(BABY COME) BACK

 "Phew, what a scorcher" is the traditional newspaper headline whenever the UK "swelters" in balmy tropical temperatures of 30 degrees. That's 86 in the transatlantic money, and today, now yesterday, it is supposed to hit that. Already a bit warm and muggy, praise be I am not at work, and can so wallow in it. Part of the process is always to find some applicable and appropriate music to soundtrack the experience. I had even forgot I had this, so it was a delight to rediscover. 

It actually hit 32, so try it for size:

Kidjo has become quite the doyenne of so called World music, using her Beninese roots as a template to merge and meld into a melting pot of other styles. Had the political situation in her homeland not been so fractured, who knows whether she would have made her name outside the diaspora of her home, so it is, for us, a blessing she relocated, in 1983, to Paris, the de facto capital of African music worldwide. A bevy of releases have emerged in her name since 1983, ever drawing in bigger names in production and collaboration. Perhaps unfairly, even if I contribute to that, she is better known for her cover versions rather than her own material, or, even, the material of Africa, even if she imbues suchh covers with as authentic a pan-African sheen as can be contrived. Recent years have seen, successively, tributes to the Talking Heads'  Remain In Light and to the grande-dame of salsa, Celia Cruz. But her most recent release was a return more to where she started, 2021's Mother Nature, wherein she shares the spotlight with a slew of young African music makers, as well as a few older peers. (O, and Sting?!)

Voodoo Chile (Live)

Omon Oba

But what of the song that defines this piece? Remember it? I certainly do, being especially taken with it, as a small boy devouring the charts on Top of the Pops.

The Equals were an unusual feature back in the mid to late 60s, being multi-racial, part white british and part african-caribbean. Schoolfriends from a North London housing estate, they had a run of singles, none proving quite as successful as this one. Initially released in 1966, as a B side, it became a hit in continental Europe before being flipped in the UK, becoming a 1968 chart topper. Across the atlantic it fared less well, if still a credible 32 on the Billboard chart. The writer and the main focus of the group was one Eddy Grant, who had a later resurgence of fame in the late 1970s and into the 80's as a solo act and a run of successful singles. Only the churlish would point out they all, to some extent, had broadly the same tune.

I Don't Wanna Dance

There have been a fair few cover versions over the years, most of whom offer little than some 'updating' with rap or grime filters, each dating far more swiftly than the simple exuberance of the original. I did, however, dig out a copy that is a little unexpected and, thus, worth the play. I give you, from 1982, Ms. Bonnie Raitt:

(Well, I didn't say it was any good!!)

The first and the best.

UPDATE: It is raining today and temperatures have plummeted, if not quite to "Brrr, Britain Freezes" levels.

Two Words: Four Women

Nina Simone: Four Women

[purchase]

Lisa Simone, Dianne Reeves, Angelique Kidjo, Lizz Wright: Four Women

[Not available for purchase]

Dee Dee Bridgewater: Four Women

[purchase]

Was Nina Simone the Toni Morrison of jazz? The case can be made with songs like this one. Both women used their art to present unflinching pictures of the black experience, black women especially. Four Women is exactly what the title suggests, a song that presents brief portraits of four women and the experiences that shaped them. Each woman gets one verse to tell her story. Simone’s genius here lay in the fact that that one brief verse was enough to tell us what she wanted us to know. This song is not easy to listen to, its lyrics harsh. Simone wanted us to understand our privilege in not having to live these lives. I would imagine that black women hearing this could listen to these words and rejoice in how far they have come, or reflect on how far they still have to go. I have not lived their lives, so I can not truly say. The rest of us can try to understand that Simone is not exaggerating here. We can allow her words to appeal to our better natures, and try to find out what we can do to help. We can begin by not practicing the types of exploitation described here.

There can be no doubt that this song, from 1966, continues to resonate today. It is a staple of many tributes to Nina Simone, such as the one the quartet version I have featured here comes from. There would possibly be more covers of the song now if the major labels were willing to release such material. Dee Dee Bridgewater’s beautiful take on the song comes from an album released on an independent label. That album chronicles Bridgewater’s quest to connect to her African origins by making music with Malian musicians.

LEFTOVERS (Scrabble Value Letters): Z Songs from Africa

Buy Mapfumo
Buy Kidjo

I don't recall submitting a post for this one and maybe I didn't, but, rather than checking, it seems a whole lot easier to start one. I'm a big fan of World music, a clumsy but useful epithet to cover the musics of the non-anglophone world. This can embrace any number of styles: ethnic folk shuffles, polyglot fusions,  genre-busting hybrids , using languages and instrumentation outwith the usual or expected, at least to our ears more familiar with the standard rock/soul/blues/jazz, though it can use all or any of these as well. African music has no one format, having as many as there are nations, as many as there are languages and as many as there are tribes. And many, many more, from the Rai in Algeria to the Chimurenga of Zimbabwe, and all in-between.

Thomas Mapfumo has long been one of the pillars of Zimbabwean music, being the embodiment, if not originator, of Chimurenga: Music of Struggle, one struggle being that with the authorities, pre and post independence. A boy in colonial Rhodesia, his was first attracted to the guitar music, the Beatles, the Stones, of his country's occupying white minority. However, through absorbing the local African pop music and American funk, he put aside these influences, drawing more on the traditions of his own Shona heritage, with political overtones leading to a spell of imprisonment in the late 1970s, being deemed a threat to the government. You would assume, thus, that he would be an eternal hero in the new Zimbabwe of 1980 and beyond, but not so, as his views began to portray his criticism of the Mugabe years, eventually leading to his exile in Oregon, where he remains, it nearly a decade since he last set foot in his native land. I was particularly lucky to see him play live, in less threatened days, in a poky Harare club, mid to late 90s, astonished at that opportunity, thinking he would only play stadiums, such as when he played alongside Bob Marley, at the Zimbabwean independence celebration concert, just over a decade before. The shona language is rich with Zs and so there is an abundance of choice. This song, Zvichapera, is a typical mix of mbira, the thumb piano, and marimbas, with a mix of western and traditional drums, over which Mapfumo drones, strumming electric guitar, female backing singers chanting the melody. There is not a huge amount of his music available on CD, but he is worth the search. Follow the link below for a Greatest Hits(!?) selection, which, whilst it doesn't include this song, does include, track 5, another Z song.

Further north from Zimbabwe is the Republic of Benin, where it is likely that Angelique Kidjo is the most celebrated of its people, at least in the west. Again she is a singer who has openly absorbed tribal styles and influences, but in a far wider mixing pot, embracing samba, reggae, jazz and funk, often undertaking collaborative work with any number of artists, often re-interpreting and deconstructing songs from elsewhere.  Carlos Santana, Dave Matthews and Bono have all sung with her, and she has sung songs by Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley and Curtis Mayfield. All things considered, I think it is her more traditional work, in African languages, that I prefer. Perhaps inevitably, given the volatility of West Africa, her base is now Paris, arguably the world centre for the legion dispossessed African musicians. Here is her Z song, Zelie, the opening track from 2010s OYO.

Parentheses: Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)

Angélique Kidjo: Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)

[purchase]

Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) is the version that everyone seems to know, but there actually also was a non-parenthetical "Voodoo Chile" on Hendrix's 1968 LP, Electric Ladyland, which is a 15-minute slow, soulful burn. But the (Slight Return) version's the one that's got all those covers by rock's best guitarists, including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and Eric Clapton.

You've heard all those, though. I thought I'd share a non-guitar-focused version by West African artist Angélique Kidjo from her 1998 album, Oremi. In this cover, the rhythm and vocals become the focus.

One Word: One World Edition

Every week, we find out what the new theme is, and every week there are artists I want to post who don’t have a song that fits. This week has given me the chance to get to some of these artists. Here are three more.

Tish Hinojosa: Rancherita

[purchase]

Tish Hinojosa is a Mexican-American. The album I have, Homeland, is a celebration of her heritage, so it’s only natural that some of the songs are in Spanish. Rancherita means “little ranch girl”, and here she is serenaded beautifully by the cowboy who loves her. The accordion part, by the legendary Flaco Jiminez, has a bit of a polka feel to it. Settlers from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe brought their accordions and their polkas with them when they came to Texas. There, Mexican migrant workers heard this new sound, and brought it back with them to Mexico. And that’s how the accordion found its way into norteno music.

Angelique Kidjo: Batonga

[purchase]

Angelique Kidjo hails from the African country of Benin, but her music is an amalgam of various African styles, as well as being influenced by American R & B and even rock. She has done amazing covers of Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones. Batonga is an original song. Most of the words are in Yoruba, but the title is a word Kidjo made up when she was a girl. She used it to respond to boys who taunted her at school, and they had no response because they didn’t know what the word meant, and they didn’t want to admit their ignorance to a girl. Batonga, to Kidjo, has come to be an assertion of a girl’s right to an education, and it is now the name of a foundation in which Kidjo is very much involved, and which is dedicated to that purpose.

Jim Lauderdale: Whisper

[purchase]

It’s not that I have anything against the English language. I had better like it, since it’s the only one I speak. And it is certainly possible to express oneself beautifully in English. Take Whisper. In 1978, this song would have been a country chart topper, and regarded as a classic country song ever since. Whisper is a great example of how to say I love you in a country song, and Lauderdale gives a wonderful sincere performance. The production is perfect, with the song having everything it needs and not a trace of the overpruduction that mars so many country songs. The only trouble is, Whisper didn’t come out until 1998. By then, was considered alt-country, and not nearly enough people got to hear it. I’m happy to have a chance to do a little something about that.