Filed under: Thailand
Occasionally I will come across a record that produces more questions than it answers. This album definitely falls into that category…
I often wonder who was the intended listener? Who was it that ‘They’ – ‘They’ being the record company or musician or the powers that be – thought would want to buy this record? Was it intended for tourists or the local populous? Was it even available in Thailand, or was it only released somewhere else, in another country? Who knows?
The real puzzle is that one side of the cover is entirely in Thai, while the other side is in English with Chinese subtitles. There were only two phrases that were on the front that are not on the back: สงวนลิขสิทธิ์ , which translates to “copyright reserved” and วงดนตรี มาริเนอร์, which – to the best of my knowledge – translates to “Orchestra Maaríner”.
I have not been able to find any information available about Orchestra Maaríner – if indeed that is the correct name. When I got this record, I did not know what to call it. So, I opened up the Unicode character pallet, and tried to recreate the Thai text – with full knowledge that it was probably wrong. When I did not hear back from the person who usually translates Thai for me, I figured I would just try and see what the Thai to English translator had to say with the words I had pieced together. And it worked! Well, at least three of the four words that I tried to translate. I am still not too sure about that “Maaríner” bit… The record was most likely recorded by studio musicians and manufactured in Singapore. If you any information about this record, please contact me.
Catalog number LST-121 on Mervels Records, although the other side of the cover says Lily Records Company. No other information available.
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Since this posting, I have been contacted by Peter Doolan, who curates the blog Monrakplengthai. Here’s what he had to say:
… The song you posted (and the title of the album) is “สาวบ้านแต้” (Sao Ban Tae). It was a very popular Ramwong, or rural folk-style dance which, if I’m not mistaken, is from a 1968 film of the same name. It was originally sung by เลิศ ประสมทรัพย์ (Loet Prasomtarap) and ศรีสุดา รัชตวรรณ (Sisuda Rattawan), two prominent singers of the famed Suntarapon big band. Needless to say, this is not the original, and your hypothesis seems likely to be very close to the mark! The arrangement sounds not-very-Thai (particularly the flute and string), although there is what sounds like a khim (Thai hammered dulcimer) in the background. Overall, this seems to be one of the many “Melodies of _____” sort of instrumental records floating around in that era (Rene Paulo springs to mind…). Very nice band though… Oh! and if you hadn’t figured out, มาริเนอร์ is the Thai transliteration of the English word ‘mariner’. I’ve never heard of this orchestra! You can listen to the original here.”
Filed under: Zaïre
♬ Save Me
♬ Sookie
Docteur Nico & L’Orchestre African Fiesta were from Zaïre, which is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Hailed throughout Africa as “Le Dieu de la Guitar” (“The God of the Guitar”), Nicolas Kasanda wa Mikalay was born on July 7th, 1939 in Mikalayi in the Kasai province of what was then the Belgian Congo.
In 1950, at age 11, Nico was introduced to Opika Studios by his cousin Tino Baroza and older brother Mwamba Déchaud who were session musicians there. At 14, he joined Joseph “Grand Kalle” Kabaselle‘s African Jazz. In 1957 he took up electric guitar and can be heard playing electric guitar on ‘Sophie Ya Yotema,’ recorded in 1960. In 1961 he temporarily split with Kabaselle and formed African Jazz Aile Nico before returning to Kabaselle in 1962 and 1963. Young Nico graduated with honours from high school and went on to college, while keeping his night job as Leopoldville‘s hottest young guitarist. He taught auto mechanics at the Christian Brothers school in N’djili district, Kinshasa, which earned him the nickname ‘Docteur’.
Nico quit teaching and broke away from African Jazz to form L’Orchestra African Fiesta in 1963 with Tabu Ley Rochereau, brother Déchaud, Kwamy, Mujos, Depuissant on conga and bassist Joseph Mwena. The band was joined by Roger’s brother Faugus Izeidi on third guitar, with both Dominique “Willy” Kuntima and Jeef Mingiedi on trumpet. Rochereau split two years later in 1965 to form African Fiesta National.
In 1969, the entire band, except his brother Déchaud, walked out Nico because they felt they weren’t getting their due. The Docteur quickly assembled a new band that included Josky Kiambukuta and Lessa Lassan on vocals. Bopol Mansiamina joined on guitar in 1970 and they kept it together for a few more years.
Success eluded Docteur Nico. He withdrew from the music scene in the mid 1970s following the collapse of his Belgian record label, and made a few final recordings in Togo. He drank heavily, leading to his early death in a Belgium hospital on 22 September 1985.
The two songs here, are credited to Bovick (a.k.a. Bovick Ye Bondo) who was also known to record with Verckys Kiamuangana Mateta’s Orchestre Vévé. He sang on their version of the Shocking Blue song “Venus“.
There is a complete discography for Docteur Nico here.
Catalog number SAF 50007, Sonafric records of Paris, France. No release date given.
Filed under: Pakistan
Where as the music of Bollywood has only just started to break into the mainstream here in The West, the music of Pakistan’s film industry – sometimes referred to as “Lollywood” – is often overlooked. Much like their neighbors in India, the music plays a significant part of the film.
After the partition of India, the city of Lahore was the only film production center in the newly-founded Pakistan. The first film was titled Teri Yaad, and was released on August 7th, 1948. Since then, film production studios have been opened in the cities of Karachi and Peshawar.
The film Do Raha was originally produced in 1952, and then remade in 1971 with a new score from Sohail Rana – although all of the information that I have been able to find (other than what is printed on the label of this record) says that duo of Sapan Chakraborty and Jagmohan Bakshi scored the film and that the film was supposedly produced in India.
The Bugs probably were not a real band. They were most likely a studio creation, that may have even been part of the film. As far as I know, this is there only release – and they are only featured on one side. The flipside is the original version of the theme song from the film.
If you any information about the band, please contact me.
Catalog number 7KCE-5000 on Columbia Records of Pakistan. No other information available.
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Since this posting, I have been contacted by Jimmy Jumshade, who was the drummer of the band. Here’s what he had to say:
Thanks for writing and your research into that Era! Indeed those were the most fantastic days of Pakistan when Pakees were not over-dosing on Religion! We did make a couple of recordings at the only record Company then, I forget it’s name (HM something).
At that time the only 4/5 star Hotels in Pakistan (InterContinental) opened and they only exclusively engaged foreign bands, mainly from Italy. We were the first local band hired to perform at that chain.
We did instrumentals and also songs of that day. Mainly The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Animals, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Shadows, The Ventures, Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdink, Gerry & The Pacemakers, The Eagles and some Pakee folk songs / instrumentals.
You got the bands at that time right. There also were “THUNDERS”… Of course The Four Thoughts were very, very talented and popular, I saw several times, Benazir dancing to them at the famous Disco in Metropole Hotel. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was one of our fans. So was Yahya Khan and his son. So was Marlon Brando who was thrilled at our performance, when he visited Pakistan…
The four members of “THE BUGS” were:
Farooq Fatah: Lead Guitar (Now in Toronto)
Ayaz Fatah: Rhythm Guitar (alive and well in Toronto)
Afzal Javeri: Bass Guitar (Who died about a decade ago)
Myself: Drummer (settled in Dallas, Texas)
Amazing time we had like Rock Stars. We also travelled to the music and art loving people of that time East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) where we were welcomed like heroes and we had the best time of our music days… We were good friends with late Waheed Murad and others of the film lndustry and all Pakistanis loved and enjoyed our “make-u-dance” music not only foreigners. We had a large following of Swedes, in Lahore. We also performed at Shahbagh Hotel, Flashman’s at Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Faletti’s in Lahore.
Filed under: Malaysia
When I finally decided to start hunting down the vinyl that would eventually become this website, this record was in the first batch, along with a S. Hazarasingh record and a very odd album of Thai Modernized Music… Actually, that’s a lie. My first batch of records were three Chang Siao Ying albums. I don’t count them, because I no longer have those. But this was definitely the first seven inch single of non-Western pop music. And as you can tell, I bought it solely for the cover.
The seven inch single has to be the perfect format. It’s short and to the point. If you are musician and you are only going to be able to record two (maybe three or four) songs, you’re definitely going to pick you’re ‘A’ material. And the cover… I think some of the greatest artwork ever conceived has measured only seven by seven inches square.
In this day of mp3s and i-tunes, the long playing album seems to be losing the battle. There appears to be a shift back to the single, now that the record companies have figured out a way to sell you just one song (with no manufacturing expenses). To be honest, I have never really been a huge fan of the LP. On most albums, there is always some filler. Maybe it’s because I have such a short attention span, I don’t know. And the advent of the CD player only made skipping those songs that were only “so-so” into a nervous twitch. Next.
As for A. Romzi dan The Hooks, they were part of the “Pop Yeh-Yeh” movement of Malaysia and Singapore at the time. They recorded a handful of singles, this one being their first and most popular. A. Romzi later became a solo artist, and released records into the Seventies.
Catalog number EGEP. 626 on Parlophone / EMI of Singapore, released 1967.
Filed under: Egypt
Belly Dance is a Western name for an Arabic style of dance developed in the Middle East. In Europe, it is sometimes called “Oriental Dance”. Similarly, In Turkish it is referred to as “Oryantal Dansı” (“Dance of the East”). Some American devotees refer to it simply as “Middle Eastern Dance”. In the Arabic language it is known as Raqs Sharqi رقص شرقي (“Eastern Dance”) or sometimes Raqs Baladi رقص بلدي (“National” or “Folk” Dance). The term “Raqs Sharqi” may have originated in Egypt.
Hassan Abou Seoud was from Egypt. Like many other Egyptian musicians of the time, he left for Lebanon in the early Seventies. There, he got his start playing accordion with Omar Khorshid at a night club in Beirut. He also was known to have done some recording with Farid al-Atrash, as well as others.
He moved back to Egypt after the beginning of the Lebanese civil war in 1975 , where he started writing compositions for Sha’abi singer Ahmed Adaweyah. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Paris and formed his own orchestra, working in Arab night clubs there. He eventually moved into management, discovering and encouraged many artists.
Once again returning to Egypt in the late Eighties, he began composing music for films. He then became the president of the Egyptian Musicians Syndicate in mid Nineties, which he held that position until his death in 2006.
Thanks to Hany Zaki for the information.
Catalog number VOS 10015 on Voice of Stars of Lebanon, pressed in Greece. No release date listed.
Filed under: Eritrea
♬ Negash Tekie • Atibreie
♬ Mulugeta Tlahun & Negash Tekie • Yewyen Abebaie
There have been quite a few times in the past year, when I have considered throwing in the towel and calling Radiodiffusion Internasionaal quits. I’ll admit that there has a been a few records that I have posted that I haven’t been all that crazy about. And there’s been more than a handful of posts that have been cranked out in thirty minutes or less… The time and money… It gets to be a bit much. Then, a record like this falls into my hands.
After I managed to get my eyeballs back in their sockets and scraped my jaw off of the floor… I was reminded of why I do this. This is what it is all about. Right here. Two sides of pure joy.
Reality begins to set back in, and the questions start to come… Who were these people? Who concocted these otherworldly sounds from the intersection of The Modern and The Traditional? The mysteries that a record without a sleeve poses… I cannot deny that there is an almost fetish allure of non-Latin characters… What language is that? What does it say?
Of course, there is almost no information available. All I can tell you is that Negash Tekie performed in London in 2002 at a benefit for Eritreans for Human and Democratic Rights. But for Mulugeta Tlahun… I got nothing. I do know that the type along the bottom of the label reads: “Ye Eritrea Te. Gi. (Teklay Gizat) Police Muziqa Kifil” which translates as “Province of Eritrea Police – Division of Music”.
As for the label, Emporio Musicale, I am assuming that the person responsible is “Cav. E. Cipriani” (since Eritrea was ruled by Italy from 1890 to 1940) and that he (or she) was based in the capitol city of Asmara. But that’s just a guess… The only other record I have seen on this label, was in rough shape.
If you have any information on either of these artists, or any of the other records that were released on this label, please contact me.
Thanks to Adamantios Kafetzis and Peter Piper for getting the Tigrinya translated for me.
Now back to chasing the vinyl dragon…
Catalog number ER 5 / ER 6 on Emporio Musicale of Asmara, Eritrea. No other information available.
Filed under: Singapore
The port of Singapore was, and still is, an active hub for international travelers and merchant marines, who bringing with them their favorite pop records from around the world. During the Vietnam conflict, American soldiers brought the sounds of rockabilly from the stateside while the British nationals in camp at RAF bases introduced the British Invasion bands. The area was fertile ground.
The Shadows played their first concert in Singapore in late 1961, which marked the beginning of the Beat group era with bands who were strictly instrumental. Most times, singers were only an addition to the band. After the arrival of The Beatles in 1963 gave birth to “Malay Pop Yeh-Yeh” – a term derived from the song “She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)” – and changed the emphasis from the instrumental band scene to self-contained units with singers and musicians
I have not been able to find any information about The Spiders. Of course, these are not The Spiders from Japan. And, as far as I know, this is the only record that they released.
As for Santana… They were apparently quite popular in South East Asia. Their Latin influenced rock with its use of cowbells and timbales, mixed right in with the Non-Stop Dancing / A Go-Go music that was popular in Singapore in the 1970s. Although Santana did not originally write this song (or “Black Magic Woman” – which is the very next track on this record) covers of their versions of these songs were common.
In 2003, Singapore’s Media Development Authority (MDA) commissioned a six-part series documentary for television on the Singapore music scene from the 1960s to the present day, entitled Jammin’. If anyone knows how I could get a copy of that documentary (especially the first two episodes), I would greatly appreciate it.
If you any information about the band, please contact me.
Catalog number JR 302 on Jubilee Records Trading Co. of Singapore. No release date listed.
Filed under: Iran
♬ 
It seems like almost every other week or so, I will stumble upon another blog that focuses on African music. I would say that its much less frequent for Asian music… Maybe once a month at best. But the lack of blogs or websites or what have you that feature the music of the Middle East never ceases to amaze me. There are a few… But not that many. And of the six or seven I can name off the top of my head, three are dedicated to the music of Iran.
The Golden Age of Persian pop music started as early as the 1950s under the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. During his rule, there was an emergence of a new Western-influenced middle class. Soon, record labels started popping up.
The first label in Iran was Ahang (“song”) in 1959 and pressed their records in Germany. Ahang records were distributed by the Beethoven Music Center based on Manuchehri Ave. in Tehran and owned by Karim Chamanara. By the following year, they were issuing more than two hundred records 45 rpm 7″ records. Six years later, the label change its name to Ahang e Rooz (“song of the day”).
Royal Records was probably the second largest label in Iran. They began by releasing more traditional Persian music on 78 discs, then reproducing old recordings in the 45 rpm format. Eventually Royal, as well as Ahang and a handful of other labels, started to release new recordings of different artists and in all genres of Persian music – including the new “Beat music”.
There were a number of Beat groups in Iran, including Flowers, Golden Ring, Littles, Maha Jamin, Ojoobeha (Remarkables), The Rainbow, The Rebels, Shabah. And while there is little information beyond a few photos and sound files, I have read accounts of Ojoobeha riding camels to the stage and The Rebels cruising around Tehran in a black Cadillac convertible. But beyond that… There is not a whole lot. I know that Golden Ring released at least two singles other than the one posted here. They were also the backing band for Aref on some of his earlier singles. The Rebels, also known as The Rebels 5 and The Rebel Kings, released at least three singles – one with a cover of The Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” and another with a version of The Rolling Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper”. As for the rest, I have only seen one single by each of them.
Surprisingly, there has yet to be a compilation of any of the music, Beat or otherwise, from Iran from this time period on up until the revolution of 1979. I’ve heard rumors that at least three different people that I know of who are working on compilations. But if and when any those will ever see the light of day remains a mystery.
Thanks to Gökhan Aya for translating the Farsi for me.
Catalog number RT 1869 on Royal Records of Iran. No other information available.
Filed under: Guinea
In Guinea, President Ahmed Sékou Touré‘s effort to be rid of all things French produced an amazing roster of A-list talent. The bands cranked out a mix of Manding agit-prop infused with Cuban rhythms and popular Congolese rumba. It was a union blessed by Toure and his political pal Fidel Castro.
The French turned Guinea into one of their most lucrative colonies, establishing a head tax to force Guineans to farm peanuts, fruit and coffee and to harvest rubber, an important resource for France up until the 1920s. Resentment against the French was especially strong in Guinea following the colonial era. Guinea became independent in 1958, the first African nation to do so. A former labor leader and the mayor of the capital, Conakry, Sekou Touré became the president, and under his leadership, the nation voted overwhelmingly not to participate in Charles de Gaulle‘s Franco-African confederation. The price for this act of defiance was high as France retaliated by cutting off aid and support and recalling technical workers. Touré pursued a policy of “positive neutralism” during the Cold War, but with France leading the chorus of nations condemning Touré as a communist, most of his help came from the Eastern Bloc.
Soon after Guinea’s independence, the 25-piece National Orchestra had so many members that they decided to spilt into two bands: l’Orchestre de la Paillote under the direction of Kélétigui Traoré, played in the La Paillote nightclub, and l’Orchestre Jardin de Guinée under the direction of Balla Onivogui, playing in Le Jardin de Guinée. Later the bands were renamed, becoming Kélétigui et ses Tambourins and Balla et ses Balladins.
Manfila Kanté Dabadou, who was the lead singer of Kélétigui et ses Tambourins came from a very musical family. His cousin Soba Manfila Kanté played guitar in Balla et ses Balladin, and two more cousins, Kanté Manfila and Salif Keita, played in the Rail Band from Bamako in neighboring Mali.
Catalog number SLP 45 on Editions Syliphone Conakry of Guinea, released 1974.
Filed under: Philippines
In the early 1960s, as electric instruments and new technology became available, instrumental American and British bands like The Shadows and The Ventures flourished. Filipino instrumental bands arose as well in this period. In 1963, the so-called British Invasion brought bands like The Beatles to mainstream audiences worldwide. Their widespread popularity and their embrace of the counterculture injected the possibility of socio-political lyrics with mature comments on real life into popular music. Immensely influenced by this new breed of British artists, many Filipino bands began adopting similar musical styles. This was the heyday of Pinoy Rock.
Since 1946, the newly independent Philippine state has faced political instability. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw economic development that was second in Asia, next to Japan. Ferdinand Marcos was, then, the elected president. Barred from seeking a third term, Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972, under the guise of increased political instability and resurgent Communist and Muslim insurgencies, and ruled the country by decree. Under Marcos’ new control, many musicians left the Philippines to avoid persecution and the music faded away.
The Electromaniacs were founded in 1960 by Gene Generoso, who was the lead singer and played rhythm guitar, lead guitarist Ernie Delgado, Joey Gordon on bass and Lito Toribio on drums. They later replaced Gene Generoso with Chito Perez on rhythm guitar, and they became an instrumental band. Their manager was Jose Mari Gonzales, who was a popular Filipino actor at the time. They were often billed as ‘Jose Mari Gonzales & The Electromaniacs’. They later shortened their name to ‘The Electros’.
They still perform at Pinoy Rock revival festivals in both the Philippines and in the United States.
Catalog number DN-7332 on Dyna Records, manufactured by Dyna Products, Ltd. In the Philippines. No release date listed.
