I recently picked up a copy of Warren Zevon's "Learning To Flinch" for next to nothing. Despite being a fan for many years - as I know some of our regular readers are as well - for some reason this album has never previously crossed my path. So I snapped it up.
Released in 1993, "Learning To Flinch" was Mr Zevon's second live album. But unlike 1980's "Stand In The Fire" on which he and band rocked their socks off, on this album it is just the great man on his own recorded at assorted venues in the US, UK, Europe and Australia during 1992.
Among the 17 tracks were three new songs. Two of them subsequently popped up again on "Mutineer" in 1995, but the other never made it on to a studio album. So obviously that has to be the first pick.
For the other selection, how about an 11 minute version of one of the best songs ever written (recorded appropriately in Norway, home of the headless gunner himself)?
The opening track on "Learning To Flinch" is a suitably splendid version of "Splendid Isolation". Here is another one from around the same time on which Mr Z is accompanied by someone called Neil Young (no, I've no idea either). To that I've added two more clips from the same concert, including a cover version I had not expected to find.
I'm away working for a few days at the start of next week. See you on my return.
Welcome aboard, everyone, as the next leg of our odyssey takes us to South Sudan. After spending time here we will head on to its northern neighbour Sudan. The two were a single country until 2011 when 98% of he population of what is now South Sudan voted for independence.
South Sudan is the world's youngest officially recognised independent country, becoming a teenager back in July this year. Its early years have been troublesome with civil war, famine and many other challenges. Let us hope things improve for its citizens as it approaches adulthood.
When preparing this post I did some research to try to identify artists from previous generations born in Juba or the other towns and cities in South Sudan, but failed dismally. So all today's tunes date from the last 15 years or so.
We'll start with Mary Boyoi, who spent part of the 1990s in refugee camps in Ethiopia as a result of the civil war in Sudan, before returning home in the 2000s to undertake relief work and become a campaigner for independence.In 2009 she released "Election Jai" ("the elections are coming") and actually stood as a candidate herself.
Mary is still recording and judging by some of the videos on her YouTube channel has reinvented herself as a bit of a saucepot in recent years. Whether this has helped or hindered her political career I don't know.
Next up is Emmanuel Jal, probably the best known of today's artists. Like many of those featured in earlier legs of the journey his life story is quite extraordinary. He was a child soldier from the age of eight before being adopted by a British aid worker and smuggled out of the country to Kenya where he was educated.
It was in Kenya that he began his recording career in 2004 and he has gone on to enjoy a degree of global success, helped in part by being the subject of a documentary called "War Child" in 2008. Today's selection comes from an EP released in 2010 and was included on a 2012 album called "Sudan Votes Music Hopes Remixes" in 2012, which is were I found it. I can also recommend "Ceasefire", his collaboration with Adbel Gadir Salim, a renowned oud player from the north.
Ajak Kwai's biography starts in the same way as Mary and Emmanuel's, being displaced because of the civil war. She spent eight years in Egypt where she started performing before emigrating to Australia around the turn of the century. I have chosen a track from her 2008 album "Come Together". You can find that and her 2021 EP "Red Sands" on Bandcamp.
Gordon Koang is another South Sudanese who emigrated to Australia, albeit more recently. He happened to be there in 2013 putting on some shows for the local expats when renewed conflict broke out back home and he applied for refugee status. His music is based on the traditional music of the Nuer people. This song comes from his 2020 album "Unity".
All of which brings us to John Frog. No relation to Kermit, Crazy or the members of Paul McCartney's chorus, he was given the nickname "aguek" (meaning frog) by his parents due to him being a breech birth baby. He burst onto the scene in 2018 with "Guondo Sakit", jumping up to the top of the charts across East Africa (you know, like what a frog would do). I can do no better than bring you the hit.
We finish, as is only right and proper, with our far-famed Mandatory African Reggae slot. Barnabus Samuel is a bit of a polymath, describing himself as an artist, songwriter, activist, author, humanitarian and entrepreneur. I can't vouch for his full range of skills but his music is pretty decent. You can find several of his records on Bandcamp. This track is on "Sambara" released in 2021.
Apologies for the appalling pun in the title. No apologies for the music though, which is excellent - some proper soul music from one of the all-time greats, Mr O.V. Wright. We have one track apiece from two of his classic 70s albums, "Memphis Unlimited" (1973) and "The Bottom Line" (1978).
As a bonus I have also chucked into the mix a selection from "Four And Twenty Elders", his gospel album with The Luckett Brothers that was released posthumously in 1981. I can think of at least one regular who will enjoy that.
There aren't many O.V. Wright videos on YouTube but this one is a bit special. It is Mr Wright with the Hi! Records band live in Japan some time in the late 1970s. The picture quality is pretty ropy; if that bothers you close your eyes and revel in the sound.
While in Belfast last week I did my usual Botanic Avenue run (Time Slip records plus six charity shops) and picked up a fair number of goodies.
Among them was "Lost In The Former West", the fifth and final album by The Fatima Mansions that came out 30 years ago. Like everything else by the late great Cathal Coughlan it is well worth a listen.
As much as I like The Fatima Mansions I have really always been more of a Microdisney man which probably explains why I have picked one of the mellower tracks for you along with their cover version of the old Walker Brothers song.
We'll hand the video slot over to J.D. Souther who left us a couple of days ago. When you got him away from The Eagles he could knock out some top tunes. RIP Mr Souther.
Our journey through Africa is taking a slight detour today to visit a country we inadvertently drove straight past - Sierra Leone.
We should have gone there directly from the Seychelles but I foolishly deleted my list of Sierra Leonean artists from the document I have been using to plan posts and by the time I noticed we were already in South Africa. Many apologies to all concerned. Better late than never, we have now arrived and I hope you will agree it was worth the wait.
We'll start in the 1970s, an era when big bands and orchestras bossed the scene all over West Africa. We have featured some of them on our earlier visits to the likes of Benin and Senegal so it seems only right that we should do the same in Sierra Leone.
The band in question is the mighty Afro National. If you buy only one greatest hits album by a Sierra Leonean band from the 1970s this week make it their "African Experimentals (1972-1979)". It includes today's track, first released in 1972 on their self-titled debut album.
One of Afro National's friendly local rivals back in the day was Muyei Power aka Orchestre Muyei. A popular live act across the region, they made very few recordings before splitting up in 1979. But somehow in 2014 Soundway Records managed to track down some sessions that the band had done while touring in California in 1976 and released them as "Sierra Leone in 1970s USA".
Next we turn to the man considered by many to be the king of palm wine music, the late great S.E. Rogie. Palm wine evolved in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the first half of the last century when local musicians fused traditional melodies with calypso rhythms learnt from visiting sailors, becoming popular in the 1950s and in turn being an influence on the development of highlife music.
Mr Rogie started recording locally in the 1960s and later in life lived first in San Francisco and then London. It was during this period that he really started getting recognised beyond Sieera Leone and neighbouring countries. This track comes from his 1991 album "The New Sounds of S. E. Rogie", recorded three years before his death. That particular album is not on Bandcamp but you can find his final album and two volumes of his 1960s recordings there.
From palm wine we move to bubu, the traditional music of the Temne people from northern Sierra Leone. Janka Nabay took it on himself to modernise the sound, and after emigrating to the US in the early 2000s to escape the civil war released a number of albums on Luaka Bop and other labels before sadly passing away in 2018. Today's selection comes from 2012's "En Yay Sah".
You often hear tales of musicians overcoming hardships before achieving success, but few have had to ensure quite as many as Sorie Kondi, as his biography explains. A blind street musician, a chance encounter with an American recording engineer gave him the chance to have his music heard by a wider audience, a chance he grabbed with both hands. This track is from his 2013 album "Thogolobea". You can also find some more recent recordings (as The Kondi Band) on Bandcamp.
Remember what I was saying about Sorie Kondi facing more hardship than most? Well since typing that I have learnt that Mash P, the man occupying the MAR slot in this post, was not just a street youth but a child soldier in the civil war. This possibly tops Mr Kondi. Either way, Mash P's experiences certainly entitle him to ask "Mr President, Wat Ar Gwan?" (featured below and the title track of his 2016 album).
I cannot confirm whether the P stands for potatoes.
I am back in the saddle after a very enjoyable break on the Antrim coast. I would recommend it as a place to visit. In the unlikely event that anyone is interested my holiday snaps are on Flickr.
I have also managed to fit in a couple of gigs since I was last here. On Friday just gone we were up in London's fashionable Walthamstow to see the mighty Sahra Halgan backed by three fuzzed-up funky Frenchmen.
I did a feature on Ms Halgan a month back so won't repeat all that now. Suffice to say that she and the band put on an excellent show and if you haven't already bought her current album "Hiddo Dhawr" then you really should. Only the willfully perverse would not enjoy it.
The Friday before found me in the back room of the House of McDonnell public house in Ballycastle (Wee Tom's to the locals) enjoying Eleanor Dunsdon and Gregor Black's slightly skew-whiff take on the traditional music of Scotland and Ireland.
As you can see they use the conventional folk instrumentation of harp and drums but do some interesting things with it. Think Pentangle with a harp replacing the guitars and double bass and you will be on the right sort of lines.
Eleanor and Gregor are based in Glasgow where they no doubt hang out with Charity Chic and all the other cool kids. Gregor is from Northern Ireland and his parents, who I had a nice chat to, have been acting as roadies for their first Irish tour.
Eleanor and Gregor currently have an EP out which I would encourage you to investigate. It is called "Let No Man" and I have added a sample below along with one from Sahra Halgan's album.
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.
