The site for Ethiopian Amharic Addis Music online

Sleeve Notes by archivist Francis Falceto.

As in the rest of the world, for Ethiopia the 60s were the years of ultimate postwar modernity. They began in violence with a failed coup d’état (December 1960) in which The Imperial Body Guard, as well as many of the musicians that made up its bands, was implicated. But after this warning shot the ageing Emperor Haile Sellassie I compromised anddisplayed an increasingly progressive approach. Ethiopia became an international showcase of non-alignment and African unity, and Addis Ababa, capital and only metropolis of a very centralised empire, the very essence of modernist audacity. Music and its enjoyment were part and parcel of this spirit and, for once in tune with the world, ‘Swinging Addis’ sported the daring uniforms of the period: wide-leg or bell-bottom trousers, skinny ties, Afro or beehive hairdos, miniskirts and even the pill.

The main body of Ethiopian vinyl was produced in less than one decade: from 1969 to 1978. All in all, just under 500 45s and around 30 LP albums were released and of these, Amha Eshèté, creator of the Amha Records label, issued around 250 titles. In 1969, aged only 24, Amha decided to start his own record company and in so doing, to defy an Imperial decree that had granted a monopoly over the production and importation of records to Aghèr Feqer Mahbèr – literally ‘The Love of Country Association’ and the first Ethiopian national theatre.

“I had a gut feeling that it was the thing to do”, Amha recalled 25 years later. “I took the risk. Philips couldn’t have done what I did, because they were a big, official company, and a foreign one at that. But I was a young, independent, unknown and gutsy Ethiopian just starting out in the business. I could do things that they would never dare. I thought’nobody’s going to kill me for this. At most I might land in jail for a while.’ I talked my plans over with lots of people at the Haile Sellassie I theatre and, of course, at Aghèr Feqer Mahbèr. They all warned me that I was headed for serious trouble … In fact, I was already importing foreign records. I had my first records, two 45s by Alèmayèhu, stamped in India – it was nearby, and cheap. When the records arrived, Agher Feqer threatened me, brandishing the Emperor’s order, but without much conviction. They knew that they had produced almost nothing in the past years, and it all just died down. I didn’t even have to pay them anything, as they had claimed I should.”

After this showdown, the Ethiopian version of the battle between the ancients and the moderns, a real groundswell broke. Amha Eshèté had been right: undue privilege and paralysis had to give way to free enterprise and to greater creativity. Throughout the year 1970, the national press reported the controversies and unrest sown in Ethiopian society by the younger generation. The Emperor who had the last word on everything, probably assessed the seriousness of the conflict and decided to let those determined youths have their way.

As almost everywhere in Africa, it had been the western-style marching bands that prompted the birth of modern music, adapting and rearranging traditional music. The first bands were those of the Imperial Bodyguards, the Army and the Police Force, many distinguished by their impressive brass sections and all the historic singers, men and women alike, started out with these groups. However more and more “private bands” were formed and came to dominate the scene: the Girmas Band, All Star Band, Soul Ekos [Echos], Ibex Band (which later became the Roha Band), Wallias, Shebelle’s, Dahlak, Venus, Ethio Stars and Black Lion, just to name the most important.

All this healthy turmoil was extinguished in 1974 with the fall of the Emperor and the arrival of a particularly brutal military junta. The golden era’s days were numbered and the country would soon wake up to a new regime of repression. Curfews put an end to any nightlife and record production plummeted, disappearing completely in 1978. The audio-cassette, introduced in 1975, became the only witness to a period of censorship and artistic decline – with unfortunately few exceptions and despite a copious output.

The cassette was to flood the Ethiopian music market. Just about anyone could set themselves up as a music producer but especially, and more frequently, as a copier and pirate. As if that weren’t enough, synthesizers were soon to replace not only electric organs but also the big institutional bands – who were simply done away with by the new regime. Censorship, curfews, propaganda, harassment of musicians and the forced exile of many artists decimated Ethiopian music for a long while.

But within all this, from 1973 into the 1990s and particularly after Amha Eshèté went into exile in 1975, there was still a number one promoter on the Ethiopian musical scene. This was the exceptionally creative Ali Abdella Kaifa. His mother owned the ‘Calypso Music Shop’, Ali re-named it the ‘Tango Music Shop’ and, for the next 20 years, he was known exclusively by his wonderful pseudonym, Ali Tango. Born in 1942, son of a Yemenite father and an Oromo-Yemenite mother, Ali Tango went on to publish dozens of cassettes. Whereas record sales generally leveled off at 1,000
or 2,000 copies, Ali Tango raised the sales of his cassettes to more than 100,000 copies – a dizzying level, in any country.

A sharp talent scout, it was he who discovered Aster Aweke, Nèway Dèbèbè and many others. He has also produced some of the greatest hits of major artists like Bzunèsh Bèqelè, Alèmayèhu Eshèté, Ayaléw Mèsfin and MuluqènMèllèssè. Not to mention Mahmoud Ahmed’s historic ‘Erè Mèla Mèla’. This much-envied ‘godfather’ also managed, throughout the trying times of the dictatorship, to protect his singers’ and his groups’ freedom of expression, often via somewhat risky manoeuvres.

The recordings were made with a minimum of technical equipment. A microphone for the singer, and another in the middle for the musicians; a two-track tape recorder, no re-recording or mixing, and usually recorded in clubs where, because of the curfew, the dinner bands performed in the early evenings. These gems are all the more precious for having been crafted in such difficult circumstances.

The Very Best Of Ethiopiques is released on Union Square Music’s Manteca label in the UK on August 13th 2007 and overseas soon after. Its catalogue number is MANTDCD245 and barcode 698458224521