My secret trip to Nigeria ended up being a bit of a disappointment. That is no reflection on the country or the many friendly people I met there, it was just a bit jinxed.
I was there to do some work in Lagos and the plan was to head on to Calabar for the weekend. That did not happen because the airline cancelled the only flight so there was no way of getting there (not an unusual occurrence according to my local contacts).
In Lagos itself torrential rain on both days when I had a bit of free time led to a fair amount of flooding which, added to the already very busy traffic, meant that I was not able to get to most of the sights on my to do list. With more of the same predicted for the weekend, I decided to cut my losses and head home a couple of days early.
However, I really liked the little of Lagos I was able to see, and if I get an opportunity to go back in the future and explore the city further I'll definitely do so.
I very much enjoyed visiting the J. Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History (head to City Mall and look for the giant eyo figure across the road). The visit was enhanced by my self-appointed guide Tishe, aged about 10, who took pity on the old tourist and shared lots of interesting information about the exhibits until his Mum came to get him for family photos.
The biggest highlight though was The Jazzhole, which has gone straight into my list of Top 10 record stores. As you enter you find yourself facing huge piles of books, vinyl and CDs. If and when you get past them there are a few tables and a cafe serving tea, coffee and excellent cake and a small performance area behind that with a drum kit all set up and ready to go.
I could happily have spent a whole day there browsing, eating cake and chatting to the charming owner but regrettably I only had 90 minutes to spare. I still managed to come away with a small pile of CDs, most of them Nigerian but a couple from elsewhere in Africa and one by Alpha & Omega from far-flung Devon.
The only one that I have had the chance to listen to yet is "Selfishness & Greediness", the 2022 album by Lekan Animashaun (Baba Ani for short). Mr A was a long-time member of Afrika 70 and Egypt 80, taking over as leader of the latter group when Tony Allen left and remaining so when they started working with Seun Kuti after Fela's death.
By sheer coincidence, Strut records will be reissuing Mr A's 1977 solo album "Low Profile" this Friday. If you can't wait until then here is a track from his more recent record. At 13 minutes long it also counts towards Monday's Long Song for those of you who celebrate it.
I'm off on my travels again early tomorrow morning, a few days work in one location followed by a hopefully relaxing long weekend in another. As usual I'll need to draw a veil over exactly where I'm going.
I'll be back on here towards the end of next week. Until then here are some randomly selected tunes for you to enjoy.
We're back with more from the gift that keeps giving, Dust-t0-Digital's "Excavated Shellac" box set. More details of what it contains and how I came to acquire it through the good offices of the mysterious JWA can be found in Monday's post.
This time we are featuring two tracks each from Discs 3 and 4 of the box set. In order, the place and time they come from are: Mauritius (l958 or thereabouts), Malta (1932), Iraq (1930) and South Africa (1967).
I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days in Mahebourg last year while working in Mauritius. A lively town and a lovely spot (see photo below) but I didn't do any dancing. I was wary of getting dizzy.
It was sad to hear the news yesterday that the great guitarist and all round cool dude James Blood Ulmer left us last week.
Born in 1940, for the first part of his career Mr Ulmer was a sideman plating with the likes of Art Blakey, Paul Bley and Ornette Coleman. The latter featured heavily on 1979's "Tales Of Captain Black", the first LP released under Mr Ulmer's own name. But it was his next record that first brought him to many people's attention, including mine.
I may have told the story here previously of how way back in the days of fanzines I wrote to Rough Trade asking whether they could spare any 7" singles for me and my pals to review. In return they sent some goodies by the likes of The Fall and Fad Gadget and a single by someone I had never heard of before. That was James Blood Ulmer, the record was "Are You Glad To Be In America?", and it blew open my then tiny mind.
Many years later I was lucky enough to see Mr Ulmer live in London a couple of times. Despite being well into his 70s by then he still sounded great and it was a privilege to be there.
Here is the record that started it all for me, a track from "Tales Of Captain Black" and one from "Odyssey" (1983) in which he explains that he had to go, as he now has. And if you have 52 minutes to spare you might enjoy the video.
Some people (well, Rol) claim that I am some sort of international man of mystery. I'm not really but I play along with it.
Someone who really is mysterious is the entity known only as JWA, a regular reader and underrated punster whose corporeal form appears to exist in both Sweden and the USA at exactly the same time. Other than that I know nothing about their identity.
What I do know though is that JWA is extraordinarily thoughtful and generous. They recently sent me a copy of a box set called "Excavated Shellac: An Alternate History of the World’s Music" released by the Dust-to-Digital label. As the name suggests Dust-to-Digital specialises in restoring and reissuing vintage recordings and we have featured tracks from its great catalogue a number of times here over the years.
"Excavated Shellac" includes 100 tracks from 89 countries over four CDs, all of which were originally recorded between 1907 and 1967. It comes with a fascinating 180 page book that discusses not just all the tracks themselves but the history of recorded music in different parts of the world. I can't possibly thank JWA enough for the gift.
Today we have two tracks each from Discs 1 and 2 for you to tap your toes to. They hail respectively from Mozambique (1953), Serbia (1927), Jamaica (1937) and Tahiti (1936).
We'll be back with some selections from Discs 3 and 4 later in the week. In the meantime here is a song that celebrates Dust-to-Digital's mission (although you would probably need to replace "Rockin'" with "Capturing rare and unusual recordings" for it to be completely accurate).
Last week I asked readers to choose a number between 1 and 7000 to help me mark the appearance in the previous post of the 7000th song to be featured on the blog.
Six of you kindly did so. These are the songs that correspond to those numbers on my spreadsheet (on which songs are listed alphabetically by artist and then alphabetically for each artist where there has been one song from the aforementioned artist - for those of you taking notes).
The Big 6 have come up with a pretty cool playlist. Of course that would not have been possible if I hadn't been cool enough to share the songs in the first place. Collectively we're a pretty cool gang. Bonus points go to C and her ESP for picking a number with the word "number" in the title.
Walter chose 1893 because it is the year the mighty VfB Stuttgart were founded. While I'm always happy to hear the young Marianne Faithfull singing old British folk songs - and similarly happy to hear a bunch of Breton hippies doing the same on Pete's selection - I can't help wishing Walter's team had been founded just a year earlier. If it had been he would have selected what I consider the greatest mash-up of all time. Here it is.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have another winner, or rather winners. After some of the most extraordinary voting I have ever witnessed, tied at the top of the 'Herbs and Spices' chart are...
GEORGE with "Chive Talking" and...
MODESTY FORBIDS with "The Bitterest Dill (I Ever Had To Swallow)"
The votes were scattered far and wide, which I think you should take as a tribute to the overall quality of your entries. Nine different puns (i.e. half the entries) received at least one first choice vote. Weirdly the pun that got the most first places - "Thyme Is On My Side" (Chris) - picked up just a single point from the rest of the voting panel combined and as a result didn't even make the Top 5. Here's what did.
=1. Chive Talking - The Bee Gees
(George) =1. The Bitterest Dill (I Ever Had
To Swallow) - The Jam (Ernie) 3. What A Fool Bay Leaves - The
Doobie Brothers (Steve) 4. Parsley Dutchie - Musical Youth
(Charity Chic) 5. The First Time Ever I Saw Your
Mace – Roberta Flack (Alyson)
As well as the top 5 and Chris, I should also commend Rol (Roxette) and Pete (whose Smiths pun was described by one enthusiastic voter as "not only the best offering this month, but one of the best puns of the series so far"), both of whom narrowly missed out on fifth place.
Thanks to all of you who submitted a pun and/or voted, your enthusiasm is much appreciated. I'm not quite sure when we'll be back with Pun Fun 7 as I'm going to be out and about quite a bit in June and July, but we will return.
Until then, as is traditional, we hand over to our winners to see us out.
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.
