The Numero Group has been running a series called 'Eccentric Soul' for the best part of 25 years now. Focused firmly on the more obscure soul labels and artists there have been over 40 releases, with the latest due out in a few weeks.
Back in 2012 they decided to mark the tenth year of the series with a jumbo 88 track compilation. They named it "Eccentric Soul: Omnibus". Here are just three of the many highlights.
Our third stop of our tour of the Americas finds us in Bolivia. I found compiling this post more of a challenge that I expected. It is probably something to do with the high altitude.
Nearly thirty percent of the country is up in the Andes which in musical terms can mean only one thing - bloody p*np*pes (or zampoña as they are called locally). We can't avoid them completely but we'll keep them to a minimum and get them out of the way quickly.
El Milagro Verde come from Cochabamba, the City of Eternal Spring, and their mission is to "reinvent the wonder of Bolivian folklore with the catchy sounds of cumbia and the energetic power of electronic music". Whether they have succeeded you can decide for yourself by listening to this track from their 2018 album "Orbital Chicha".
For unadulterated indigenous music you really need to get Luzmila Carpio involved. She is a performer of Quechua heritage who has long been a champion of the American Indian peoples in Bolivia, with a distinctive voice and the best bird impressions since the late Percy Edwards. We've chosen a tune from "Yuyay Jap'ina Tapes", a selection of her 1990s recordings that were remastered and reissued in 2014.
There is nothing remotely indigenous about the next couple of numbers, both of which were clearly influenced by noises being made way further north. From 1966 we have Los Bonny Boys Hot's from La Paz - perhaps not the best Bolivian band of that era but definitely the one with the best name, which is really the only reason they are here. This comes from their EP "Shakes Con Los Bonny Boys Hot's".
Around the same time back in Cochabamba Grupo 606 were making a name from themselves as one of Bolivia's finest purveyors of garage rock. This cover of a Blue Magoos tune was released on an EP in either 1967 or 1969 depending on who you ask. They are not to be confused with 606 Group the progressive rock duo from Stockport.
We skip forward now to 1979 where we find Jorge Quiroga, formerly of Grupo 606's rivals Los Grillos, attempting to fuse American rock and Andean folk music with his new band Huinca. This track comes from their self-titled first EP and is considered by aficionados to be their finest moment. They are not to be confused with the metal band from Chile with the same name.
Enough living in the past. We will bring things relatively up to date with our final three tunes. The first two are representatives of the Sound Of Young Bolivia. Some of the influences are fairly obvious but both bands are pretty decent in their own right. Both also hail from Cochabamba. It is clearly the hub of the Bolivian music scene.
First up is Astronauto Suburbano, whose "Aneural" album came out in 2020, followed by Chicas Delfin with a track from their self-titled 2018 EP. Information on both bands ranges from scant to non-existent, but you can find them both on Instagram if you really want to.
We round things off with an example of what they refer to locally as reggae boliviano (MAR to you and me). It is by Illapa Reggae - there is a clue in his name - and it comes from his 2016 album "Illapa". Listen carefully during the early part of the instrumental break and you can detect some p*np*pes that prove it is genuinely Bolivian.
We will start the videos with Bolivia's most popular folk group and their best known tune. Los Kjarkas celebrate sixty years in the business this year and our still going strong - the current line-up played a couple of shows in London back in April as part of a short European tour.
They call the song "Llorando Se Fue" and the tune has been used as the basis for many other records since they released theirs in 1981. The best known version led to Los Kjarkas taking legal action for being ripped off without permission. Many of you will recognise it I am sure.
You may not recognise any of the songs in the other videos but you will no doubt be humming along with them all in no time.
Some records by people called Riley. That's the concept today folks. Its a simple one but then I'm a simple guy.
We start with four American musical styles including rock 'n roll from Billy Joe, some zydeco from Steve and his Playboys and naughty Agnes with her single entendre jumping blues. We follow that up with four reggae Rileys including the father and son team of Jimmy and Tarrus.
Today's post is dedicated to my old friend Steve Riley. He's not the Cajun one - he's no playboy and I doubt whether he would recognise a Mamou if one walked up to him and slapped him in the face - but he's a pretty cool dude in his own right.
The title of the CD I am featuring today is "America's Most Colorful Hillbilly Band Vol.1". The lack of the 'u' in "colorful" rankles but that is how it is spelt on the cover and I place great importance on accuracy (or "accracy" as they presumably spell it in America).
Anyhoo, the CD is a compilation of the early recordings of The Maddox Brothers & Rose released by Arhoolie Records in 1993. It contains 27 tracks dating from 1946 to 1951 and pretty much every one is a winner.
The band comprised Rose and four of her brothers, originally Fred, Don, Cal and Cliff with Henry stepping in when Cliff sadly dies in 1949. They were augmented by Bud Duncan on pedal steel and the magnificently named Jimmy Winkle on guitar. Rose handled most of the lead vocals but Fred took a turn for some of the more raucous numbers.
Here is a fairly representative selection. The first track is dedicated to one of our regular readers. There are songs about mules and milk cows on the album but sadly none about goats.
In sadder hillbilly news, on Sunday we lost Dave Cousins, the leader of bluegrass combo the Strawberry Hill Boys, or Strawbs as they became. Lay down, Dave, lay down.
Two brand new albums for you today. Both are by female artistes from West Africa. And both are splendid.
Regular readers may recall me raving about Nana Benz du Togo's debut album "AGO" and their live show at various points over the last couple of years. I'm pleased to report that their second album "SÉ NAM" (which means ‘understand me' in the Mina language) came out last month.
It is a worthy successor to "AGO". There is a bit more studio production this time round. I'm not sure they needed it but its fairly unobtrusive and doesn't detract from the general joyfulness of their sound, and hopefully the live show will still feature a man whacking big pieces of plastic tubing with a pair of flip-flops.
The second album comes from a fine singer from Burkina Faso who I had never heard of before and about whom I have been able to find out very little. Her name is Awa Guindo and the only information I have comes from her Facebook page, which tells us:
"Awa Guindo is part of the new wave of young Mandingo artists who have been shaking up the West African musical world in recent years. Originally from Banfora, in southwest Burkina Faso, she comes from a long line of griots".
So now you know. Anyway her debut album is called "Tama" and I would recommend giving it a listen. It is not on Bandcamp but you can find it on Spotify, at the tax dodgers' place and on EMusic in the unlikely event you have a subscription.
I can't find any videos of Nana Benz performing songs from the latest album so here is an old favourite instead. It is followed by what I think is Awa's searing critique of a corrupt sporting organisation.
A couple of weeks ago we featured "Till April Is Dead ≈ A Garland of May", Lisa Knapp's 2017 album of traditional songs associated with the month of May.
Since that post I have discovered the music of Arianne Churchman and Benedict Drew thanks to a review of their new album "The Tree Of The Left Hand" in the latest edition of Uncut.
A cursory glance of their Bandcamp page and that of the Thanet Tape Centre reveals that they are obsessed with the music of May to such an extent that Lisa seems a mere dilettante by comparison. And they are clearly keen to convert others to the cause as much of their material is available on a 'name your own price' basis.
Here are a couple of examples. Together they clock in at over twenty minutes, making them suitable for inclusion in the Monday Long Song ritual by those of you who still cling to such archaic beliefs.
Cornwall is particularly known for May celebrations and music. Helston alone has two songs associated with its festivities that take place every year on 8 May. These are they (some liberties may have been taken with the second).
We have arrived at our second stop in our search for the musical gold of the Americas and it is quite a contrast to Argentina. From the pampas to the swamps, from one of the continent's largest countries to the second smallest in terms of both size and population. Welcome to Belize.
Squeezed into a corner between Mexico and Guatemala and 750 miles due west of Jamaica, the former British colony of British Honduras can offer the visitor delights such as a Barrier Reef, jungles and more than 450 islands. Apart from tourism the country makes its living from sugar, papaya and money laundering.
Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the main language and perhaps because of that much of the music I have dug up seems to my inexpert ears to have more in common with Jamaica and some other Caribbean countries than its mainland neighbours. But what do I know.
As far as indigenous music is concerned the best known is probably the punta music of the Garifuna, a people of mixed African and Amerindian ancestry who have a minority presence in several countries in the region - in Belize they account for around 5% of the population. The interest in Garifuna music and culture will hopefully only increase following Tavo Man's Grammy nomination, the first for a Garifuna artist.
The man who did more than anyone to promote punta and Garifuna culture more broadly was the late Andy Palacio, whose 2007 album "Watina" found worldwide success and led to him being named a UNESCO Artist for Peace and winning the 2007 WOMEX Award. Sadly he died the following year aged only 48.
The track I have selected from Mr Palacio actually comes from an earlier album ("Keimoun" from 1994) but the narrative will stick with "Watina" for now. For that album he gathered together Garifuna performers from Belize and beyond. They became known as The Garifuna Collective and some of them went on to record another album without him under that name in 2013.
Among the members of the Collective was Paul Nabor, one of the premier exponents of paranda music (a sort of speeded up version of punta). Mr Nabor himself passed in 2014 at the rather riper age of 86. The only material of his I have been able to find is on a compilation called "Paranda - Africa in Central America". Some of the other folks on there are pretty nifty too.
As well as the Garifuna, Belize has a large creole population (roughly 25%) who enjoy nothing more than a bit of brukdown on a Saturday night. Brukdown is a sort of local version of calypso and mento with some call and response chucked in and the late Wilfred Peters MBE was the king. When Mr Peters strapped on his trusty squeezebox nobody could resist his blandishments. This track comes from 1997's "Weh Mi Lova Deh".
All the albums featured so far were released on the excellent Stonetree Music label based in Benque Viejo del Carmen in Belize, and you can find plenty more goodies on their Bandcamp site. But back in the day there was only one label in Belize, Compton Fairweather's C.E.S. In 2006 the good folks at the Numero Group put together a compilation of the best C.E.S. recordings under the name "Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil Up". It's fantastic.
I have selected two tracks from "Belize City Boil Up". The first comes from Lord Rhaburn and his Combo who have been stalwarts of the local scene since the 1960s. I am very pleased to report that the good Lord celebrated his 89th birthday earlier this year. The second comes from TheHarmonettes, the brainchild of one Godfrey 'D-Mack' MacGregor. You can read a bit more about him and them here.
We are heading back to Stonetree Music for our penultimate selection, and it is highbrow stuff - some dub poetry courtesy of Leroy Young (aka The Grandmaster). Mr Young kindly provides a bit of a bio in the blurb accompanying his 2003 album "Just Like That", from which this track comes. He first made his name in the late 1990s when he used to be invited on to the local TV news every Friday, as explained in this clip from 2017.
We finish up with Bredda David Obi (or Bro David as he was known to the record-buying public of Belize). His debut album "No Fear" (1984) introduced what he considered to be a new sound that he called kungo, but it sounds remarkably like Mandatory American Reggae to me. Either way it is good stuff and you might want to invest in "Modern Music From Belize" which contains highlights from "No Fear" and Bro David's other early albums.
We start the videos with a little bit of politics and history from Cocono Bwai and his good friend Shamrock. Apologies to our many Guatemalan viewers for any offence caused.
On a recent visit to a charity shop I spotted a compilation CD with the dull but (mostly) factually correct title "Swedish Pop Music". Further inspection revealed that it was issued by the Swedish government in 2009 to mark the Swedish Presidency of the EU.
Not the most compelling reason to buy the album perhaps but when I saw it included the likes of Lykke Li, The Soundtrack Of Our Lives and Maia Hirasawa (whose video for "And I Found This Boy" is a thing of pure joy that has featured here many times over the years) I decided it was worth investing 50p.
Most of the tracks on the album are Noughties indie-tinged pop, some of which are included in the videos below. But there are two that really don't fit at all. Needless to say, those are the two that you are getting. And before you ask - yes, it's that Benny.
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.
