectation that they would play an educational and political role as well as a cultural one (again something we have seen in some of the other African countries we have visited). I can't comment on their educational efforts but the music was top of the class.
Today's selection comes from "Mogadishu's Finest", a compilation of their mid-1980s recordings released by Ostinato. By this time the band were no longer state-sponsored and were playing regularly at the hot spot that was the Al-Uruba hotel where these sessions were also recorded.
From another Ostinato compilation ("Sweet As Broken Dates") we bring you our third and final band. Waaberi Band started in the 1960s as the government-appointed house band of the National Theatre of Somalia, but like Iftlin Band had been privatised by the time they recorded this swinging instrumental in the 1980s. Dig that groovy organ!
Like the other two bands the original Waaberi Band broke up as a result of the civil war, but a rebuilt lineup featuring their latter day lead singer Maryam Mursal released an album called "New Dawn" on Peter Gabriel's Real World in 1997.
Ms Mursal released a solo album called "The Journey" the following year which recounts her escape from Somalia with her children via Djibouti and a refugee camp in Denmark where she was rediscovered. This track is taken from that album.
Back to the 1980s now and also back to Analog Africa with their superbly titled "Mogadisco" compilation. This mighty 1988 cracker from Shimaali & Killer is just one of the many highlights. Shimaali is Shimaali Axmed Shimaali who had a stint in Dur-Dur Band and is one of three singers featured on "Volumes 1 and 2". I have no further information on Killer.
You may have detected a slight hint of reggae on "Hoobeya". Technically it is actually dhaanto, a traditional music associated with the Ogaden clan. There are strong similarities between the two styles, notably that both accentuate the second and fourth beats in the bar.
I strongly suspect that Dalmar Yare is really a dhaanto singer but at the risk of upsetting any MAR purists out there I am putting him in that slot. He describes his music as reggae and that is good enough for me. Today's track is from his 2018 self-titled album.
The next official stop in our African Odyssey is Somalia, but first we are making an unofficial stop in the Republic of Somaliland, a self-declared independent state occupying the northern part of Somalia.
I did not include Somaliland as a stop in the tour as it is not on the UN's list of recognised countries. But neither is Western Sahara and that is going to be part of the tour, so I have arguably been a bit inconsistent. The main difference between them though is that while there are 40-50 countries that recognise Western Sahara as an independent state, none have ever recognised Somaliland.
I won't get into the politics of why that is, because I don't understand them, but in practice Somaliland has been functionally independent since the early 1990s when the Somali civil war led to the collapse of any recognisable form of government down in Mogadishu. Since then the powers that be there seem to have been largely content to leave the good folks of Somaliland to their own devices.
I probably would have just let all of that pass us by and headed straight to Somalia if it weren't for the great Sahra Halgan. A singer and activist who served as a nurse in the war of independence, she would be greatly insulted to be described as a representative of Somalia. But she is far too good not to feature in our African odyssey.
Hence this Sahra/ Somaliland Special. The audio tracks are both from her 2019 album "Waa Dardaaran", and the video is the lead single from "Hiddo Dhawr" which came out a few months ago. Buy them both, you won't be disappointed.
And if you live in or near Norwich, Stroud, Guildford, Manchester, York, Totnes or London, go along and see her when she plays in your town in September. I have my ticket already.
On Saturday evening we popped along for a bit of the free Turning Tides music festival in London's glamorous North Greenwich.
In some respects I wish I had not bothered. The people responsible for the change over between sets were ridiculously slow, taking up to an hour every time. As a result each set was reduced to little more than 30 minutes rather than the scheduled 60.
Then after the gig the tube was temporarily suspended for some reason, which meant we had to queue for ages with the handful of people who had been to see Peter Kay at the O2 before starting the journey home.
On the plus side, I very much enjoyed the truncated performances by Ibibio Sound Machine and our old favourites Girl Ray, so on balance I'm glad I went.
To mark the event here are some songs about tides that don't require you to wait an hour before listening to each one or to submit yourselves to the tender mercies of Transport for London.
I was listening to Victoria Williams' "Loose" album the other day and was shocked to discover that it is 30 years old. Where has the time gone?
"Loose" was Queen Vic's third album and the first after the MS diagnosis that has increasingly limited her ability to record and tour in the years since (although she is still active and was well enough to play a few gigs last year).
I fell in love with "Loose" on first hearing and I am still smitten with it now. Unfortunately not many other people felt the same way at the same time and commercially it did absolutely nothing. Maybe like the Century Plant its time to bloom has yet to come.
If you could only pick one track from the album it would probably have to be "Crazy Mary". Here's the Great Lady performing it live while trying to ignore the strange man in a loud green jacket mumbling away next to her.
After being spoilt for choice last time out in Senegal, I always suspected it would be more difficult to compile a set list for the Seychelles - after all it is the smallest and least populated country in Africa. But I did not think it would be this hard.
I have searched far and wide but only found two sources of Seychellois music online - the always reliable Les Disques Bongo Joe for oldies and a Seychellois label called Noufans for the new stuff.
Those of you who joined us on our trip to Mauritius a few months ago may remember that we mentioned a Bongo Joe compilation called "Soul Sega Sa! Indian Ocean Segas From The 70s". Most tracks on that album are from Mauritius or Reunion but there are two from the Seychelles and they are our first two selections. The other three are from the Noufans catalogue which stretches all the way back to... 2021.
So basically there is a 40 year gap I have not been able to fill. Which is a shame because I am sure the islands must have produced plenty of fine music during that time, including by the 13 singers whose stars hang on the Seychelles' Wall of Fame in the capital Victoria.
I have only been able to find songs by three of the 13 artists and only one of them has made the cut. That is Joseph Louise from the island of Praslin who released his first record in 1976 and had a recording career that lasted over 35 years. He leads things off.
I have not been able to find out anything about the other bad boy from Bongo Joe, Jocelyn Perreau. But he is one of the veteran Seychellois artists whose songs are covered by current hotshot Clive Camille on his album "Gramophone Vol. 01" which came out last year - who knows, it might even be this one.
Our fourth selection topped the Seychelles chart for Molo last year and cemented his comeback after a period away from the music industry (or so it says here).
Also riding high at the moment is the MAR master Gatto who will be headlining at the swanky new Music Stadium in Victoria on 7 September. If you happen to be in the area why not pop along. Claims that Gatto can trace his lineage back to the Black Forest are yet to be verified.
We kick off the videos with the fifth biggest selling song in France in 2005. It spent five weeks at #2 but was unable to displace Crazy Frog's "Axel F" which had a 13 week run at #1. Crazy French! The other videos all feature Wall of Famers.
I have said it before and I'll say it again. One of the biggest bargains on Bandcamp is the Hominis Canidae page.
Every month they issue a compilation of new independent Brazilian music and invite you to name your price. Inevitably they are a bit of curate's cup of tea, but there are always a few things that appeal.
Here is a track from each of the albums released from January through to May (they celebrated their 15th anniversary in June and marked it with a retrospective rather than new stuff). If I remember I will cover their July to December editions at the end of the year. But don't wait until then - go and spend, spend, spend!
Links stay up for a month or so. If you are an artist or copyright holder and want me to remove the link, or if you want to get in touch for any other reason, e-mail me on leggies27@hotmail.co.uk.
