One Pound No Balance

It appears a lot of people enjoyed the clip from "The Stephen Osita Osadebe Show" I posted last week and want to see more.*

So here's some more.



I'm still posting these short clips on YouTube just for the sake of continuity (plus, somewhere deep down inside I probably want to be a YouTube star) but I'll soon start putting up longer versions on Dailymotion.

*What I found interesting though is that the clip of the much more obscure Golden Sounds I uploaded to YouTube on the same day has received well over two times the number of views of the Osadebe video--thanks probably to the World Cup-fueled renewed interest in "Zangalewa"/"Waka Waka." I really hope the Golden Sounds can harness this attention into a strong comeback!

The Stephen Osita Osadebe Show - "Osondi Owendi"

It's extremely rare to encounter live performance footage of Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe because like many musicians of his generation he guarded his music and his image jealously. He turned down most invitations to play on television and demanded exorbitant sums for the rights to film him in performance. However, in the early 1980s NTA 10 Lagos finally convinced the Doctor of Hypertension to do a weekly television half-hour show.

The program took the format of a live-in-studio Osadebe concert--no skits, no guest stars, no interviews, no chit-chat, no frills. Osadebe and the band would just perform two or three songs straight. The only variation would be when Chief would step off stage to let one of the other band members lead while he danced in the wings.

Here is an early rendition of the now-classic "Osondi Owendi." It's actually a bit longer than this but I had to get it to fit in at under 10 minutes in order to upload it on YouTube.

Journey to Luna

The photo above was grabbed from this video of Fela Ransome-Kuti performing at the famous Luna Nite Club in Calabar in 1971. I don't think I ever went to Luna; I was still in primary school during the club's glory days and even when I came of age, it wasn't really the kind of establishment I would frequent. For one thing, it was located in a slightly unsavory neck of the woods: the "Old Calabar" precinct that is now known as "Calabar South" and is today--as it was then--legendary for its rough characters. Among my middle-class stratum, we sometimes called this area "Target," a synecdoche referring to Target Street, one of the more rugged byways in that quarter of town. ("Target" was also an allusion to what an interloper might as well have his back wandering around that neighborhood after dark.) If someone owed you money or was messing with you, commissioning some thugs from "Target" to help you settle the score usually got the message across that you meant business.

Calabar had a spectrum of nightspots, with Paradise City on Atekong Drive representing the more upscale end and something like Hotel de Moon Rock on Mount Zion Road as the seedier extreme, but Luna was somewhere in the middle: a pleasure pit where you could relax, drink your Star or your Gulder and maybe enjoy some bushmeat--be it the kind that's bound with twine, soaked in tangy sauce and served with roasted plantains, or the variety that you might take back to one of the "chalets" behind the club that could be rented for a 30-minute "short-time" term ("bushmeat" being the local slang for a young woman who is relatively unsophisticated culturally and thus, is presumed to be reasonably available sexually).

If it was dancing you liked to dance, though, the big draw at Luna might have been the Anansa President, Bustic Kingsley Bassey, whose band was resident at the club for years.

Bustic (or Burstic, same pronunciation) was a local legend but never made much of a splash on a national level. Truthfully, he was a bit of a journeyman. While he undoubtedly delivered rousing shows on the Luna stage, I don't think he ever really developed a distinctive sound of his own. The records I have heard from the late 1960s and very early 70s, for instance, capture Bustic performing in a style very reminiscent of Rex Lawson's "New Calabar" danceband highlife.

Commissioner Burstic Kingsley Bassey and His Professional Pioneer Dance Band of Nigeria - "Ntinke Iko Edem"

It would seem, though, that Fela's Luna performance left a significant impression on Bustic because shortly thereafter, he started calling himself the Chief Engineer and plying a heavily Fela-influenced afrobeat style, even mimicking the nuances of the Chief Priest's laid-back, delirious vocal style.

The two tracks below are from the 1975 LP Gossip, when Bustic was still in his deep Fela phase.

Bustic Kingsley Bassey's Anansa Engineers - "Journey to Luna"
Bustic Kingsley Bassey's Anansa Engineers - "Allow Me Talk My Own"

Saturday highlife (on Sunday)

VARIOUS - SATURDAY HIGHLIFE (PHILIPS WEST AFRICAN RECORDS, 420 021 PE, 196?)

SIDE 1
1. Come Again - Stephen Osadebe and his "Nigeria Sound Makers"
2. Kolowo Lode - Victor Olaiya and his "All Stars"

SIDE 2
1. Ibi Na Bo - Pastor Rex Lawson and his "Mayor's Dance Band"
2. 750 x 20 - Roy Chicago and his "Rhythm Dandies"

Are you ready for Okwedy?

Been super, super busy, fam... But keep checking in; things will be back to normal in a little bit, I think.

For now, here's a little something from the always curiously female-voiced Eddie Okwedy. It's kind of interesting the way a lot of post-war Igbo highlife had that really sweet, mellow tone to it; someone told me it was because they were really trying to cool down after the horror.



Ifeanyi Eddie Okwedy & His Maymores Dance Band - "Rapunu Anyi"
Ifeanyi Eddie Okwedy & His Maymores Dance Band - "Akwa C.T. Onyekwelu"

NTIA (A belated realization)

A few months ago over on Likembe, John B. posted a few selections from Rusted Highlife Vol. 1, a compilation of forgotten highlife classics released by Mossaic Music.

While there's no doubt that Rusted Highlife Vol. 1 is a truly sublime collection of music, its annotations were perhaps a bit questionable. As John noted, the recording "Ima Abasi," attributed on the disc to Calabar musician Kingsley Burstic Bassey, is the exact version of the song from the Ghana classic Hit Sound of the Ramblers Dance Band LP. Similarly, "Abisi Do," which is listed as being by "Demmy Bassey" is identical to "Abasi Do," which appears on Golden Highlife Classics by King Bruce & the Black Beats, with composition credited to "Len Bassey."

Two tracks that really stood out to me, though, were "Solo Hit (Nwaocholonwu)" and "Mme Yedi," credited to B.E. Batta & Eastern Stars Dance Band and featuring a singer identified as "Emmanuel Vita."

B.E. Batta & Eastern Stars Dance Band - Mme Yedi
B.E. Batta & Eastern Stars Dance Band - Solo Hit (Nwaocholonwu)

Both songs rang faint but insistent bells in my head, though I couldn't figure out where I knew them from. The title "Solo Hit" in particular seemed like something I had encountered fairly recently, and not in connection with Orlando Julius Ekemode's 1967 souled-out version of the song:

Orlando Julius & His Modern Aces - "Solo Hit (Instrumental)"

Then, just the other night, it hit me.

Sometime last year, when I was looking for some info on Kingsley Burstic Bassey, I came across this article paying tribute to some of the forgotten highlife legends from Rivers State ("New Calabar") and Cross River State ("Old Calabar"). The unidentified author describes watching a young highlife band playing at a bash presided over by former Cross River State governor Donald Duke and current governor Liyel Imoke:

Somewhere along the imitative repertoire of the band, they broke into an up-tempo highlife tune, which: started with a vivacious and vigorous guitar riff. Quite expectedly, this generated palpable excitement as everyone including Duke and Imoke was nodding and/or swinging to the compelling rhythm of the tune. Even Domenico Gitto, the Italian Managing Director of the contracting firm, swung to the successful beat. As for me, I lost my cool momentarily, sprang to my feet and spun around a couple of times to the enchanted amazement of my colleagues in Gitto and the rest of the audience.

When the event ended and only the lesser mortals were left to tidy up the venue, I approached the lead singer of the band and challenged him to a four-point quiz with each question attracting a prize tag of five hundred Naira. Expectedly, he acquiesced; after all, he had two thousand Naira to gain and absolutely nothing to lose since the gamble was one-sided-it was mine.

Question: What is the title of the song that caused so much excitement?

Answer: Solo Hit

Question: Who sang it?

Answer: Emmanuel Ntia

Question: In what language was it sung?

Answer: Fish language

Question: What is on the flipside?

Answer: Meyedi.

Amazing! Though I lost two thousand Naira, I couldn’t be happier especially given the fact that this young man, was in his early twenties knew such details of a song that was released more than forty years ago. Of the accurate answers, the one that impressed me most was the language of the song, which, for me, is still as much a mystery as it was in the sixties. Fish language?! Whatever that means! But it came out right on the delivery and So Hit was a smash sensation on the highlife scene in the sixties.

Of course... "Emmanuel Vita" is Emmanuel Ntia. When I was a kid, he was regarded as one of the great highlife legends of Cross River State. (He comes from Abak, which is now in Akwa Ibom State.) His song "Ke Nsede Nasiaye Ufien," along with "Solo Hit" and "Mme Yedi" were played all the time wherever two or three older folks were gathered, and I went to school with one of his nephews. Emmanuel Ntia is still alive (see him pictured below with his wife and one of his sons) and still playing that good dance band music.



I'm posting up the Ekpo LP from 1975, which I think is fairly representative of the repertoire of many highlife dance bands in the 1970s, especially in places like Calabar and Ghana: old-style highlife numbers, with an increasing influence of "souls." (I just love saying that, "souls"... I like the way the old highlife guys tend to pronounce it as a plural.)

(Now if I could just find out something more about B.E. Batta...)

NTIA & EASTERN STARS DANCE BAND - EKPO (BEN RECORDS, BLP 0005, 1975)

SIDE 1
1. Ekpo
2. Ke Nsede Nasiaye Ufien
3. Kot Ndito Abasi
4. Iyedara

SIDE 2
1. Nya Ekpo
2. I Need Some One
3. Good Bye
4. By The Same Side

DOWNLOAD ZIP

More Edo rock n' highlife

I don't know if it's a matter of Victor Uwaifo leading and everybody else following, or if it was just something in the air around Benin in those days, because it seems like a disproportionate number of these Edo guys were just coming with that revival-style, rock n' soul-inflected, get-down-and-dirty dance party highlife that Uwaifo had on lock in the 1970s.

This LP was fully composed, arranged, and produced by Douglas Osakwe himself. Wish I knew something about him; the name is familiar to me, but I might just be confusing him with someone I went to school with.

Ah well... Just groove to this, willya?

DOUGLAS OSAKWE AND THE ABOBOKOS - UKHUKHUE (EMI RECORDS, NEMI (LP) 0405, 197?)

SIDE ONE
1. Aganokpe
2. Enyi Jen Enyi Eru-Olo

SIDE TWO
1. Eboigbe
2. Okwunwene

DOWNLOAD ZIP

Who says a highlife band can't play rock?!

Well, not "rock" in the balls-out, yeh! yeh! yeh! sense--you'll find no searing solos here, no raucous drumming, no ecstatic abandon; but with its butter-rich production (courtesy of the late, great Biddy Wright), Johnny Woode's groovy organ lines and Godwin Ironbar's soulful vocal delivery, the album does represent an attempt to bridge the gulf between the old-school highlife orchestras and the youth-driven Western pop music that had enthralled the kids' imaginations in the post-war era.

The always-tasteful Biddy Wright was an apt choice to shepherd a project such as this, having been well familiar with both worlds--he led the beloved Lagos highlife dance band Wura Fadaka in the 1960s and then rocked out with Ronnie Laine of The Faces in the 70s. Ironbar himself is credited as writer, arranger, lead vocalist, guitar soloist and conductor of the fine cadre of musicians on this record. He sounds a bit Victor Uwaifo-inlfuenced to me, but maybe that's just because they both sing in the Edo language and embrace soul music accents in their highlife.

If I recall, several tracks from this record (along with Jackie Mittoo rock steady instrumentals) were frequently used as theme and interstitial music on NTA stations in the 1970s and 80s, especially "Ukpona Mie" and the "Let's Get It On"-citing "Okpenobodi."

(This is another VG+ record that's sounding a bit weird when ripped... I wonder if it's time for me to replace my stylus or something. I'll have to look into that... Let me know if it bugs you any and I might try ripping it again later.)

GODWIN IRONBAR & HIS HIGH-LIFE ROCK EXPONENT - GODWIN IRONBAR (DECCA RECORDS, WAPS 255, 1975)

SIDE 1
1. Ukpona Mie
2. Okpa Do
3. A Ti Se

SIDE 2
1. Okpenobodi
2. Izenegbonta
3. Ovbiogwe

DOWNLOAD ZIP

Otarus again.

As I've said before, I love it when readers chip in around here. Our friend Melvyn was kind enough to share with us the very much in-demand sophomore album from the Otarus Brothers Band! And it sounds great!

So if you dig it, drop a comment and say thanks to Melvyn!

OTARUS - OTARUS (EMI RECORDS, NEMI(LP) 0014, c. 1973)

SIDE 1
1. Eminerume
2. Okuanibo
3. Emanuregbe
4. Ihagbene Iteyowa
5. Agbonita
6. Aigbomo Nomo

SIDE 2
1. Omohupa
2. Afemai Nasoma
3. Pack & Go
4. Amuwa
5. Adenomo

DOWNLOAD ZIP

Wise men bank with UBO

(Title being an eminently lame pun referring to this immortal jingle.)

UMUKEGWU BOYS OPINION with headquarters headquarters [sic] in AKOKWA, IDEATO L.G.A. of IMO STATE is an organisation of budding and enterprising young men formed in 1974 to cater for the general welfare of its members and the community at large: In addition to their concerted efforts to promote development projects, the Boys Opinion launched their UBO JAZZ BAND in 1978 to put people in relaxed moods, while pursuing their set objectives. Though they are no professional musicians, they still found time to make this album you are now holding - a testimony of their creativeness and dynamism.

OHAIGIRI SOCIAL CLUB also with headquarters in AKOKWA, IDEATO, Imo State is a noble organisation promoting the peoples cultural and social aspirations. Membership is countryside and development achievements diverse. Easily one of the most honourable Social Clubs around - hear UBO Jazz Band confirm this.

On the real, I could have told you they were not professional musicians just by listening to them. Not that they don't play well--no, they're more than competent enough; it's just that they don't seem to have a really distinctive voice. It's Igbo guitar band highlife-by-the-numbers and a bit derivative of Osadebe and some other stuff, but it's still a pretty good listen, I think.

UBO JAZZ BAND OF AFRICA - OHAIGIRI SPECIAL (ANODISC RECORDS, ALPS 1068, 1981)

SIDE I
1. Ome Njo Kwusiya
2. K'anyi Bili N'udo

SIDE II
1. Ohaigiri Special

DOWNLOAD ZIP

Suku Suku System

George Iboroma--was one of the most popular proponents of 1970s dance band highlife--well, in Eastern Nigeria, anyway.

I still remember this particular record shaking up the grownups' parties even in the 1980s, when I was coming up. But even if I had forgotten how much play Iboroma's suku suku suku libi libi laba laba sound got, I need only look at my copy of the record, on which the grooves are worn clear through.

Listener beware: Skips and noise aplenty on this one. I regret I had to use the noise removal tool, adding some distortion too. And then the third track--one of the sweetest on the album--was so damaged that I had to leave it off altogether.

I'd usually not share a record in this state, but you can barely find a mention of George Iboroma online let alone any of this music, and I think he should be represented out there.

So until I can find more, this is what we've got.

This album is a two-fer; Side 2 features some Igbo highlife from The Young Timers Dance Band led by Helen WIlliams, one of the few woman highlife bandleaders I can think of.

(We'll hear some more from her later, and in better condition, too!)

GEORGE IBOROMA & HIS REINCARNATIONS - UNBEATABLE GEORGE IBOROMA & HIS REINCARNATIONS (TABANSI RECORDS, TRL 104A, 1975)

1. Philip Leonda
2. Sobra Suapri
3. Ina Bala Na

HELEN WILLIAMS & THE YOUNG TIMERS DANCE BAND - UKO DI (TABANSI RECORDS, TRL 104B, 1975)

1. Di Dim Uko
2. Amachie Uwa George
3. Amam Onye Mmadighi Mma

Nice and scratchy

Emperor Era Jenewari & His Globe Kings Dance Band - "Globe King's Special"

Emperor Era Jenewari & His Globe Kings Dance Band - "Ikeguru Uwa"



I think this record was released around 1970 or 71.

(Sorry about some of the distortion... I used a bit of noise removal on it, which I usually don't do.)

Check out some of Jenewari's later music HERE

This was not the plan

Let's see...

The last two posts dealt with Izon musician Echo Toikumo and guitarist Benjamin Otaru, who eared his chops under Ijaw bandleader Rex Lawson. I'd hoped to continue this informal theme of Rivers State-styled highlife today by throwing up some sound by Ijaw singer George Iboroma, but the record I wanted to post needs a little more restoration than I have the time to perform right now.

So instead I decided to take the easy route and share this album by Benji Igbadumhe instead. That works, doesn't it? Even though King Benji does not originate from the Ijoid clans, he--like highlife cult legend Waziri Oshomah--comes from the Etsakọ group in northern Edo State, so we still have a "highlife from minority groups" thing going ("minority" in Nigerian parlance refers to any ethnic group that is not Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa/Fulani). And to make things better yet, this record is like VG++/NM! I'll have it ripped in a flash!

Alas, this is not how it turned out. For some reason, the record plays funny-style, so there will be a few skips for you, especially on side 2. It doesn't detract significantly from these groovy Okeke sounds, though.

I think the track that fills all of side 1, "Arofu Nemho Okeke" was a "hit" to some extent in 1984. Either that or it was played as the theme music of some TV show or something, because I remember it quite well though I don't think I've ever actually listened to this record before today.

Oh yes, one more thing: His name is misspelled on the cover; it should be "Igbadumhe." (D'OH!)

BENJI IGBADUMHE AND HIS OKEKE SOUNDS INTERNATIONAL - BENJI IGBADUMHE AND HIS OKEKE SOUNDS INTERNATIONAL (SUPREMEDISK, SDP 049, 1984)

SIDE 1
1. Arofu Nemho Okeke

SIDE 2
1. Erelumhe
2. Atab Okeke

DOWNLOAD ZIP

Otarus.

This is another band with a name that is very sweet in the mouth, especially when you pronounce it with a proper accent: AWW-taard-OOSS.

The proclamation of that single word from the front cover of a record evokes images of some otherworldly, winged behemoth of mythology. Which is apt, I suppose, as the Otarus sound is fleet and ethereal, and Benjamin Otaru is a beast on the guitar.

Otaru was born in 1947 in the town of Ewan, in the Akoko-Edo Local Government Area of present-day Edo State, Nigeria. His musical talent first manifested itself while he was a student at St. Paul's Grammar School in Igarra where he played organ in the choir. When he left school, he took a job as a storekeeper at John Holt, but quit in '67 to play guitar in the Gaiki Messengers Band. By 1968 he had joined The Rivers Men, led by the great Rex Lawson, remaining in the band until Lawson's death in 1971. For the next year, Otaru played with St. Augustine's Rovers Band and then broke off to form his own Otarus Brothers International Band in 1972.

Based on context clues, I am dating this album, his third, to 1974 or 75.

BENJAMIN OTARU AND HIS OTARUS BROTHERS BAND - BENJAMIN OTARU AND HIS OTARUS BROTHERS BAND (EMI RECORDS, NEMI(LP) 0106, c. 1974/75)

SIDE 1
1. Ikpozi Special
2. Owakhowa
3. Onoyohi Roregueda
4. Aiyeroyao
5. Ono Gbe Me No Vbioe

SIDE 2
1. Alhaji Inu-Umoru
2. Gbeyen Ona Eye Ona
3. M.C.K. Obi
4. Mr. Man
5. Col. Sedenu

DOWNLOAD ZIP

(Sorry it sounds slightly rough, especially at the beginning of each side; I don't know... Visually the vinyl is VG+. It's annoying to me, especially since the spare texture of Otaru's music makes the noise a bit more apparent, but a lot of people seem to want to hear this record so I posted it anyway.)

Echo of the (Flooded) Savannah

A few months ago, John B. posted a nice series on Likembe spotlighting some of the music from the Ijaw/Okrika/Izon peoples of Nigeria's Delta region.

The Ijaw are considered one of Nigeria's "ethnic minorities" and as such, their rich culture and musical heritage are often overlooked, but the area has nurtured a strong highlife tradition (especially in the live performance arena) and produced luminaries of the genre such as Prince David Bull & the Professional Seagulls* and the immortal Cardinal Rex Jim Lawson. The majority of its highlife stars, though, have never not made much of a mark beyond the immediate region but are local legends: Emperor Erasmus Jenewari, George Iboroma, King Robert Ebizimor and of course Echo Toikumo.

Echo Toikumo's music, like that of most Ijaw dance bands, tends to an urgency and directness that is akin to the jumpy highlife of their their Anioma neighbors.

(A few small press defects in this one, gang... Nothing too distracting, though.)

ECHO TOIKUMO AND THE FISHER BROTHERS - ENI YEI (TRADISCOS RECORDS, TRDLP-09, 1984)

SIDE 1
1. Ebi-Ebi Miyen
2. Eni Yei

SIDE 2
1. Tibi Kari
2. Eko Itonbra

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*My man Deinma (that proud son of Okrika) has been bugging me to put up some David Bull music for a while... I'm working on it, D!

Whatever happened to Danie Ian?

Singer/guitarist Danie Ian (pronounced "eye-AN") is perhaps one of the most tragically undersung heroes in the annals of Nigerian popular music. A founder of not one but two of the most seminal bands of the rock era, his lack of greater renown is an unfortunate accident of timing: His career peak just happened to have coincided with an epoch that history has simultaneously judged to be a golden age and a lost era.

In 1966, as Nigeria shuffled toward its sixth anniversary as an independent nation, its fragile democracy was displaced by two military coups in rapid succession, simmering ethnic rivalries boiled over into fult-tilt carnage, and Nigeria would greet the next decade as a country at war with itself. It's safe to say the honeymoon was over.

Apparently, 1966 was also the year that Daniel Ian Mbaezue formed his first pop group, The Spades (some accounts give the year as 1968)--which would go on to be one of the most influential bands of in Nigeria's embattled Eastern Region, and eventually one of the most beloved bands in the country as a whole--albeit without him.

Mbaezue was born in the village of Umuezeawala, outside of the town of Ihiala in present-day Anambra State. Daniel showed an early propensity for music, playing flute and drums in his primary school band, leading the school choir at Abbott Boys Secondary School and remaining active in school music activities at Holy Ghost College in Owerri, Imo State, from which he received his Higher Studies Certificate in 1964.

In 1965, he returned to Ihiala to teach at his alma mater Abbott Boys, but his interest in music continued. During those turbulent times, the buoyant optimism and aspirations to elegance represented by dance band highlife had lost a bit of its luster and the new youth generation had turned more towards "beat" music--funk, soul and rock & roll. Where once a youths interested in music sought to learn the trumpet and join a highlife orchestra, they now picket up guitars and formed rock bands like The Blue Knights, The Cyclops, The Strangers, Hykkers International, The Soul Assembly and The Clusters. Mbaezue reports that he bought a guitar with his very first paycheck and shortly thereafter assembled The Spades.

In May 1967, the governor of the Eastern Region, Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu declared that the region had seceded from the Nigerian federation and would effectively be known as the independent nation of Biafra. Nigeria promptly dedicated all its military resources to crushing Biafra and re-annexing the oil-rich land it stood on. Biafra soon became a blockaded teritory, with Nigeria barring food and medical supplies into the region, leading to an estimated one million Biafran casualties, with a good percentage of those being civilians that succumbed to starvation and disease.

Through all that, though, Biafra managed to maintain a fairly vibrant music scene. Little is remembered about most of the wartime bands, as for obvious reasons they got few opportunities to record. And of the few recordings that were made, few survived the devastation. (One With Comb & Razor reader once described to me driving through the ravaged city of Onitsha shortly after The War and seeing a long stretch of a major road littered with broken 45s.) As such, we know little about bands like The Figures and The Spades that played in Biafra, chiefly entertaining the young soldiers. Perhaps because of this reputation for lifting the spirits of combatants in the war zone, by 1968 The Spades had become known as The Airforce Wings.

When The War ended in 1970, Airforce Wings became simply "The Wings" and soared even higher, their achy-hearted rock and pop serving as a salve for the battered souls of the country's youth. But The Wings' postwar success was achieved not behind charismatic frontman Dan Ian but with new lead singer Emeka Jonathan "Spud Nathan" Udensi; Ian had been lured over to The Strangers in late 1970 and in 1971 moved to Lagos to join Sonny Okosuns' Paperback Limited. Ian's spell with Okosuns was similarly short, and by 1972 he had formed the band with which he is most associated: Wrinkar Experience.

Not much is known about the group (which was active for only six months between 1972 and 1973) and I've never seen a photo so I'm not sure about the composition of its membership. All I can say for certain is that the lineup included Ian on guitar and lead vocals, Cameroonians Edjo'o Jacques Racine and Ginger Forcha (on bass and guitar/organ respectively). Ian seems to have been the primary songwriter, penning the two singles for which the band is best known: "Fuel for Love" and "Money to Burn."

Wrinkar Experience - "Fuel for Love"
Wrinkar Experience - "Money to Burn"

I'm sure we're all familiar with these songs, as well as with "Fuel for Love"'s B-side:

Wrinkar Experience - "Soundway"

(The B-side of "Money to Burn" was "Ballad of a Sad Young Woman." I don't have that, but here's a snippet.)

At the height of Wrinkar's fame, Ian left the band "in protest against exploitation." Wrinkar Experience briefly carried on without him until Forcha and Racine formed a new band, Rock Town Express.

If one were to make an assumption about Danie Ian's temperament based solely on his in-and-out relationships with various bands between 1970 and 1973, one might be tempted to view him as mercurial, territorial, perhaps a tad attention-hogging. After the Wrinkar split, Sunny Okosuns considered re-drafting Ian to sing lead vocals on his breakthrough hit "Help," but feared Ian would attempt "steal" the song by taking credit for its composition. Instead, Ian put together a new band called The Ace of Spades and recorded a handful of singles, including "Love Me Now," "Keep It Top Secret" and "Lady Gay Girl."

Danie Ian - "Lady Gay Girl"

By 1976, Ian had shortened the band's name to The Spades in tribute to his original group and released the album Chapter One: This Unspoken Love, dubbing his sound "Love-Dayrock."

Danie Ian & the Spades - "This Unspoken Love"
Danie Ian & the Spades - "Got To Stay Mine"
Danie Ian & the Spades - "I Need Somebody To Love"

The album was issued by EMI in Nigeria, but was also released on Pathe Marconi in France as simply Danie Ian & The Spades. It does not appear to have made much of an impact in either market.

In 1978, Ian ditched he Spades and teamed up with the Heads Funk rock band of Port Harcourt for Hold On Tight, an album of mostly mellow reggae-style tunes like "She's My Woman."

Dan Ian - "She's My Woman"

Apparently, the album's hit was a song that diverged from Ian's usual romantic pop format. "Uri Oma" evoked Igbo native blues and performed well in regional Igbo markets.

Dan Ian - "Uri Oma"

On the mainstream level, though, Hold On Tight mostly went unnoticed. The audience was changing; the new generation seemed more interested in new genres like disco and boogie and even the re-energized guitar highlife scene. Dan Ian's beat pop seemed to be just as much of a relic as the old school dance band highlife it had supplanted a decade earlier, a souvenir of a dark age they would rather have forgotten and memories they wished would just disappear.

And so Danie Ian did just that. He disappeared.

The former heartthrob went back to his hometown, where he was honored with the title Chief Dan Ian Mbaezue, Ezeloma Apanike of Ihiala. But music was never far from his heart. Citing the success of "Uri Oma" as an influence, he charted a new artistic direction in the world of traditional Igbo music and highlife.

In 1990, a mature and near-unrecognizable Dan Ian returned to the music scene with the LP Jide Ukpuru Oma.

Chief Dan Ian Mbaezue - Edikata Ndidi Obi Agbowasia"
Chief Dan Ian Mbaezue - "Mmiri Si N'Isi Gbaru"

And then, just like that, he was gone again.

Which brings us to the question at the top of this post, one that I have been asked several times since I started writing about Nigerian music on this blog: Whatever happened to Danie Ian?

I regret that at this time, I have no definite answer as to his activities of the last 18 years, but most people seem to be unaware of anything he did after Wrinkars, so I hope I've filled in some of the blanks at least.

As one who was not even born when "Fuel for Love" was released, I can only imagine the tremendous effect it had on the kids that came up in the shadow of The War. I can hardly think of a single song that elicits as passionate a response; you need only hum a few bars of "Fuel for Love" in the presence of any gathering of pentagenarian Biafra babies and and watch them go wild.

(The afrofunk supergroup Ariara--featuring friend of the blog Edward Keazor--recorded a lovely version of the sentimental classic.)

I believe he is alive and well, though; rumor suggests that he works as a palm wine tapper in his village, but as he's probably pushing seventy by now, I hope he's not still climbing those trees!

The last major Dan Ian sighting was in October 2006, when he traveled to Lagos for the "Legends Night" event held by the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria. As audience members requested old favorites by the likes of highlife maestros Dan Maraya Jos, Oliver De Coque and Raphael Amarabem, Dan Ian was summoned to the stage to perform "Fuel for Love."

And so he sang, and they danced like it was 1972. And for one night at least, Danie Ian got the recognition he deserved as a legend of Nigerian music.

Well... Let this be another night for him.

One Big Question...

Who were Sons of Izzu?

Wish I could say I knew. Hell, I wish I could say I knew what year their album Ago Follow You Go was released. But since the record sleeve gives us none of this information, we'll do the best we can to sketch a general portrait using the few context clues we do have.

1. They were an Igbo highlife group. While they do not sing in Igbo, this is obvious due to their bouncy, Ikwokilikwo sound and the subtitle "Anambra/Imo special," a reference to the two main Igbo-speaking states in Nigeria at the time.

2. This LP was recorded some time after 1975, the year Ikenga Superstars of Africa released Ikenga in Africa, which popularized this style of hard-driving, pidgin English highlife. Probably even after Prince Nico Mbarga's 1976 Sweet Mother, whose massive success across Africa and the Caribbean thrust this kind of sound into overdrive.

3. Like Mbarga himself, this LP is a Cameroonian-Nigerian creation. The only credited session musicians are Edjo'o Jacques Racine (bass), Ginger Forcha (guitars) and Feliciano Sango (a.k.a. Felix Nsango, percussion), a trio of Cameroonian rock musicians known as Rock Town Express.

4. The record was produced by Tony Essien, a musician and producer from Akwa Ibom State who often worked with Rock Town Express, and released on Essien's own Supertone label. This record would have been made before Essien assumed the position of chief producer and creative director at Haruna Ishola's Phonodisk label in 1980.

So... Given all that, I'm guessing this record dropped in 1977 or 78 (Something about it sounds very Festac-y to me). Still no clue who Sons of Izzu themselves were, though...

5/6/09: Actually, now that I think about... This LP is TON(LP) 002; the Tony Essien-produced Enim Ini by Cross River Nationale was TON E001... Enim Ini was released in 1976, so...

SONS OF IZZU - AGO FOLLOW YOU GO (SUPERTONE, TON (LP) 002, 1970s)

SIDE ONE
1. Ago Follow You Go
2. Better No Follow

SIDE TWO
3. One Big Question
4. You Never Chop Beleful

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The Gold Coast's golden age of highlife

(Consider this an unofficial companion piece to John B.'s great post on the golden age of Ghanaian highlife over at Likembe.)


When Ghanaian trumpeter E.T. Mensah arrived in Lagos with his Tempos band in 1950, he introduced Nigerians to a brassy and vivacious new dance sound that had been developing back in Accra since the late 19th century, combining the rootsy flavor of various street rhythms of the West African coast with the urbane elegance of Western ballroom music. Highlife, they called it back in the Gold Coast.

Within a few years, all the top Nigerian ballroom orchestras had ditched their waltzes, swings, foxtrots and quicksteps and hitched their wagons to the highlife train. From that point on, highlife would develop in parallel between Ghana and Nigeria, with the Nigerians devising quite a few innovative permutations of the genre through the 1970s and 80s. Still--for this listener at least--the definitive highlife sound will always be the jaunty, opulent music plied by the Ghanaian dance bands of the 1950s and 60s.

Stars of Ghana was an influential compilation featuring a sampling of these Ghanaian bands as represented in Decca West Afrca's bestselling series of highlife recordings in the mid-to-late-60s.

The King of Highlife, E.T. Mensah with his Tempos; the Black Beats, led by the great King Bruce; the Stargazers, featuring saxophonist Teddy Osei and drummer Sol Amarfio (both of whom would go on to found Osibisa) and led by legendary trumpeter Eddie Quansah; and the Broadway Dance Band, led by Nigerian trumpeter Sammy Obot.

As much as I love the big brass brands, some of my favorite Ghanaian groups from this era were the guitar bands such as King Onyina's and Akompi's. Working with much smaller combos and without the added volume of horns, trap drums or (in some cases) even bass, they managed to approximate the voluptuous texture of the orchestras with just nimble fretwork, chromatic chording and wailing vocal harmonies.

The guitar playing on all these records is quite colorful, actually... Over the summer I was fortunate to attend a seminar on highlife at which Stan Plange of the Broadway (later Uhuru) Dance Band and guitarist Ebo Taylor both asserted that Ghana always had the best guitar players but suffered a dearth of decent trumpet players and and so always looked to Nigeria to recruit trumpeters.

The Ghanaian guitar bands also laid the template for the Eastern Nigerian guitar bands such as the Peacocks (whose "Eddie Quansah" is linked above) that would come to dominate the highlife scene after The War. (The Nigerian guitar bands would later take more inspiration from East and Central Africa, particularly The Congo.)

One band featured here that I know nothing at all about, though, is the African Tones. Does anybody know who they were? (And while we're at it, who were The Republicans?)

VARIOUS ARTISTS - STARS OF GHANA (DECCA, WAP 21, 1960s)

SIDE ONE:
1. Srotoi Ye Mli - Black Beats Band
2. Obi Nkabi Mmami - Stargazers Dance Band
3. Odo Ye Owu - Onyina's Guitar Band
4. Gyae Su - Broadway Dance Band
5. Odo Misu Fre Wo - Akompi's Guitar Band
6. Owo Ko Ni Fe - Black Beats Band
7. Me Da Ho Gyan - African Tones

SIDE TWO:
8. Wonma Menka - Black Beats Band
9. Odo Akoda Agyame - Onyina's Guitar Band
10. Keyere Mon - E.T. Mensah & His Tempos Band
11. Black Bra - Akompi's Guitar Band
12. Bu Duru Mana - Black Beats Band
13. KonKonsa Ni Be Bere - Onyina's Guitar Band
14. Nkae - Broadway Dance Band

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Still on that Old Calabar tip...

The Calabar of my childhood was not today's affectedly quaint, glossily-packaged tourist trap but a city lost in time.

Back then, the town's strong connection to the past was not yet exploited as a marketing hook. In fact, it often seemed like an oppressive burden--weighing it down, dragging it back and keeping it perpetually out of step with the rest of the country. It was a ghost town where shadows of the glorious path were an everyday, almost suffocating presence.

I became aware of this soon after we moved into town. I was sitting in the Volvo with my dad, parked on Calabar Road while we waited for my mother who had gone up the street to Uruawatt (Watt Market, named for George Watts, the Liverpudlian merchant who helped establish Calabar as a major trading post in the 1880s). Here, in the heart of historic Old Calabar, surrounded by dusty, colonial architecture, my eye was drawn to the central post office (built in 1891, it was the oldest post office in Nigeria--and believe me, you could tell just by looking at it)--or rather, to the garish posters plastered on its outside wall. Most of them advertised the latest Bollywood and Bruceploitation extravaganzas screening at Patsol Cinema, but a couple of them were slightly faded placards that looked like they had been up for maybe a few months, announcing an upcoming performance by someone called Rex Lawson.

"Who is Rex Lawson?" I asked my dad.

"He was a musician who was very popular all over Nigeria," he said. "He's dead now."

"When did he die?"

"A while ago... During The War. Or shortly afterward. I think it was 1971."

I should mention at this point that this conversation was taking place in the year 1981. But that was Old Calabar for you: trapped in a twilight zone where Rex Lawson had never died and neither had horn band ballroom highlife, despite the rest of the country having agreed that it was yesterday's news ten or thirteen years earlier.

And so a youth would hear songs from the album Ekausen by local musician Bassey Archibong played on Cross River Radio almost every morning while getting ready for school. This is another record that I pretty much note-for-note, beat-for-beat.

Of course, listening to it now I am a thousand times more appreciative of it. As I've said before, I used to think of all of this Calabar brass band stuff as "old man music," but knowing what I know now, I recognize that there is a lot more than simple nostalgia happening on this record. There is a youthful vitality that differentiates it from the elegant languor of old-timers like Inyang Henshaw and it does acknowledge various developments that occurred in music since the end of The War. Some of Archibong's guitar licks evoke the Ikwokilikwo, craze and the drums and especially the keyboards on "Nsese Owo," "Nne Nne" and title track tip their hats to Sonny Okosuns' Ozziddi beat.

(In that regard--the carrying forth of dance band highlife traditions for a new generation--the music of Calabar bore more than a slight resemblance to the Ghanaian music scene, which is probably appropriate as there were so many Ghanaians living in Calabar in those days. Until 1984 most of my friends were Kwekus, Kwabenas and Kofis.)

I wonder if they still play music like this in Calabar. I heard some performed by a youth group at Calabar's iconic Qua Iboe Church last summer, and it was quite heartwarming hearing those kids swinging to that old-timey rhythm on their horns, but I don't know how much radio play this stuff gets,

Ah, well... Thank God for these fragile vinyl memories.

(I really wish I had gotten a photo of those Rex Lawson posters, by the way.)

BASSEY ARCHIBONG - EKAUSEN (MARTINS, MBLP 1005, 1982)

SIDE ONE:
1. Ekausen
2. Nsese Owo
3. Ufandi

SIDE TWO:
4. Nne Nne
5. Okukosong Iwana
6. Idofo Oro

Ndito Efik isong o!

That's a shout-out to my Calabar peoples.

I was quite delighted when I found this LP--Well, actually I didn't exactly recognize it, but I figured I'd pick it up since already had another Isaiah Dickson album and I dug the very modern cream-colored leisure suit he's sporting on the cover.

When I got it home though, I found that I knew every single song on the album by heart! This whole album got a lot of play on Cross River Radio when I was in primary school.

This is some correct Calabar music, reflecting the area's strong legacy of horn-laden dance band highlife, and reaching even deeper into the culture on the track "Mbre Isong," which takes traditional Ekpe songs of the kind you can see performed here by Cuban Abakua musician Enyenison Enkama





and transmutes them into a mean afrobeat groove.

The album is immaculately produced by the legendary Chris Ajilo and is presented here in its entirety for your listening pleasure.

ISADICO DANCE BAND OF NIGERIA led by ISAIAH DICKSON - EMEM... (FONTANA, FTLP 152, 1982)

SIDE ONE:
1. Emem-Da Yami
2. Ikim Ebot

SIDE TWO:
3. Mbre Isong
4. Yere Akam