Oct 25/06
Guests recovered
Almost a year ago Benn loxo listener, Tim, sent me a guest post. It got buried in a heap of e-mail and only re-surfaced the other day:
“You may know Mbaraka Mwinshehe’s music already. A Tanzanian, he was one of East Africa’s most popular musicians of the 1970s, first with the Morogoro Jazz Band and then in his own group, Orchestra Super Volcano. His career came to a tragically premature end in 1979 when he was killed in a car crash in Kenya.
The Morogoro years were covered in the CD Masimango issued by the German Dizim label in 2000. Plans to issue a second volume covering Mwinshehe’s later work were announced in the sleevenotes of that release, but this has yet to happen. A shame this, because many of his songs with Super Volcano highlight Mwinshehe’s propulsive guitar style and impassioned vocal style. It’s the sound of somebody taking a Congolese model and making it his own.
The track I’m sending to you, Shida, was a huge hit. It has been rescued from a cassette I bought in Nairobi 25 years ago and, as you will hear, the sound quality is only so-so.
[...] The sound balance is just the way the tape sounds. In particular, the horns send the dials into the red every time. Maybe the the song would benefit from being cleaned up and remastered by somebody with the technical know-how to do it, but I’ve come to love its ragged edges.
East African music of this era was often recorded for radio and then pirated on cassette. Very little of it has made it onto CD – or at least ones available in Europe and America. Groups such as the Orchestras Super Volcano, Les Wanyika and Les Mangelepa are little known yet deserving of a wider recognition.”
Thanks, Tim. Great tune and an informed post. And yes, I know that’s not the right cover but I don’t exactly have a huge stock of Mbaraka Mwinshehe images at the ready.
Mbaraka Mwinshehe – Shida I & II
Tags: kenya, tanzania
Thanks for Mbaraka’s track – shida!
Mbaraka was the a true Tanzanian musician – of course influenced by other musicians frome home and abroad. However I am not sure about:
“It’s the sound of somebody taking a Congolese model and making it his own.”
During his time it was common to play “cuban” sounds and Mbaraka developed that sound. Mbaraka’s main rival from his home town of Morogoro, Salum Abdalah even called his band “Cuban marimba”
Congolese did the same. Remember Franco’s track called merengue.
In some of Mbaraka’s older tracks you could even hear marabi influences -something that Congolese did as well. So Mbaraka sounds like Congolese probably because Congolese were doing the same thing at the time.
Anyway great stuff. you made my day!
Mbaraka wa Mwinshehe, mwanamuziki maarufu na aliyependwa Tanzania, Afrika Mashariki na mbali. Fahari ya Tanzania, alitutoka ghafla na ni daima atakuwa katika mioyo ya wengi wetu.
Mbaraka…his voice and his guitar. Acha tu! And those saxophones.
I concur with Mwandani about Mbaraka’s influences.
huyu ni fahari yetu tunajivunia sauti safi tuwekee nyimbo nyingi zaidi
Hi all!!! Cool site!!!
African Music Links
mbaraka was a class act’i cherish mbaraka songs and i got some early collection from tamasha and i would really appreciate if any of u guys can direct me to where i can get any of his works either in vinyl tape or dvd especially on tamasha polydor or any recording i especially want volumes 1,2.3,4,5and masimango,hello betty etc email me on lovylogomba@aol.com im a dj in england specializing in rhumba