Probably not today, though; it's colder than a witch's teat out here!
Figuratively, at least, I can say a couple of rays of sunlight have speared through the clouds for me of late. After days of fruitlessly wrestling with the whole vinyl recording conundrum, I eventually gave in, went out and bought a USB turntable. This initially annoyed me to no end: I hate spending money on stuff like that, especially since I already have a record player that works perfectly fine (except, apparently, when it comes to transmitting its output into a computer). It very quickly justified itself as a wise purchase, though... And I'll admit to feeling bit impressed with myself for actually owning a piece of audio technology manufactured later than the early 1990s! One of these days I think I'ma even up the stakes and go get me an iPod! Then I'll truly be ballin' on that George Jetson futuristic tip!
Another interesting thing that happened lately: Yesterday I exchanged a couple of emails with Melvin Ukachi, the lead singer/guitarist of Ofege! Really nice guy... He's quite pleased that y'all are still feeling those records that he made years ago when he was a small boy and hopefully, he'll contribute some stuff to this blog in the near future.
(And once again, massive big-ups to the Hurricane Man for giving me the hook-ups. Imela ooo!)
Anyway... Let's get to some unfinished business. Here's one of the albums I was supposed to have posted back in... June, I think. Sunshine by The Lijadu Sisters.
This is another Biddy Wright production recorded at the Decca Studios in Lagos and it pretty much follows the template set on Danger: Taiwo & Kehinde's songs are mostly composed of a single, repeated verse sung in unison while Biddy Wright improvises around them. This time, though, most of the tunes have a strong gospel bent to them (except for maybe the flirty "Promise" and the Wright-penned "Come and Dance").
Whereas Wright handled most of the instrumentation on Danger himself, this time around he employs a solid crew of session players including Tony Allen associate Candido Obajimi, Gboyega Adelaja (who played keyboards in Hugh Masekela's great early-70s band), and Jerry Ihejeto (who would later play bass for Sonny Okosuns and then enjoy some minor solo success on the late-90s World Music™ scene as a reggae star). Wright mostly restricts himself to manning the synthesizers (which probably seemed like a good idea at the time but hindsight is 20/20, isn't it? Oh well!).
Another interesting contributor to this record: Basil Okafor, renowned artist and journalist who writes insightfully about Nigerian politics and popular culture. He designed the album art and provided the lovely watercolor cover illustration.
THE LIJADU SISTERS - SUNSHINE (Afrodesia, 1978, DWAPS 2046)
Jimmy Lee Adams - Rhythm and lead guitars Candido Obajimi - Drums Jerry Ihejeto - Bass guitar Gboyega Adelaja - Electric piano Biddy Wright - String ensemble, synthesizers, congas, electric piano, guitar Aras Adeyemo & Solomon Omikunle - Trumpets
All songs except "Come and Dance" written by Lijadu Sisters "Come and Dance" written by Biddy Wright
Download the zip from MEGAUPLOAD or preview and download each track from DIVSHARE.*
(Bear with me today, peoples... I probably won't use DivShare again after this.)
Ah, whaddaya know? In the time it's taken me to type this, the sun has come out after all....
Addendum:Whoa! When I was linking up those Basil Okafor articles above, I came across a related link that alerted me to the fact that Cyprian Ekwensi passed away last Sunday! How did I miss this?
TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN was actually dedicated to him and I had really hoped that he would get to see it.
Damn. I'm bummed out. (And coincidentally enough, the sun has disappeared again.)
*Did those DivShare files even work for anybody? They didn't for me... Alright, I'm through with 'em! Download track by track right here:
You know, the one in this post, that I messed up the first time?
I haven't gotten around to re-recording the album yet (I'm trying to pick up some better vinyl-ripping hardware today) but I stole the new link from Club Cortez, an audio blog with all manner of cool music waiting to be deposited to your hard drive! (I for one cannot wait to listen to that Joe Bataan Singin' Some Soul they got up there!)
Cortez is free to snatch any of my links, of course... And thanks again to the anonymous commenter who pulled my coat!
Alright, fam... This is basically my first attempt at ripping tracks from vinyl, so I hope it doesn't suck.
I had to use Final Vinyl, which doesn't give you as much latitude when it comes to manipulating the levels, and to make it worse, I had to run the audio directly from the turntable without the benefit of an intermediary amplifier.
To top it all off, for reasons I won't get into, I can't hear anything through my left ear at the moment, so I can't even tell you for sure if this thing came out sounding halfway decent! So let me know... If it sounds muddy or tinny, I'll re-do it with Audacity or something.
What we have here is the Lijadu Sisters' third album, from 1976, as produced by the talented Mr. Wright, as in Biddy. I'm not gonna talk too much about this one except to say that this is probably my favorite of all the Lijadu Sisters' records. It's pretty simple in formula and execution: most of the songs are basically one verse repeated over and over in almost trance-like fashion while Biddy and the band (well... Biddy is most of the band, isn't he?) improv tasty keyboard licks and low-impact guitar heroics around them.
The track that I've noticed being picked up most by podcasts and other compilers is "Life's Gone Down," but my pick for best cut on the album is "Amebo." That's a common term used to describe a gossip, derived from the name of a character with such tendencies on the classic sitcom The Village Headmaster.
(That's got nothing to do with anything, but I just thought I'd mention it. Oh well... Here's the credits:)
Biddy Wright: Lead and rhythm guitar, tenor saxophone, percussion and bass guitar Ade Jolaoso: Bass guitar Johnny Wood: Keyboards Felix Shittu: Alto saxophone
All songs written and arranged by the Lijadu Sisters Production by Biddy Wright Recorded at Decca Studios, Abule-Oje, Lagos, Nigeria
EDIT: Damn, I messed up... Track 3 is actually called "Life's Gone Down Low." Do me a favor and correct that when you download it because I don't wanna have to re-upload the whole thing just to fix that one track title.
EDIT AGAIN: Yeah... It's been brought to my attention that (just as I suspected) the recording of this album is kinda effed up. So I've disabled the link. I'll let you know when I fix it.
Sorry!
Update 06/25/07: The link is back!
Also, I haven't been indicating what labels the records have been on for a while, have I? I know that info is important to a lot of people, so I'll do that from now on. This album came out on Afrodesia, which was an imprint of Decca West Africa.
The video clips in this post come from Konkombe: The Nigerian Pop Music Scene, an installment in English filmmaker Jeremy Marre's excellent 14-part Beats of the Heart series that ran on PBS in 1988 and helped spur the explosion of the "World Music" (HATE that term) market. (I still haven't seen the entire series, but the episodes on Jamaica, Brazil, Bollywood, South Africa and Nuyoriquien salsa are all top-notch. Do check them out if you can.)
The Nigeria episode featured King Sunny Ade being sprayed with naira notes as he performs at an owambe party, Fela lounging in his draws in a cramped flat after the destruction of Kalakuta, surrounded by his aloof and beautiful queens, Sonny Okosun (not yet Okosuns) basking in his pop ascendancy, juju pioneer I.K. Dairo leading the congregation in song at his "white garment" church, transvestite Igbo musician Area Scatter, Lagos street minstrels, Eastern guitar band highlife superstars The Oriental Brothers rocking a party, Hausa musicians in the Saharan North and, most memorably, the Lijadu Sisters engaged in an impromptu open-air rehearsal session:
Odion Iruoje comes off as a bit of a prick, doesn't he?
You know... I actually don't know what album they are recording here. While this documentary aired in 1988, I'm guessing that this footage was shot 1979 or 80, ie around the time of Horizon Unlimited. At one time, I thought that it actually was Horizon Unlimited they're working on; after all, it's got similar neo-juju production with the talking drums and Hawaiian guitars and all that. But co-producers Laolu Akins and Berkley Jones are nowhere to be seen in that clip, Horizon Unlimited was recorded at Decca's London studios rather than their Lagos ones, and the songs they're singing don't appear on Horizon Unlimited. (That "Gberu o" song they're singing does sound like "Gbowo Mi" with different lyrics, though... Could it be that Taiwo and Kehinde worked out the basic material with Iruoje in Lagos and then finished it up with Jones and Akins in London?)
(But I digress.)
The appearance in the Beats of the Heart doc - along with the release of Double Trouble and an appearance on the legendary BBC 4 music show The Tube (which I'm still trying to find a clip of) seemed to signal that the Lijadus' star was a-rising on the international horizon. But alas, it didn't really happen and they disappeared from the scene. A few of their songs showed on various compilations over the years (with "Orere Elejigbo" being the most frequent selection), amassing a cult following, thirsty to hear more from the twins.
By all accounts, Taiwo and Kehinde have been living in Brooklyn, New York for the past several years and while they are officially retired from showbiz, they mentor young artists. I heard a rumor a while back that one of the twins sufferred a spinal injury of some sort and was wheelchair-bound. I don't know if there's any credence to that, though, especially since I've also heard that they still occasionally perform at festivals and Nigerian events in New York.
Here's a photo I found from some Nigerian-American organizations award ceremony at which Taiwo and Kehinde were honored in late 2005. Does it look like they're standing or sitting? (I'm going to link the photo here rather than actually posting it so's I don't get in trouble).
(To be honest, I probably wouldn't recognize these two nice ladies as Taiwo and Kehinde Lijadu if i ran into them at the tropical foods market on a Sunday afternoon, but hey... I don't look nothing like I did 25 years ago, either.)
Anyway, is this post already too long? I originally intended to reproduce Tunde Harrison's sleeve notes from Horizon Unlimited, which feature a chat with the twins delineating some of their background and showcasing their playful wit. But then I realized that it might be easier for you to read (and and for me to transcribe) if I just condensed it to Q&A format as my people at Naija Jams did in their Lijadu Sisters feature a while back. Then I realized that it would be even easier for me to just copy it wholesale from over there and paste it over here. So that's what I did:
Whenever Kehinde and Taiwo Lijadu felt low down in spirit they indulged themselves in a childhood prank. They climbed the tallest nearest tree and watched the unlimited horizon. That was not the only trait they shared in common. They are identical twins who also share identical callings, habits, hobbies, a joint bank account and four children in between them. They never tell which one of them is the mother to which child. “They are four children,” they always said when asked.
Some twelve years ago (approx: 1967) they climbed a very tall tree and saw in the horizon unlimited, the path of their future.
The elements were orchestrating sweet musical vibrations that hit the core of the very being of the twins. It was the climax of their long-standing yearning to become professional singers. After all, it was all in the family. Daddy played the piano and Granny (on dad’s side) played the guitar. “So what about that?” They asked themselves.
They had enough inspirational heat in their veins to generate and power their interest and enthusiasm.
There was Daddy and Granny. There was Aretha Franklin and I.K. Dairo. There was Miriam Makeba and Victor Olaiya.
There was Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and a host of other musicians both local and international.
All of them together gave them all the heat of their inspiration. At such times when they were inspired it did not matter who conceived the ideas for lyrics or musical compositions.
What mattered was that they laboured together to bring forth the best of their brainchild.
The happiest moment that ever crowned their first attempt at creativity was when they walked into the chambers of Decca Studios with a handful of competent veteran session (musicians) to vax their first LP, “Iya Mi Jowo.” That was 1969. Since then Kehinde and Taiwo, (christened Louisa and Rosaline) have come a long way.
Over the years they have conceived created and recorded four long playing records all on Decca labels.
There was “Sunshine” and “Danger,” “Mother Africa” and “Iya mi Jowo” which have all gone down to their credit in the history books of the Nigerian music scene, amongst them a silver disk winner. This album is another step towards the fulfillment of the vision had of their future, many many years ago.
That vision they had of the “horizon unlimited.”
Ironically with Lijadu Sisters do not always speak about their future.
A reporter once asked them:Now that your horizon is opening up, what plans do you have for your future?
Lijadu Sisters: We don’t always look beyond our noses, because Man proposes but God disposes, but we are optimists.
R: Are you as rich as you are famous? LS: As rich as rich can be. We are comfortable. We own one Volkswagen beetle and a joint bank account with plenty of money in it. Most of the time we are broke.
R: Are you religious? LS: Very. We are catholics although not the Church going type. Every time we feel the spirit moving in our hearts we walk into the nearest church or Mosque and pray.
R: Do you have lovers? LS: We are not dead. Not yet. We are living beings. To live and to love is the essence of our life. If you don’t have someone who loves you, you are dead. If we didn’t have lovers how come we compose love songs?
R: Do you take drugs? LS: NO. We are permanently high.
R: You said you have four children but you are not married. LS: We are not baby killers. Just because we had children with men we never got married to does not mean we had to kill them. We love children because children are a gift from God.
R: Would you have the same lover? LS: If we did, we don’t see the need for it because there are many eligible men around. Even though we are twins, we want to be exclusive.
R: What do you think of yourselves? LS: We are fantastic.
R: Do you wear the same clothes? Kehinde: Taiwo is wearing my blouse and I’m wearing her wrapper.
R: What do you do when not singing? LS: Playing with our kids, cooking, painting or climbing trees.
R: What kind of men would you like as friends? LS: Simple, intelligent and responsible men.
R: Do you plan to get married? LS: You talk too much.
I suppose we can forgive Mr. Baker for butchering the given name of one of the Lijadu Sisters; he most likely had not met too many Yoruba twins at that point. You see, the Yoruba people (due to a genetic predisposition that has yet to be fully explained) have the highest birthrate for twins in the world, and they're all named Taiwo ("TIE-woe") and Kehinde ("KEH-yeen-DAY"). The protocol is that the firstborn twin is named Taiwo ("s/he who tastes the world first") and the secondborn is Kehinde ("s/he who follows behind") but Kehinde is actually considered to be the older twin (as the position at the "back" of the womb suggests having gone in first) who waits for Taiwo to go out first and make sure that it is safe to emerge into the world.
Although they exist as two separate physical bodies, the twins are believed to share the same soul. Their individual personalities are aspects of a single inteligence, and that entity is complete only when Taiwo and Kehinde come together with their spirits, their hearts, their voices in harmony.
*******
Last time, I mentioned that BLO broke up after Phase IV while the members studied in London. Thing is, they didn't exactly "break up," since they continued to play together; they just weren't releasing music under the BLO shingle. These were the days when the Nigerian music industry had that major label dough and a lot of artists were being flown to London to mix--or even just to record--their albums. In this context, Berkley Jones, Laolu Akins and Lemmy Jackson became three of the most in-demand session men, playing on albums by the likes of Christy Essien, Sonny Okosuns, Kris Okotie, and the Lijadu Sisters. The latter act, of course, was an act with whom BLO had a considerable amount of history, having been bandmates in Tee-Mac's Afrocollection and Ginger Baker's Salt:
In fact, according to Akins, BLO's formation was spurred by the Lijadus' decision to leave Salt and venture off on their own. It was, perhaps, quite natural for Taiwo and Kehinde to feel more comfortable with each other than in the midst of a bigger ensemble. They had been singing together since childhood, often doing session work and performing in local festivals. In 1969, they cut their first album as a duo, Iya Mi Jowo and after the Salt tour they released Mother Africa. Their relationship with producer Biddy Wright was a fruitful one, yielding the impressive LPs Danger (1976) and Sunshine (1978). I'm not sure why they opted not to reprise the collaboration on their next album; instead they turned to their old Salt cohorts Berkley and Laolu (along with syudio stalwart Odion Iruoje).
Where the Wright-produced albums featured breezy, melodic Afro-pop (that frequently leaned more towards the "pop" than the "Afro"), Jones, Akins and Iruoje plant the twins firmly in a world of rhythm. With their luminescent voices dropped into a dubby juju soundscape, surrounded by pitch-dark basslines and the incessant chatter of talking drums, the twins sing back mostly in Yoruba (as opposed to the English of the Wright albums), making full use of the language's percussive and tonal properties. And somewhere on the horizon, Lemmy Jackson chips in with buzzing clavinets and stately piano riffs that fall somewhere between the church and the supper club.
The result is the Lijadu Sisters' most successful and widely-known album (which was reissued in 1984 by the US label Shanachie, and was a college radio favorite through the decade).
The Lijadu Sisters - Horizon Unlimited (1979)
CREDITS: Keyboards - Lemmy Jackson Gube (bass drum) - Tony Adeleye First Talking drum - Soji Adenle Maracas - John Akanmu Second Bass Drum - Ladi Oguntunwase Rhythm Guitar - Alao/Tunde Peters/Glenis Martins Lead guitar - Frederick Ramm Drums - Laolu Akins Drums - Buttley Moore Ekwe & clefs - Friday Jumbo Bass guitar - Richard Archer
Produced by Berkley Jones/Laolu Akins/Odion Iruoje Recorded at Decca Studios, London
