Ernie's African Odyssey Part 54 - Zambia

We have arrived at the penultimate destination in our musical tour of Africa. And a fine one it is too - Zambia.

Normally in this series I try to come up with a selection that spans the musical generations of whatever country we are in, but not this time. Apart from the MAR there is nothing in the audio section less than 35 years old. That is not to suggest that there has been nothing decent since 1989, just that I already had so much good Zambian music from the 1970s and 1980s in my collection that I did not feel the need to go searching further afield.

You can blame that on Zamrock, the heavy rock sound that swept the nation back in the 1970s. Regular readers may remember me raving about it in the past, and I know some of you went off and picked up Volume 1 and Volume 2 of "Welcome to Zamrock!" put together by the good folks at Now-Again Records. The rest of you should do so just as soon as you finish here.

From Volume 1 we bring you the great Chrissy 'Zebby' Tembo with a track originally released on his 1978 album "Heavy Connection". Chrissy was the drummer with The Ngozi Family, of whom more anon, and the rest of the band backed him on this and his earlier, equally excellent album, "My Ancestors". 

On Volume 2 you can find The Peace, although not this particular track. Fortunately Now-Again did it again when they reissued their 1975 album "Black Power" last year. I have opted for the title track but the whole album is worth having. It has some soul and blues-rock influences that make it stand apart from most of the other Zamrock bands of the time. Some tracks sound like Steve Miller back when he was still good.

Its time to cast your mind back to the paragraph before last. You may remember me mentioning the Ngozi Family, whose 1977 album "45,000 Volts" would probably have been featured today if I hadn't plugged it heavily when it was reissued. Paul Ngozi was the guitarist and leader of the Family and he also had a successful solo career before his untimely demise in 1989 aged only 40.

You can find two of his solo albums from the late 1970s on Bandcamp (I would particularly recommend "Lightning And Thunder"). He was still firmly pushing the Zamrock sound at that stage but his music became progressively poppier during the 1980s. Today's track was first released as a 12" single in 1987. I found it on a bootleg CD called "The Definitive Collection of Zambian Legends" that I picked up on a very brief visit to Lusaka a few years ago.

We are sticking with the 1980s for our next two selections. Emmanuel Mulemena was a big name in the Zambian music scene of the 1970s and was one of the artists responsible for popularising the kalindula sound. After his death in 1982 his backing band renamed itself The Mulemena Boys and recorded a tribute album to their former boss. While largely sticking to his formula they spiced it up with one of those exciting new drum machines, which features prominently on this (and every other) track.

It appears the kalindula scene in the 1980s was dominated by a few families. Emmanuel's son John Mulemena led the Masasu Band, whose other main member was one Geasi Bwaluka. Geasi in turn had a younger brother Timothy who led the Bwaluka Founders Band. This track from their 1989 album "Kangumbe" can be found on a compilation that came out a couple of months ago called "Kampire Presents: A Dancefloor in Ndola" (Kampire being a DJ of some note it seems). 

Which brings us to the MAR. I have struggled a bit because while there is plenty of good Zambian reggae very little of it is available to download. I intend no disrespect to the estimable MILZ (whose 2017 album "The Teacher" this comes from) when I say that he would not have been my first choice. It is still a nice tune though.

"Born Black" - Chrissy 'Zebby' Tembo

"Black Power" - The Peace

"Bauze" - Paul Ngozi

"Kwi Lamba Ekwesu" - The Mulemena Boys

"Kimbera" - Bwaluka Founders Band

"Johane" - MILZ