So it turns out I completely missed out a country on our African odyssey (apologies to the good folks of Sierra Leone, it will be put right). It is one of a number of signs recently that I could probably do with a break.
It is fortunate then that I am off on holiday tomorrow. I will be spending a week or so wending my way along the Antrim coast and then a night in a neat little town they call Belfast before heading home.
Among the places I am planning to visit are Giant's Causeway - hence the Taj Mahal song - and Rathlin Island. It was from Rathlin that Marconi and pals sent the world's first commercial wireless telegraphy message in 1898, so a track from Thomas Dolby's "Golden Age Of Wireless" album seems apt.
It is also apt because we went to see Mr Dolby in action the weekend before last. It was one of three gigs I have been to in the last fortnight, all very different but all very good. The others were by Lola Kirke and leading purveyors of souped up traditional Indonesian songs Nusantara Beat, so I have added a number from both of them as well.
To reach Rathlin you the ferry from Ballycastle and I will be spending a couple of nights there. If I had been in Ballycastle last week I would have been able to join the fun at the annual Ould Lammas Fair. I missed that but will buy some dulse and yellowman if there is any left. No, not that Yellowman.
That's it for now. I'll be back here towards the end of next week. Stay groovy until then.
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.
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.
