Jewel Ackah - high life from Ghana 1986

Here we have some very good hi-life from Ghana from the mid 80s.  Jewel Ackah is well known enough to have stuff you can by on Itunes but not this album.  I found this vinyl album in the Princess May car boot in Dalston, which is almost the equivalent of the Dalston Oxfam Shop (for me) these days because they don't really care any good tapes anymore.

It looks Jewel Ackah had albums dating back to '81 as you can see from his discogs site.  You can see some more recent albums of his (less to my taste) on itunes here.

According to his biography here, this is maybe his best album, recorded with Pat Thomas and A.B. Crentsil.

Onipa Dasa Ni

Smylonylon 9

I am excited to present another Smylonylon tape on this blog.  This is one of the ones that I did not have.  A lovely man named Alan Miller contacted me on the e-mail on this blog and sent it to me out of the blue.

This tape is earlier in the series of Smylonylon tapes when the music was more moog and 60s dance.  Starting with the tapes in the teens up to number 30 (the last one) the music was a lot more disco influenced.  

There are a lot of amazing tunes on here.  I have given you the option of buying many of the tunes on Itunes.  I particularly like the tracks Hey Hey by Gershon Kingsley and the track Silver Fingertips by Paul Mauriat, which I have included as a download.  I particularly am struck by how musical the tracks are in the sense that the musicians are clearly very good at playing instruments. It seems that music these days is all computer automated.

If want to particularly thank Alan for his generosity in sending the tape through.  And also happy to know that he's inolved with Optimo, where he is PR manager.  Check out his djing as DJ Hushpuppy here:

http://www.sohotheatre.com/whats-on/beats/

Or his personal links here.

www.mixcloud.com/hushpuppy/
www.subcity.org/shows/musicplease/

Side 1 (click to listen - direct download)

1 - John Keating - I Feel the Earth Move (itunes)

2 - Ray Davis - Fist of Fury

3 - Paddy Kingsland - The Earthmen (itunes)

4 - Mike Curb - Gas Hassle (itunes)

5 - Alen Tew - The Detectives (itunes)

6 - Paul Mauriat - Silver Fingertips (download direct)

7 - George Martin - Winchester Cathedral

8 - Lord Sitar - If I Were a Rich Man (itunes)

9 - George Martin - Hole in My Shoe

10 - Pierre Henry - Offering (itunes)

11 - Les Baxter - Shelly In Camp

12 - Candido - Jump Back (itunes)

13 - Dr. Bohme - Sudamerikanisches Medley

14 - Eduardo Zurita - Rico Mambo

15 - Don Tracy - African Waltz


side 2 (click to listen - direct download)

16 - Peter Thomas - Popular Myth (itunes)

17 - Theo Schuman Combo - Korallenriff (itunes)

18 - Peter Thomas - Stars & Rockets (itunes)

19 - Horst Kruger Sextet - Leopard

20 - Brigitte Bardot - Saint Tropez

21 - Ray Davis - Kojak

22 - Galactic Light Orchestra - Galactic Swan (itunes)

23 - Alan Hawkshaw - Fuel Injection

24 - Gershon Kingsley - Hey, Hey (itunes)

25 - Andre Brasseur - Saturnus

26 - Popcorn - Tap Moi-La

27 - Peter Moesser - Happy Time

28 - Perrey & Kingsley - The Savers (itunes)

29 - Fred Berlipp - Beating Street

30 - Dan Hill - Medley

31 - The Mohawks - Beat Me Till I'm Blue

32 - The Young Ones - The Black Queen's Beads

Ismael Isaac et les Freres Keita - La Paix

Ismael Isaac et les Freres Keita are a Reggae group from Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Ismael Isaac recorded this album in 1986 with the singing twins (seen on either side of him in the cover) Keita and Hassan Ousseini.

I got all the information above from Wikipedia and it doesn't have much else to say about him.  The sound on this track is incredible however. It's reggae but there's something else which is distinctly african about it.

I found this album in the flea market in Marseille and I hope you enjoy it.  You can buy the recording on Itunes here but I think my recording off vinyl is better.

(warning - I've posted an aif cd quality file so it's 50 mb)
Ismael Isaac et les Freres Keita - La Paix