Filed under: Sudan
♬ Fasueid Dawam Bilqak / فسعد دوام بلقاك
In the last couple of years, there’s been a few releases that have brought the music of Sudan to light: Ostinato Records’ Two Niles to Sing a Melody: The Violins & Synths of Sudan, ShellacHead’s The Lost 45s of Sudan and two albums reissued by Habibi Funk – Seif Abu Bakr & The Scorpions and Sharhabil Ahmed. But those records only scratch the surface. There is much, much more out there. And most of it is only available on cassette.
As for Bashir Abdel al-Aal, there is pretty much zero information available. If you google his name in English, you’ll find stuff about the “master of the Arabian flute” – obviously not the guy holding the Les Paul guitar in the picture above. If you google his name in Arabic, you pretty much get bupkis. According to Discogs, Munsphone did release one other cassette by him. If you have any further information about Bashir Abdel al-Aal, please leave it in the comment section below.
Catalog number ٥٠٣ – ٨٤٣٥ on Munsphone of Khartoum, Sudan. No release date listed.
Filed under: Senegal
Rockabilly? In Senegal? If there’s one thing I’ve learned: Anything is possible.
In the 1970s, Rockabilly had a revival in the United States with acts such as Sha Na Na, the film American Graffiti, the television show Happy Days. During the same time, there was also a revival of Teddy Boys in the United Kingdom. But how did Rockabilly make it all the way over to Senegal?
What little information I have been able to find on King Joe Dann says he was from Senegal. But that picture on the cover was obviously taken in Paris – unless Augustin-Alexandre Dumont did more than one version of Le Génie de la Liberté. The only clue is under the song title on the record label, it says: “CHANTE EN OUALOF” – which translated into English says “Song in Wolof“. Wolof is a language of Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania, and the native language of the Wolof people.
If you have any further information, please leave it in the comment section below.
Catalog number 2C006-15.975 on Pathé of France, released 1977.
Filed under: Japan
I’ve covered Takeshi “Terry” Terauchi before… Twice, actually.
Terry Terauchi was the king of Eleki – instrumental music heavily influenced by The Ventures. The name is taken from the Japanese for “electric guitar”. By the early 70s, Takeshi Terauchi & The Blue Jeans were doing albums of Western Classical music and popular film songs. But in 1972, Terauchi released six albums. One was a tribute to Akira Kurosawa‘s 1950 classic film Rashomon / 羅生門..This single is the title track from the album – all of which is just as mind blowing.
Catalog number BS-1599 on King Records of Japan, released 1972.
Filed under: Kuwait
♬ Our Camel Lovely Camel /هيدو
I told myself I wasn’t going to buy this single, but the song got stuck in my head. So, now it can get stuck in yours. Here’s the story behind the song:
Back in October 1981 Kuwait was playing a world cup qualifying match in Auckland, New Zealand where the Kiwi fans had signs reading “Go back to your camels!” which they were waving as the Kuwaiti team came onto the field. Kuwait won that match 2 goals to 1.
When it was the home game later that year, 100 camels were brought on the pitch before the match to show that Kuwait was proud of its past.
Kuwait ended up qualifying to the 1982 world Cup in Spain and was the first Arab country from Asia to ever qualify. A Spanish newspaper later claimed that the Kuwait national team will be late to the World Cup because they would be “traveling on the backs of their camels!”. So, the Kuwaiti Football Association decided to use a camel – named Haydoo – as their mascot.
Unlike the newspaper had predicted, the Kuwaiti team ended up arriving early. Too early actually and no one, not the journalists or the locals knew that the Kuwaiti team was even in Spain! To attract attention, the head of the Kuwaiti Football Association told a French journalist who there to cover the arrival of the French team that “The Kuwaiti team would withdraw from the competition unless they were allowed to bring their mascot.” Within hours the hotel was packed with journalists wanting to find out more about the mascot
The Spanish authorities and the hotel manager finally allowed the Kuwaiti team to bring their camel as long as it was left in the backyard of the hotel. The head of the Kuwaiti Football Association then called the minister of sport in Morroco to send a camel as soon as possible to Spain. He also ordered a T-shirt to be made for the camel. This hype and the Camel mascot helped make Kuwait’s presence extremely felt by the locals and journalists.
Haydoo, has been the mascot for the Kuwaiti national team ever since. [Source]
Catalog number BUZ 30 on Bou Zaid Phone of Kuwait, released 1982.
Filed under: India
How could I resist that cover, right?
I haven’t been able to find anything on Milan Deb. He did record at least one other single for the Senola label that was die cut to look like an apple. And with the exception of Deb’s two singles and one other LP of Bengali folk songs by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay, Senola had only been active in the 1930s, releasing 78 RPM records.
If you have any further information, please leave it in the comment section below.
Catalog number EQS 1005 on Senola of Calcutta – now Kolkata – India. Released 1980.
Filed under: Upper Volta
As you may have guessed by the band’s name, L’Authentique Orchestre Dafra Star de Bobo-Dioulasso Haute-Volta were from Upper Volta – now know as Burkina Faso. The band was founded and led by Coulibaly Tidiani – also known as Tidiane Maxo.
Coulibaly Tidiani was was born in Kangala on the 31th of December 1941. [Source] He started his musical his career in the 60’s playing with the Volta Jazz before founding his own band in 1975. [Source] L’Authentique Orchestre Dafra Star de Bobo-Dioulasso recorded six singles and two albums – all but one of the albums were from the Music Hall label.
Both Volta Jazz and Orchestre Dafra Star are featured on the Numero Group‘s Bobo Yéyé – Belle Époque In Upper Volta box set.
Catalog number MH 004 on Music Hall of Bobo-Dioulasso, Upper Volta. No release date listed.
Filed under: Indonesia
Pomo bersama The Pro’s were from Indonesia.
Pomo – which is short for Soepomo – was the singer and played saxophone on this record. They recorded at least one other single together. Pomo’s only other recording is an album with a band called The Eternals before a brief stint in The Rollies – although there is no mention of him on The Rollies Wikipedia entry
The Pros’s were: Abadi Soesman (keyboards), Broery Marantika (vocals, keyboards), Dimas Wahab (bass), Enteng Tanamal (guitar), Fuad Hasan (drums), Ronny Makasutji (guitar). I am guessing this is a list of everyone who had played in the band since this single only had four people plus Pomo pictured on the back cover. Abadi Soesman currently plays in a band called God Bless that has been active since 1973. Broery Marantika – more commonly know as just Broery – had a lengthy career, recording up until his death in 2000. He recorded two albums with The Pro’s backing him. And Enteng Tanamal played in Eka Sapta and recorded a solo single.
Catalog number SSE 523 on Star Swan of Singapore. Released 1968.
Filed under: Turkey
♬ Ringo
To say this song borrows from Ennio Morricone‘s title music from the Sergio Leon film The Good, The Bad and The Ugly would be a bit if an understatement…
Selçuk Alagöz was born in Istanbul, Turkey on August 5th, 1944. His father was a music teacher and taught Selçuk and his brother Ali and his sister Rana. He got his start in music by playing in Erol Büyükburç Orkestrası in 1964. The following year, he entered the Altın Mikrofon contest that were held by Hürriyet newspaper. His recording career continued throughout the 1970s and he still preforming as of this posting.
I was first introduced to Selçuk Alagöz on the Grey Past Records compilation Turkish Delights. That compilation – plus Steam Kodok from the same label – were the some of the first records that opened my eyes ears to the sounds from around the world that were not being represented in the “World Music” bin at my local record store.
Catalog number FS 176 on Sayan of Istanbul, Turkey. Released 1968.
Filed under: Dahomey
My introduction to Orchestre Discafric-Band De Cotonou was the song “Houiou Djin Nan Zon Aklumon” that was included on Analog Africa‘s first volume of African Scream Contest – which if you do not own a copy of, you need to rectify that immediately. But the extensive liner notes of that compilation do not offer much information about the band.
Orchestre Discafric-Band De Cotonou recorded nine singles, six for the Discafric label. This is the only recording the did with Allognon Degbevi. The song of the flip side of this single is without Discafric-Band. He also recorded six other singles as well as an album – many for the Togolese label International Radisco.
If you have any further information, please leave it in the comment section below.
Catalog number D. F. 003 on Discafric of Cotonou Dahomey – now Benin. No release date listed.
Filed under: Burma
♬ Khaing Pann Sone / ခိုင်ပန်းစုံ
I was digging through an old box I had forgotten about and stumbled upon this cassette I had picked up in Singapore back in ’09. There was a post-it note on the case that said “A2 – Rocker”. So, I popped in the tape deck and gave it a listen. I had forgotten just how crazy this track is.
Thein Tan was born in Inn Wa / အင်းဝမြို့; on December 14, 1945. He was the 6th of 13 children, and the only member of his family to have an interest in music. He was apparently inspired after seeing Elvis in the film King Creole. His first band was called The Shades – possibly in reference to The Shadows – with Khin Nyo. After that, he started singing songs with Playboy Than Naing’s Playboy Group, and the first song he sang was “Manaw Hla Pan Maung Chit Thu” written by Zaw Min Lay. In 1979, he formed his own band, L.P.J – Love, Peace & Joy.
Many thanks to the amazing Peter Doolan of Monrakplenthai for translation and for most of the information about this record. I’m starting to suspect that he might have a Babel Fish in his ear…
Released by Soe San Recording / စိုးစံအသံကူးလုပ်ငန်း. No catalog number or release date listed.
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