Ever since our weekly radio program ‘Music Time in Africa’ first hit the airwaves, back in 1965, Geraldo Pino and the Heartbeats of Sierra Leone have been part of the show: for the last 43 years our opening and closing theme has been a guitar loop taken from the Hearbeats song ‘Zamsi’. Over the course […]
Ethiopia’s revolutionary sixties
Posted March 18th, 2008 at 3:23 pm (UTC-4)
Over the last ten years, thanks largely to the herculean efforts of French researcher Francis Falceto (he’s the man behind the Ethiopiques CD series released by Buda Musique: each of the twenty-three volumes so far released are essential listening), curious music lovers have discovered the glories of 1970s ‘Ethiopian Groove’, a potent brew of traditional […]
Lost Liberian 45s from the 1960s
Posted March 4th, 2008 at 11:28 pm (UTC-4)
The 1960s were a time of optimism, relative prosperity, and rapid growth in Monrovia, the ocean-side capital of Liberia. For almost one hundred and fifty years the city had been the economic, political, and social hub of the ‘Americo-Liberian’ community, who had governed the country since July 26, 1847, when the independence of the Republic […]
