Mahotella Queens - Ezesimanje (1982)

For today’s post, an early 1980s album from female mbaqanga mavens the Mahotella Queens - Ezesimanje, released in 1982 on the Hit Special label and produced by guitarist Marks Mankwane.

Naturally the staples of 1980s mbaqanga are all there – the lone lead guitar, bass, lively organ and disco drums – but unlike most of the other African pop acts of the day, this one does not follow the restrained Soul Brothers beat and instead feels much more vigorous and buoyant. Whether the presence of female singers has anything to do with it isn’t quite clear, and to be fair to the great Soul Brothers, they were always much more enthralling and exciting live on stage than on LP. (That didn’t stop them outselling the Queens and every other mbaqanga act in the 1980s though!)

The lead vocals on Ezesimanje are handled by Emily Zwane, who was the de facto leader of the group during the somewhat circuitous late 1970s – mid 1980s period, until producer Marks Mankwane dissolved the line-up and brought back three of the more famous singers who had seen the Queens through its supreme glory days of the mid 1960s through the early 1970s. (The line-up on this album, referred to by industry figures as ‘Mahotella B’, actually continued to perform together long after Mankwane terminated their services in the wake of the international breakthrough of South African music. Mankwane busied himself with the reconstituted Mahotella Queens, Mahlathini and the Makgona Tsohle Band, while the Mahotella B line-up continued to perform under that moniker for audiences at home for some years thereafter, creating some confusion among punters about which act was actually the legitimate one.)

The opening tune, “Amanga Neqiniso”, advises people to be truthful in order to gain the love of others, rather than lie and court misery. The lyrics may be tame but the vocal harmonies are sweet and pleasant, as is the Mahotella way. “Ngothini Na?” is a lovely soothing gospel ballad featuring a solo sax and spiritual vocals. The fifth track “Bongani Mntanami” chides a youngster for going out late and disrespecting his granny – a perpetually relevant topic. The last track isn’t musically outstanding but still one of my favourites: “Isono Sami” is a poignant number about a woman who says she has sinned by remaining in Johannesburg without having returned home to see her loved ones. With each passing year she has remained in Joburg despite their pleas for her to come back to see them. ‘What will I say when I go back?’ she says.

Marks Mankwane, in addition to producing the album, plays lead guitar here alongside Mzwandile David on bass. The keyboardist is Thamie Xongwana, Mike Stoffel plays the drums, while Mike Nyembe provides a secondary guitar on one or two of the numbers.

Queens (from left to right on album cover): Beatrice Ngcobo, Maggie Khumalo, Emily Zwane (lead vocals), Hazel Zwane, Caroline Kapentar.

Enjoy!

MAHOTELLA QUEENS

EZESIMANJE

produced by Marks Mankwane

engineered by Keith Forsyth and David Segal

Hit Special IAL 3034

1982

Zulu Vocal

MF

African Music Show #1: Zimbabwe (1984)

Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited: Queens Hotel Beer Garden ~ 1983. Pic Bob Snow.

Before the mid 1980s marketing explosion of “world music” it was very rare that radio stations outside of Africa featured popular music made in Africa. In May 1984 Triple RRR community radio station in Melbourne Australia pioneered a weekly two-hour “African Music Show” hosted by a newly converted African music enthusiast who had just spent some years volunteering as a teacher in the recently liberated Zimbabwe.

Click on the pic to check out RRR's streaming radio

The tapes of those shows, which I will be sharing over the course of this year, are a fascinating document of Tony Hunter’s perspectives on popular African musics of the time. Tony’s insights and sometimes dry humour provide an entertaining commentary between the main business of his radio shows, great music played from his vinyl collection.

Tony spent two years in Zimbabwe and then in 1983 travelled overland to Congo Kinshasa with the main goal of seeing as many live music performances as possible, and to collect vinyl.

Tony picks up the story: “When I got home to Australia my tea chest of records had arrived and I decided that the word needed to be spread. The most successful independent/community radio station in Australia is 3 RRR (Triple R) – weekly listenership is currently 440,000. Helped by Melbourne’s flat topography it has wide reach and has been going since the late seventies. I rocked up, said I had a box of records from Africa and wanted to tell people about them.

“My exposure to African music began when I took up a teaching position in newly independent Zimbabwe in May 1981.

Tony Hunter meets up with friend
Godfrey Dzavairo
 during a 2011 return trip to Zimbabwe

“Zimbabwe recruited teachers from the Commonwealth and there were a lot who came from Australia.   You had no idea where you were to be posted, my posting was to Seke No 1 High School in the dormitory town (now a vast area) called Chitungwiza 30 km out of Harare. The school had just been built after independence and to cope with the demand for education and there were 2 schools a day. Early morning til noon and noon til late afternoon. It was called hot seat learning as the seats never got cold.

“I lived in Hatfield an outer suburb and got the bus to work. Being a white on the bus and was a source of great amazement to the locals. When walking through the township to school little kids would run inside crying mzungu, mzungu (white man). There was a lot of hostility to whites but not to us, once people found we were from Australia to teach their children we were welcomed warmly.

 “My first experience was hearing 2 huge post independence albums Africa by Oliver Mtukudzi and Gwindingwe Rine Shumba by Thomas Mapfumo. That trademark cough of Tuku’s was fascinating but it was the fast staccato guitar of Jonah Sithole in Mapfumo’s band that grabbed me the most. It was only later that I found out that the guitar was mimicking the mbira.

“I think of Oliver and Thomas as like the Beatles and the Stones. I’ve always been a Stones man and so it followed that much as I like love Oliver, I have always seen Mapfumo’s music as the spiritual heart of contemporary Zimbabwean music.

1982: Tony visiting Otis Banda

“I first saw bands at the Hotel Elizabeth – the Pied Pipers from memory. Having whites in the audience and a band with whites and blacks was a big thing in the new Zimbabwe. Optimism was incredibly high in Zimbabwe, the country was still quite affluent, Mugabe was saying all the right things (well sort of – not if you were from ZAPU or lived in Matabeleland) but internationally he was up there with Mandela.

“My regular haunt was the beer garden at Queens Hotel. A wonderful place with flowering jacaranda trees overhead, cheap beer and a regular flow of great bands. Internationals too- I can vividly remember Hugh Masekela’s shiny trumpet pointed upward to the African sky…fantastic.

“Bob Marley played at the independence ceremony and despite Mugabe declaring reggae and Rastafarianism degenerate, a lot of reggae bands toured. Aswad, UB40 and Misty In Roots stand out. Misty were incredible and I followed their tour around the country.

“Mushandira Pamwe out in Highfield was a big beer barn and I’d see Thomas out there a lot though they could be really late nights as Thomas would take breaks for hours at a time smoking mbanje. When he toured Australia I complained about that and he said you should have joined us-well a little late. Perhaps the weirdest gig was seeing Mapfumo play at the officer’s mess at the Zimbabwe air force. The 4 Brothers were often resident out at Mushandira Pamwe –they heavy on the guitars with a succession of short fast songs.

“I had a friend who lived in Kwe Kwe and I stayed with his family. There was a band that’s sound captivated me. Africa Melody was led by a guy called John Kazadi who I think came from Lumbumbashi. The few references to the band describe it as sungura music but to me it had less of rhumba feel and at times more of country rock sound with the guitars right upfront. Some months later I was in some bar in a township and this guy jumps up and exclaims “Kwe Kwe”! It was John Kazadi and we greeted each other like long lost brothers. It seems I had been obvious to spot in that Kwe Kwe beer hall,

Thomas Mapfumo: Pic Bob Snow.

“A band I regret never seeing were the Devera Ngwena Jazz Band who had hit after hit in the early eighties. I understand they were based at a bar in a mining area, Shangani I think but as the bar owner owned they equipment they could never tour. This changed later but not while I was there.”

“Holidays were long and frequent as the kids had to go back to help on the farms so I would travel to other African countries collecting records as I went-often not knowing who they were – singles especially were very cheap."

Tony was also responsible for compiling the hugely popular "Harare Hit Parade" series of posts on Electric Jive. You can find them here.

So – the first two hour African Music Show unsurprisingly showcases Zimbabwe. Enjoy!

Part 1: download here

Part 2 - download here

Sipho and His Jets: Goods Train (1976)

Keeping with Matt’s theme of pre-June 1976, Zulu Bidi art-work, and the Soul-Jazz-Pop label, here is a further gem showcasing the fusion of a basket of styles into what is an uniquely identifiable Soweto 1976 sound.

Composer Sipho Bhengu on alto saxophone fronts up the Mavuthela studio band with three strong tracks that blend mbaqanga with a pinch of bump-jive while channelling the roots of marabi jazz. Nick Lotay has already featured a seven-single version of “African Fingers”, much played by John Peel, here. 
The flip side track of the Sipho and His Jets 45rpm contains a 2:55 edit of Goods Train, which, on this LP stretches to 6:39. At 13:14, I have not come across any other edition of the bright and jazzy Two Doors.

Those of you who spent time in Pietermaritzburg during the 1980s will recognize the “Hey Jude Record Library” card on the back cover.

Sipho Bhengu features elsewhere on Electric Jive, here, here and here

SIPHO AND HIS JETS
Goods Train
Recorded: 9th February 1976
Soul Jazz Pop BL65
Composed by: Sipho Bhengu
Compiled by: West Nkosi
Engineer: Peter Ceronio

Download: here

On a Funky Trip with the Makhona Zonke Band

Today's share contains just four tracks of funky soul from the key mbaqanga band The Makhona Zonke Band (aka Makhona Tshole Band). With clear references to the Philadelphia soul movement it illustrates the band living up to their name - "the band that can do anything".

Makhona Zonke Band - The Webb (SoulJazzPop BL73)

1. The Webb

2. Excuse Me Baby

3. Somewhere There

4. Gomorah

ENJOY via MF

Groovin' with Green Pastures (c1971)

Perhaps one of my favorite records is this rather obscure album by the Green Pastures issued on Durban's Raj label. The musicians are not necessarily "proficient" but their approach has a simplicity that is just hypnotic. Sitting somewhere between the soul sounds of the late 1960s and a kind of informal, stripped-down, quasi-surf-rock, the music only gets better when that elastic mbaqanga baseline occasionally enters. Don't Cry Baby is an excellent example of this rock-mbaqanga crossover, and was featured on my flatinternational mix posted at Matsuli in 2008. But the album has a number of other interesting and even strange gems like the final two tracks where the vocals are, at times, barely legible. These closing tracks almost sound like an amateur church band surfing a bit of Durban Poison!

I purchased the record from a seller in Durban in 2007 and I have only seen it come up on eBay one other time. There is next to zero information on the group and its members but judging from the cover photograph these guys appear to be serious mods or hipsters. I love the way the bassist is holding his instrument!

Another interesting detail is that the record used to be owned by Nanaboy Govender of Palmiet Road,  who carefully scrawled his name and phone number across both sides of the cover. Palmiet Road is located in Reservoir Hills an historically Indian suburb of Durban in apartheid South Africa. The Raj Record Company was located on Prince Edward Street in downtown Durban near the Raj Cinema and began pressing local recordings in 1967. The label included some of the best Indian rock groups of the day including The Raiders and The Vampires both featured here at Electric Jive. (For more information on Raj check out Chris and Matt's excellent posts). Green Pastures, as a black African group in this context, may have been somewhat unusual. But their music certainly gives a flavor of what the vibrant Durban scene must have sounded like 45 years ago.

Grooving' with Green Pastures is the 22nd Raj LP release and issued just before Vampires Undergound (RMC SLP 023), The Vampires second album and maybe Raj's last pressing. That record has, since Chris' posting, been restored and reissued on Pharaway Sounds and is now available on vinyl and CD. For more detailed images of the Green Pastures cover check out flatinternational.

THE GREEN PASTURES
Grooving with "Green Pastures"
c1971
RAJ
RMC-SLP 022
MF

Enjoy!

Traditional mbaqanga from Mahlathini and his brother - uMahlathini nabo uLungile (1984)

Today, a return to mbaqanga and to Simon 'Mahlathini' Nkabinde. This LP, recorded in collaboration with his brother Zephaniah Lungile Nkabinde and a team of session greats, is an easygoing and eclectic blend between mbaqanga and Zulu-traditional (better known now as maskandi).

Mahlathini made his return to Gallo and Mavuthela in late 1982 after a decade recording for rival record companies. The main reason for his surprise departure from the Mahotella Queens lineup in 1972 was failed promises from producer and manager Rupert Bopape, who refused to pay the members their wages after a long tour. Mahlathini was able to trade on his hugely famous persona post-Mavuthela and made a number of hits for Satbel Record Company, but musical tastes started to change and producers continued to swindle. Mahlathini went to CCP but by the early 1980s had only misses instead of hits. With Bopape now in retirement, the feud was unlikely to be reignited and Mahlathini started to pick up the pieces back at Mavuthela, the home of some of the finest musical support in the country complete with state-of-the-art production standards.

Mahlathini's first new Mavuthela recordings were compiled onto the LP Uhambo Lwami (Motella BL 396), released in 1983. In these he was mostly accompanied by the bands who had supported him through his recent fallow period, including the Mahlathini Girls and the Mahlathini Guitar Band, with producer Lucky Monama. But the album - enjoyable as it was - made little impact on the local music scene. The Makgona Tsohle Band had recently reunited to become the first true stars of African television and had already started recording two reunion albums, released with the same title as their TV show Mathaka. Guitarist Marks Mankwane decided to reunite the original triumvirate of the Mahotella Queens, Mahlathini and Makgona Tsohle. As the Mahotella Queens lineup of the time - of which Mankwane was the producer - featured no original members but was still fairly popular, Mankwane reunited some of the original Queens under a new name. The reunited act, Mahlathini nezintombi zoMgqashiyo, recorded a handful of LPs under Mankwane's production. Sales weren't extraordinary but still substantial, and it showed that with the right producer and musical support, Mahlathini could still fire on all cylinders.

In the middle of recording two of these reunion LPs, Mahlathini found time to make yet another LP produced by Lucky Monama, this time a left-field release featuring the voice of his brother Zeph. This marked the first time in nearly twenty years the duo had recorded together - the last time was as part of Abafana Bezi Modern, a shortlived male vocal jive group put together by Bopape in 1966 (an attempt to recreate the magic of the hugely successful Black Mambazo, the late 1950s-early 1960s pennywhistle-vocal jive group that had featured both Nkabinde brothers).

It's no surprise the LP carries a more traditional feel than the fervent pop-feel of the usual Mahlathini/Mahotella Queens mbaqanga - Lucky Monama was Mavuthela's producer in charge of traditional music at the time and he recorded a large number of groups with obscure, intriguing sounds. On this LP the band includes George Mangxola on lead guitar, Christian Nombewu on rhythm guitar, Zeph Khoza on drums and Noise Khanyile on violin, plus Makgona Tsohle regulars Monama on percussion and Joseph Makwela on bass guitar. The vocals are handled by Mahlathini, Zeph, Selby Mmutung (alias 'Bra Sello') and Richard Chonco.

(The title of the LP should be correctly rendered as one sentence - uMahlathini nabo uLungile - but thanks to a production screw-up, 'Umahlathini Nabo' is the 'artist' and 'Ulungile' the LP title.)

Some of the standout tracks here include "Bumnandi" with the repetitive, almost menacing groans; the laidback "Labhonga Ibhubesi" with those classic George Mangxola lead guitar licks; the unashamedly clean, crystal clear traditional vibes of "Sakhala Isiginci" and "Umcusi Nomacingwane"; plus the random bendy synth effects alongside Makwela's trademark bass phrases in "Lishonile Ilanga". Another great tune, "Qhude Manikiniki", was included in the influential 1985 compilation The Indestructible Beat of Soweto.

Enjoy!

UMAHLATHINI NABO
ULUNGILE
produced by Lucky Monama
engineered by Keith Forsyth
Motella BL 474
1984
Zulu Vocal

MF

Air Light Swingsters: Umhlobo' Mdala (1981)

Band leader and alto saxophonist Peter Mokonotela raises the criticism of bands being inclined to "ape overseas music in preference to our own traditional Afro type music. So, we have tried by all means to take old African tunes and improved on them our way, The African Jazz Sound".

Produced again by the great Hamilton Nzimande this album forefronts fantastic  inter-play among the three saxophonists, Mokonotela, Thami Madi and Shumi Ntuthu. The liner notes continue: "It is hoped that the improvisation on certain Ngoma Busuku (evening or night hymns) singers as played on reed instruments will be appreciated."

Personally, the lullaby "Thula Ulalele" has a deep resonance in the recesses of my childhood memories - mellow, soothing, secure and comforting. At the other end of the spectrum, "Ujujuju" is perhaps my upbeat favourite. All  of the tracks on this slicky produced and performed album have something to offer anyone who appreciates the intersection of Swing, African Jazz, mbaqanga, and early 1980s African pop.

Compared to last week's 1980 posting of the Air Light Swingsters, this 1981 recording comprises 12 shorter tracks spanning nearly 42 minutes - quite a squeeze for an LP. Enjoy.

Download link here