Filed under: Suriname
Mohammad Sharief – AKA Mohammad Sharief Ishaak – was from Suriname.
The country’s largest ethnic group is East Indians. They are descendants of 19th-century indentured workers from India, hailing mostly from the modern Indian states of Bhojpuri speaking areas of Bihar, Jharkhand, and Eastern Uttar Pradesh along the Nepali border and also the states of Haryana and Tamil Nadu.
The music is called called Chutney and is a fusion of Bhojpuri folk music with Calypso, Soca and Bollywood music. The genre developed in Trinidad and Tobago and is also popular Guyana, Jamaica, other parts of the Caribbean, Fiji, Mauritius and South Africa. Chutney music emerged mid-20th century and reached a peak of popularity during the 1980s.
Mohammad Sharief recorded two other singles, one on a label called Selection from the Netherlands and the other he self-released. He also recorded an album with the Bwia National Indian Orchestra for Acme Record of Trinidad.
If you have any further information about this artist, please leave it in the comment section below.
Catalog number Sam 1001 on Sam’s Production of Den Haag, Netherlands. Released 1976.
Filed under: Algeria
♬ Men Win
Abdelkrim Zouaoui – AKA Krikri – was born in Constantine, Algeria on January 19, 1945. He formed his first band – Blue Jeans – at the age of 17. He would go on to record two singles for the Oasis label, accompanied by his brother Hassan. The song on the A side of this single – Wahdi – can be found on Sublime Frequencies “1970’s Algerian Folk And Pop” compilation.
Catalog number 10792 on Oasis Disques of Algeria, release 1978.
Filed under: India
Mukesh Karia released three singles of instrumental versions of film songs.on the Gathani label between 1977 and 1979.
If you have any further information, please leave it in the comment section below.
Catalog number S/GRE 1079 on Gathani Records of Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. Released 1979.
Filed under: Eritrea
The Kothari Music Shop was located at 74 Peace St in Asmara, Eritrea. The only reason I know this is because the address is listed on the two singles they produced: K1 by Wendyifraw Weretta and K5 by Berhane Messele.
I am sure you are asking yourself “What about K2, K3 and K4?” I have asked that question to many other collectors of Eritrean music. No one has an answer. There is a record by Ato Abraham Saghid that was co-released with Fikre Records that was catalog number FR2 that may have counted as the second Kothari release. But who knows? And that still leaves K3 and K4 unaccounted for.
As for Berhane Messele / ብርሃነ መሰለ… I have nothing. This was his only recording.
If you have any further information about the artist or Kothari Records, please leave it in the comment section below.
Catalog number K 5 on Kothari Record of Asmara, Eritrea. No release date listed.
Filed under: Malaysia
♬ a) Gelisah b) Kuchupan Azimat
This is one of those records that raises more questions than it answers.
Discogs lists this single in with The Wanderers – who were a five piece and primarily were a backup band for various singers like Adnan Othman, Betty Ismail and S. Ahmad.
Also, the single clearly lists four songs. But there’s only one per side. Could each side be a medley?
If you have any information about this record, please leave it in the comment section below.
Catalog number KLC 902 on Cameron of Singapore, released 1970.
Filed under: Egypt
Tawfika Ahmed Nada – better known as Sharifa Fadel / شريفة فاضل – was born in Cairo on January 7, 1938. She started acting at age 9, with her first film The Father / الأب in 1947 after being discovered by director Omar Gomai / عمر جامعي at the Institute of Performing Arts of Cairo. Soon after, she started her recording career. Her first big hit was “Amana Ya Bokra” / “أمانه يا بكرة “.
You can read more about Sharifa Fadel – as well as find more songs by her – over at the wonderful Arab Tunes blog.
The music for this track was composed by Baligh Hamdi / بليغ حمدي. Sublime Frequencies has recently released an overview of his music entitled Instrumental Modal Pop of 1970’s Egypt. Although he is not credited, that fuzz guitar is most likely Omar Khorshid / عمر خورشيد.
Catalog number 45 S 139 on Soutelphan of Cairo, Egypt. No release date listed.
Filed under: Peru
In 2010, two Peruvians compilations were released: Crammed Disc‘s The Roots Of Chicha vol. 2 and Vampi Soul‘s Cumbia Beat Vol. 1. Both featured tracks by Manzanita y Su Conjunto. But I didn’t really fall in love with Manzanita until I stumbled on the Super Sonido blog and heard the song “El Jardinero” – which immediately became a mainstay in my DJ set.. Last year, Analog Africa released a compilation entitled Trujillo – Perú 1971-1974. From the liner notes:
Berardo Hernández – better known as Manzanita – first surfaced during the psychedelic Cumbia craze. At the head of the scene were the magnificent Los Destellos, whose leader, Enrique Delgado, was such a six-string wizard that other guitarists found it impossible to escape his shadow. But then Manzanita arrived with his electric criollo style, sent shockwaves through Lima’s music scene and posed a serious threat to Delgado’s dominance as king of the Peruvian guitar.
Manzanita had come to Lima from the coastal city of Trujillo, five hundred miles up the coast – a place where Spanish, African and indigenous populations had been living and making music together for centuries – and came of age at a time when the first wave of psychedelic rock from the US and UK was starting to sweep the airwaves. But the sounds of Cream and Hendrix disappeared from the radio just as quickly in 1968 when Juan Velasco seized control of the country in a military coup. The new regime, which favoured local traditions over cultural ‘imports’ from the north, was a blessing in disguise for the Peruvian music scene.
Record labels flourished as new bands, raised on a hybrid diet of electric guitars and Cuban rhythms, rushed in to fill the vacuum created by the lack of imported rock. A new genre, known as Peruvian cumbia, was born and Manzanita quickly became one of its most original voices.
Starting in 1969, Manzanita y Su Conjunto released a steady stream of singles that used Cuban guaracha rhythms as the foundation for dazzling electric guitar lines. After countless 45s and several years on the touring circuit, the band signed to Virrey, an important Peruvian label, and recorded two LPs acknowledged as masterpieces among aficionados of tropical music. […]
Although he scored a few more hits in the later 70s, his dissatisfaction with the music industry caused him to withdraw from the scene for several years; and when he finally retired for good, the golden age of Peruvian cumbia was a distant memory. But when Manzanita was at the top of his game he had few equals. […]
Catalog number 0342 on Dinsa – AKA Disco Industria Nacional S. A. – of Lima, Peru, released 1969.
Filed under: Togo
♬ Ablo
This is one of those records that I had been searching for forever. I was under the impression that Koffi Ottytana Bebli was from Ghana since the only tidbit of information listed on this single is that it was recorded at Ghana Films Studios Accra. But, according to an Instagram post by Hot Casa Records, he was from neighboring Togo and currently lives in Paris. This single was his only known recoding.
Catalog number AD 046 on Afro-Disc of Creteil, France. No release date listed.
Filed under: Taiwan
♬ Give Me a Kiss of Love / 給我愛的吻
My first introduction to Yao Su Yong / 姚蘇蓉 (also seen Yao Su Rong, Yao Surong, Thu Su Yung, Yao Soa Yong and Yiu So Yung) was the Q.D.K. Media compilation entitled Asian Takeaways.
Yao Su Yong was born in Taiwan on December 5th, 1945. Her first recording was a cover of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood’s “Summer Wine” in 1966. Her first major hit was a Mandarin-language rewrite of a Japanese popular song, “負心的人” / “Cruel-Hearted Lover” the following year.
At the height of her popularity many of her songs were banned by the Taiwanese government – which was under martial law that was imposed by Chiang Kai-Shek – for stirring up “unhealthy morals” amongst the youth because many of her songs were about love and romance.
On August 18th, 1969, at a performance in Kaohsiung, the audience begged Yao Su Yong to sing some of her banned songs. Initially she declined, saying that she was not permitted to perform those songs, and that she hoped the audience would forgive her. However, the requests wouldn’t stop and eventually she sang “負心的人” hoping the popular appeal of her song would override any official censorship. Unfortunately, the police guards stationed at the theater didn’t agree. They called her offstage and questioned her and asked her to make an official confession. Failing to do so, her singer’s license was revoked. Since she was no longer allowed to perform in Taiwan, she turned to Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to continue her career.
Her backing band on the album above was The Telstar Combo – or as they are credited on the cover as The Telstars Combo – which have been covered here previously. When I posted their debut album on the first iteration of this blog back in ’06, it was picked up by a number of other sites. The increased traffic caused that site to crash. So, I ended up buying a domain and creating a website. But coding is not my idea of a good time. That now defunct website eventually (d)evolved into this WordPress monstrosity.
Catalog number SL-2048 on Haishan Records of Taiwan, released 1968.
Filed under: Morocco
Abdelwahab Doukkali was born in Fez, Morocco on January 2nd, 1941. At the age of 18, he moved to the capitol city of Rabat, where he worked briefly at Radio Television Maroc. He soon moved to Casablanca – the center of Morocco’s music industry. For the next three years, Doukkali pursued careers in both theatre and radio. In 1962 he toured Algeria, then left Morocco and settled in Cairo. During his three years in Egypt, he gained popularity outside North Africa, then returned to Morocco in 1965. In 1968, he tried his hand at acting with the lead role in Ahmed Mesnaoui and Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi‘s film Vaincre pour Vivre. He also recorded the theme song for that film. Doukkali would go on to act in two more films and he continued to write and perform music through the 1990s.
Although there are no production credits listed on this single, it definitely sounds like this recording was produced by J. Hendrix who also produced Algeria’s Rachid et Fethi and Morocco’s Les Frères Megri.
Catalog number ATL 5060 on Atlassiphone of Casablanca, Morocco. No release date listed.
