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FEMI KUTI No Place For My DreamWrasse WRASS 311
Femu Kuti’s Positive Force is tight, blazing, bursting at the seams. The arrangements are immaculate, always aimed at producing max- imum power – a wall of brass, tingling guitar, howling organ, and, of course, a rhythm sec- tion that builds pressure and keeps it there. If ever there was a pile-driving dance orchestra, this is it.
Melody, however, is harder to find. Light and shade there is not. This unwavering music just keeps coming at you. While some may see Kuti’s declaiming stance as champion of the oppressed as admirable, his lyrics are not shy of ramming home the obvious, time after time. Nigerian politicians not always honest? Daily life a ceaseless grind? Big busi- ness corrupt? Oil makes fat cats richer while ordinary people get poorer? Well, yes, we suppose so. But even such worthwhile mes- sages might more effective when presented with wit and verve rather than simply hec- tored out by chorus.
Still, merely keeping such a large and
efficient band on the road and making the people dance is an achievement. If you like Femi, you’ll love this CD, and you’ll be glad for his international success. As I write, he’s playing Central Park in NY and then Toronto Opera House. I see on his Facebook page that he was born in London, which ties in with a seditious feeling. Imagine a mix of Afrobeat with a well-drilled Lionel Bart chorus. No Place For My Dream is what you might get.
www.femikuti.tv Rick Sanders
LADY MAISERY Mayday RootBeat Records RBRCD19
Hazel Askew, Rowan Rheingans and Hannah James… three outstanding musicians who together deliver an attractive combination of harp, concertina, fiddle, banjo and accordeon to cement a neat selection of vocal harmonies. They adopt an enterprising approach to material selection, too – tracks range from bastions of traditional song like The Lady & The Blacksmith, Katy Cruel and Let No Man Steal Your Thyme to Kate Bush’s This Woman’s Work and an unaccompanied treat- ment of the epic ballad from which they take their name – as women’s struggles become the album’s recurring theme.
There is much to like here. The Kate Bush song fits well and The False Young Man is full of underlying tension, while there’s a good novelty diddled vocal arrangement of the great morris tune Constant Billy. Clever use, too, of Hannah James’ foot percussion on The Factory Girl and The Crow On The Cradle and surely they have a BBC Folk Award due for best use of handclaps on The Lady & The Blacksmith. The Rheingans banjo is also a consistently engaging weapon of choice, core to the album’s central appeal.
Yet, given the hardy nature of the mate-
rial, there’s a suspicion of tweeness, particu- larly in the vocals, that jars. It’s unfortunate that their cover of Leon Rosselson’s Palaces Of Gold comes out at the same time as Martin Simpson’s more suitably rugged and edgy treatment while, despite the chunky fiddle arrangement, they don’t really get to grips with the sinister sub-text of Katy Cruel; and their arrangement of The Grey Silkie is too mundane to do full justice to the song’s emo- tional intricacies. More courage with their undoubted conviction wouldn’t go amiss.
www.ladymaisery.com www.rootbeatrecords.co.uk
Colin Irwin
ALICE GERRARD Bittersweet Spruce & Maple Music SMM 1008
Alice Gerrard has always been a pioneer. Her passion for, and skill at playing, American roots music put her at the vanguard of ’60s and ’70s women tradition bearers, alongside the late Appalachian singer Hazel Dickens in particular. She is a consummate singer, gui- tarist, banjo player and fiddler… and an end- less source of inspiration for many younger musicians in the tradition. So, no surprise that her first solo album in ten years is sheer class.
With a body of powerful original songs to feed back into the tradition, many inspired by friendships with the likes of Tommy Jarrell and Elizabeth Cotten, or from the landscapes of her rural North Carolina home, Bittersweet is a poignant collection, tastefully produced by Laurie Lewis, which draws on the many American musical traditions that have touched her throughout her lifetime. The unaccompanied Lonely Night makes a bold opening statement with sultry, jazzy vocal slides; Borderland enters a menacing Appalachian hinterland filled with the imagery of the darker banjo-fuelled ballads; the closing Sun Keep Shining On Me hits a upbeat country blues note… and all points old-time and bluegrass are hit in between.
A wonderful memory-themed CD by the talented Rayna Gellert lit up my radar a cou- ple of month’s back. Alice’s is another such, but drawing on a lifetime’s worth of living, love, pain and joy. It is gratuitously contem- plative and poignant in content and feel – but not mawkishly so. I’m not ashamed to admit to weeping the odd tear. Alice sings with such commitment and natural grace that it is hard not to be moved, enhanced by loving musical settings that help place her stories centrestage.
Title track Bittersweet is a warm, glow- ing song, dripping in nostalgia for place and past times, and oak-soaked with peppery plucked strings and double bass of Todd Phillips. The Stranger tells a heartrending tale of someone lost to dementia, “an old memory he can’t hold any more – a photograph whose edges are faded and worn,” made all the more plaintive by Stuart Duncan’s soulful fiddle playing and Tom Rozum’s sweet man- dolin.
The strength of Gerrard’s songwriting is in its voice of experience, its language of tra- dition and its honest simplicity. Sweet South Anna River is an achingly lovely homage to Elizabeth Cotten, inspired by her desire to be laid to rest on the river rather than in the “cold dark ground”. “Let the river carry me on,” she sings.
Lady Maisery But my own personal meltdown is pro-
vided by Maybe This Time – a tale of opening your heart to the potential ravages of love (“Here I go again, falling in love again, just when my boat of life has reached an even keel!”) – a soft, vulnerable ballad rich in both stormy sea imagery and killer dobro and shimmering bluegrass mandolin.
It’s not all heartbreak, and minor keys –
her Payday At The Mill swaggers with West- ern Swing attitude on a working woman’s take on the classic payday song.
But Alice does do heartache and minor keys so very well. Pass the hankies!
www.alicegerrard.com Sarah Coxson
ORCHÉSTRE BAKA GBINÉ Kopolo March Hare Music MAHACD30
Maybe that tired old cliché about never being able to have too much of a good thing is true. UK guitarist/producer Martin Crad- dick has been working with and recording the music of the nomadic Baka people of Central Africa since the 1990s, at first making their sound the basis of his UK/African/Celtic group Baka Beyond and more recently going back to the source for the Orchéstre Baka Gbiné project which features Martin playing alongside an ensemble of Baka musicians and singers on their home turf. The twist is that the Baka involved have been strongly influenced by their time spent as part of Baka Beyond and make much the same sound: light, summery, full of acoustic strum- ming, the odd hypnotic electric guitar line (as on the trancy Tolo Ko Tolo), skipping per- cussion and sweet call-and-response vocals (plus the Baka’s distinctive ululations).
So, this latest album, recorded in the rainforest near the Congo-Cameroon border and mixed in Craddick’s native Bath, is instantly identifiable as a Baka Beyond/Gbiné recording, but it’s a good one. The Baka are growing in confidence as an ensemble and Craddick is well versed by now in presenting them in the best musical light.
How much of this sound you need in your life is a matter of individual taste. Per- sonally, I always welcome each new release and this album’s as good a place as any for newbies looking to dive in. All royalties go to the Baka musicians (via the Global Music Exchange charity) too, which, given the Baka’s ongoing social and economic strug- gles, can only be a good thing.
www.gbine.com Jamie Renton
Photo: Elly Lucas
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