The Return of Live Music

After a recent very pleasant conversation with the always amiable Francis Falceto, I was fortunate to receive a CD containing all the publicity he had collected over his 20 years of promoting Ethiopian music. Amongst the many hundreds of scans and texts contained within I found a folder called ‘The Very Best of Ethiopiques’ which I immediately opened with great interest.

While other folders had many long and detailed articles relating to the Ethiopiques artists and the individual Ethiopiques releases, the folder I was browsing through contained mostly short and predicable reviews from mainstream media sources. Then I found this:

Forum Threat Title: ‘How much are the Ethiopiques Artists Getting?’
“Given that Union Square licensed the material from Buda (…) how much do you think the original artists/songwriters (or if dead, their families) are getting for their labours? (…) One option would be for Union Square to link up with Fairtrade to discuss partnership possibilities”.

The answer in the forum came not from USM but from the owner of the forum, Charlie Gillett, who replied “Hmm, I wonder what the folks at Union Square will make of this? As they are so far down the licensing line, I don’t think they have any moral responsibilities to the artists beyond paying royalties to Buda (…) Most of the artists would have recorded for session fees at best. I can’t imagine a royalty structure existing at the time.”

These are strange days for the music industry and a mainstream label like Union Square Music really took a big risk releasing an obscure project such as ‘The Very Best of Ethiopiques’, as it cannot be over emphasised how difficult times are at present with the internet and illegal downloads undermining legal trade.

Because of this, it seems that nowadays many artists are having to seek alternative business models to generate revenue. For example Radiohead left EMI to join mass concert organisers Live Nation, U2 made over $20m from the release of a 3D film their live concert in Buenos Aires, and Prince released his new album for free with a British newspaper then sold out London’s biggest concert arena 21 times. It is in this environment that we have to look at the Ethiopiques artists and ask “What did they get?”.

Well… It lead directly to the Ethiopiques headlining at Glastonbury 2008 and Womad 2009. To continuous successful solo tours for Mulatu Astatqé, Alèmayèhu Eshèté, Gétatchèw Mèkurya, and Mahmoud Ahmed. To Mulatu Astatqé releasing his first album of new material in 30 years. And finally going a good way to undoing some of the awful stereotyping done by Live Aid and firmly entrenched in public’s conciousness ever since.

As Charlie Gullitt correctly points our Union Square is “a straight forward commercial company, with no pretence of having a social agenda” so considering this, the whole affair really has to go down as quite the most remarkable experience for any ethical movement supporting the Ethiopiques artists and as such offers the yet another brave new workable business model for the changing music industry to consider.

Timjim 2009

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rainaffectedbaboonparade/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

If you’re reading this… (Iain Scott Album Compiler)

If you’re reading this the chances are you’ve already been seduced by the mesmeric music found on ‘Ethiopiques’. The evocative modes that you’d be hard-pressed to identify as African; the insistent 6/8 groove that can send members of the audience into what appears to be an ecstatic dance; the twilight world where American jazz meets Ethiopian tradition to create an aural dreamscape so ideally suited to the soundtracks of art-house movies.

So these words are not about that. No, not at all. They’re a plea for the real world of Ethiopian music today. Yes, in the main, the acoustic bands of the 70s no longer exist. And yes, it’s very probable their demise was economic rather than artistic. Although promoters might still pay as much for just two musicians and an arsenal of electronics as they used to pay for a whole orchestra, the associated costs – particularly in the Ethiopian diaspora – are significantly less.

And you might regret that. But if Ethiopian music is only to be appreciated through a wistful and rosy rear-view mirror then a disservice is done, not only to the music, but also to a people. Because the songs are still there. The great performances are still there. The addictive rhythms and unique melodies that twist and twine in a manner that seems completely unconstrained by their pentatonic format … all these are still there.

And if the clothes are electronic and the aspirations more in tune with MTV than BBC Radio 4, France Inter or NPR, then so what? That’s only the surface. The Western world missed much of what went on in Ethiopian music the first time around. It would be ironic if, having finally caught up, we fixed our appreciation to a particular time and space, refusing to open our ears to its manifestations today.

Iain Scott www.triple-earth.co.uk 2009
(The Very Best of Ethiopique is compiled by Iain Scott and Steve Bunyan)

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Press Articles

Here at ethiopiques.info, we’re not the only people to be digging deep and writing about the incredible story of the Ethiopiques. Remarkably, the mainstream UK press have also got bitten by it!

Below are 3 great articles published by the UK’s national press. Who says everything you read in the papers is rubbish?

“the world is finally discovering how great the music of Ethiopia is”

Ethiopiques: Addis Ababa-baloola-a-wop-bam-boom! – The Telegraph 11 August 2007

“the African answer to swinging London”

Ethiopiques: Swinging back to old Addis – The Independent 2 August 2007

“funk workouts that retained an eastern-sounding, Ethiopian edge”

Haile’s got a brand new bag – The Guardian 10 august 2007

Good stuff!

Press Reviews

“some of the most blistering big band funk, soul and jazz work outs”

SO, WHAT did the Ethiopians ever do for us? Well Haile Sellassie/Jah Rastafari, obviously. And, for better or worse, Live Aid and Band Aid. And for a period until 1978, , when Addis was as hot as muscle shoals. Kudos, then, to Amha Eshèté, who set up the first independent record company in the country and kick started this story. Like hippy entrepreneurs in the summer of ’68, Eshèté was in his mid 20’s and determined to take on The Man: in his case a heavy handed censor who was anything but rigorous when it came to music. Between 1969 and ’75 Amha records released 103 singles, and alongside them came a whole industry and a short lived scene that only died under the long curfew of Mengistu’s Derg regime.

Kudos, too, to Francis Falceto, who spent ten years trying to put out a compilation of Ahma’s hits, before beginning the Ethiopiques series (volume twentysomething coming soon). Such a catalogue is daunting: a time dominated by afro’s and miniskirts, funk and flares, but there was quiet satie-esque jazz, traditional music so old it could have been played on King David’s harp. Wading into the series of unprepared tempts disappointment. Indeed, it’s the wealth of unheralded soul and its sequencing that costs this long-awaited initiate-friendly 28 track sampler a star. Like a DJ it begins tentatively as if warming us up for the main course. Three of the first six tracks are by jazz pioneer Mutalu Astatqé – they’re intriguing tunes of unresolved tension, but they feel more like obstacles than entrées. When you hit Mahmoud Ahmed, you know you’ve struck gold. With his extraordinary vibrato, he sounds like Lennon through a Leslie speaker (cf Tomorrow Never Knows). While singing the backwards coda to Rain.

The key to the Ethiopian sound though, comes not from the throat, but from the bands finely drilled musicians, who were, as with many of Jamaica’s heroes, schooled in brass bands. To keep the government happy, they mixed their military backgrounds with traditional music and this new sound. Once you’ve cracked the regimentation they imposed on themselves, the full musical range of Ethiopia’s golden years opens up and Alémayéhu Eshété, the Wallis Band and Tlahoun Gésséssé become friends for life. Think about it: the Imperial Bodyguard Band tried to railroad their country into modernity through soul. They were beaten back by greater forces, true, but here’s what they left us. Not roads, aqueducts or sanitation, just the funk.

David Hutcheon

“The essential introduction to Ethiopian music”

Compared to the high profile that West Africa has on the world music scene, East Africa has remained very much in the shadows. In the case of Ethiopia, there are political reasons for this. A golden age of Ethiopian music was brought to an end by the Mengistu dictatorship (1974-1991), during which many musicians emigrated, and the current scene in Ethiopia is as a result little-known outside the country. What we do know is largely thanks to the energetic and selfless work of Francis Falceto and his hugely admired Éthiopiques series for Buda. Since we first covered it back in Songlines #3 (when a series of 15 CDs was projected), this has proved a lifeline for fans of Ethiopian music. But with the series now at 21 CDs and counting, there’s clearly a need for this budget-priced two CD overview.

The soulful sound of saxophonist Tesfa-Maryam Kidané takes you straight into the glorious, laidback sound of swinging Addis in the late 60s and early 70s with its distinctive pentatonic melodies curling around themselves. It’s a seductive opener, and the saxophone is the predominant siren call throughout these tracks, even the vocal ones. There are echoes of Glen Miller and James Brown behind this music.

The two discs feature tracks by the star vocalists Mahmoud Ahmed (his famous ‘Erè Mèla Mèla’), and Tlahoun Gèssèssè (the awesome ‘Sema’), both still little-known in the West. There are also gems by many others and brief notes by Francis Falceto to introduce them. The selection was made by Iain Scott who played his own part in the story of Ethiopian music, releasing the albums of Aster Aweke from the late 80s. Inevitably, the selection favours the urban and commercial aspects of the Éthiopiques series, so more traditional performers such as Asnaqètch Wèrqu, and azmari nightclub musicians, don’t get in. However, an other-worldly ‘Pater Noster’ from Alèmu Aga, played on the begena – or ‘Harp of King David’ – rounds the selection off. The essential introduction to Ethiopian music.

Simon Broughton

“Is there any musicmore alluring (…) more down right sexy?”

Despite it being the second most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa, the music of Ethiopia has remained conspicuously underwhelming to European
ears – only US residing song birds Aster Aweke and Gigi have turned Western heads in recent times. Aside from that there is a long running series of largely vintage recordings from the ‘60s and ‘70s whose name has become a by-word for quality, mystery and captivation – Ethiopiques. Currently running to 21 absorbing volumes, it’s a series that’s converted A-list names to the glories of otherwise long forgotten music, among them Elvis Costello, Robert Plant and Brian Eno.

The Very Best Of Ethiopiques does exactly what you’d expect, undertaking the unenviable task of distilling 28 tracks from across the whole series, and spreading them across two discs. What’s immediately apparent is the extraordinary breadth of music being played in the swinging clubs of Addis Ababa 30 or 40 years ago. We get funk blues and loads of jazz inflected flavours, but it sounds so different, so-er-Ethiopian. As Elvis Costello observes, it’s music “from a strange and wonderful place of its own”. Its also proof that the likes of Mahmoud Ahmed and Mulatu Astatqé should have been huge stars in their homeland (although Hollywood has recently given Astatqé a belated leg up, by heavily featuring his music on the sound track to the Bill Murray vehicle Broken Flowers). Allow yourself to be cast under the Ethiopiques spell and then answer this question. Is there any music – anywhere – more alluring, more seductive, more down right sexy?

Nige Tassell

“astonishing music”

At the end of the Sixties and the early Seventies, Ethiopia was in the dying years of the imperial decline of Haile Selassie and the early years of a brutally repressive junta led by Mengistu. Within the confines of this stifling and constrictive environment there flowered some astonishing music. At times showing Fela Kuti’s influences, in the big band sax flavour and other times a different take on regional music, this is a music that is accessible to all and has been championed by the likes of Robert Plant, Brian Eno and Elvis Costello. It is the fresh sound of spiritual freedom.

Nicky Tesco

“This double CD is a revelation” 18 Aug Album Of The Week

This double CD is a revelation. From the vaults of the Buda Musique label comes a mesmerising collection of tracks recorded in Ethiopia from the Sixties onwards that has until now been a secret of the cognoscenti. Ranging from dreamy blues to wild R&B, with jazz-style piano thrown in, the material is fascinating and addictive. It could do for Ethiopia what the Buena Vista Social Club did for Cuba.

Roger Trapp

Tell a Friend – Send an Ecard

Let your friends know about ‘The very best of Ethiopiques’, a uniquely Ethiopian take on jazz, funk and soul music from Addis Ababa in the 60s and 70s. And don’t forget to tell them about http://www.ethiopiques.info/!

T U R K A I R O

Welcome to ‘The Very Best of Ethiopiques’

Track Listing

CD1:
1. Heywete – Tesfa Maryam Kidane
2. Yekermo Sew – Mulatu Astatqe
3. Yekatit – Mulatu Astatqe
4. Enken Yelelebesh – Girma Beyene
5. Ewnet Yet Lagegnesh – Bahta Gebre-Heywet
6. Gubelye – Mulatu Astatqe
7/8. Ere Mela Mela/Metche New – Mahmoud Ahmed
9 .Tchero Adari Negn – Alemayehu Eshete
10.Telantena Zare – Alemayehu Eshete
11.Muziqawi Silt – Wallias Band
12.Gedawo – Ayalew Mesfin & Black Lion Band
13.Tchuheten Betsemu – Tlahoun Gessesse
14.Tezeta – Menelik Wesnatchew

CD2:
1. Mother’s Love - Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou
2. Sema - Tlahoun Gessesse
3. Milenu - Tewelde Redda
4. Embi Ila - Beyene Habte
5. Tezeta - Mulatu Astatqe
6. Set Alamenem - Girma Beyene
7. Yemendjar Shega - Muluqen Mellesse & Dahlak Band
8. Antchi Hoye - Getatchew Mekurya
9. Kulun Mankwalesh (1970) - Tlahoun Gessesse
10. Shellela - Getatchew Mekurya
11. Mela Mela - Seyfu Yohannes
12. Atawurulegn Lela - Mahmoud Ahmed
13. Fetsum Denq Ledj Nesh - Mahmoud Ahmed
14. Abatatchen Hoy (Pater Noster) - Alemu Aga

These 2CDs contain some of the very best tracks from the highly acclaimed ‘ethiopiques’ series featuring, among others, the award-winning Mahmoud Ahmed, national icon Tlahoun Gessesse, the `James Brown’ of Alemayehu Eshete and `Broken Flowers’ movie music of Mulatu Astatqe.

“This is a unique record release series, much of it from the glorious explosion of soulful, sorrowful and joyful music cut between the repression of absolute monarchy and the cultural insanity of the Derg regime. The spoilt complaints of Western pop musicians pale into insignificance compared to the defiant human spirit contained in these recordings.

Do yourself a favour and discover the Ethiopian R&B counterparts to James Brown, Elvis Presley and Jackie Wilson but also jazz composers, choral groups, folk minstrels and bluesmen with power and wildness of Bukka White or Son House, or contemplative piano music that might suggest Bill Evans or Maurice Ravel for a moment, but is really from a strange and wonderful place of its own.”

Elvis Costello

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

Live Aid – Onwards and Upwards (Finally…)

Let me just begin by saying, it was conceived as a ‘rock’ music concert, it raised a final figure of over £150m, and the live broadcast was watched by an estimated 1.5 billion viewers across 100 countries.

The UK event featured contributions from artists from UK, US, Australia, Japan, Austria, Holland, Yugoslavia, Russia, Germany, and Norway, but did not feature a single African act. This was because the organiser’s held the belief at that time that broadcasting African artists would deter a mass audience (a philosophy since proven wrong). The closest that the UK event came to any kind of authentic African experience was the appearance of US Blues legend BB King and Nigerian Born Afro British Soul singer Sade.

The US event, as well as featuring a glut of UK artists, did at least involve an important Afro-American presence including: Four Tops, Billy Ocean, Run DMC, Bo Diddley, Albert Collins, Ashford and Simpson, Kool and the Gang, Patti Labelle, Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffen, and Tina Turner. But again, supporting these world famous legends was not a single African or Ethiopian act. A surprise considering that the US had a significant Ethiopian Diaspora population including Aster Aweke, Tesfa Maryam Kidané, Girma Bèyènè, Ayaléw Mèsfin, and even Ethiopia’s top record producer himself Amha Eshèté. These people were resident (and some were still musically active) in the US at the time of the Live Aid Concert.

The truth is, live aid was never conceived to promote Ethiopian music or to aid the Ethiopia music scene by giving its musicians the exposure they required to become more self sufficient. Even if anyone had tried to organise an Ethiopian presence (or better still an Ethiopian event), this would have been impossible as the golden era of Modern Ethiopian music was now suppressed under a military Stalinist regime (the greatest cause of the famine), forbidding all urban night-life and restricted artists from traveling abroad. Realistically, at the time the only hope was the displaced Ethiopian artists based in the US, which never happened.

So, while debate continued to rage over what ‘should have happened’ at the 1985 LiveAid concerts, Ethiopians themselves were forced to wait in isolation until finally becoming a democratic republic in 1994. However, the former Ethiopia was partitioned into Ethiopia and Eritrea and a new war broke out (lasting until 2000) that continued to stifle creativity and the development of a domestic music industry. That brings us up to present day, past the release of Francis Falceto’s ‘The Ethiopiques Series’ from 1997onwards, and up to the recent release of ‘The Best of the Ethiopiques’ (2CD) 2007, the first attempt to cross over modern Ethiopian Music to a mainstream Western market. But will either of these European based re-issues finally succeed in gaining Ethiopian Music the recognition it deserves?

Cuban music was equally in a long term state of decline with its forgotten legends about to pass away, until Ry Cooder initiated the project that was to grow into the ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ gaining massive publicity and the rest is history. Although this article started out as a criticism of the missed opportunity of Live Aid, perhaps in fact, now is the only time it has ever been (and will ever be) possible to elevate the living legends of modern Ethiopian music to their rightful place in world music. So if Elvis Costello, Robert Plant, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, Damon Albarn, Brian Eno or anyone else who has publicly stated admiration of modern Ethiopian music is reading this… Keep up the good work and more.

Timjim 2008

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chimchim/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“If you do something you get problems. If you do nothing you are cool” (French Saying)

If you check out Benjamen Walker’s ‘Theory Of Everything’ Podcast on 10.02.06 (now unavailable) you can listen to a very interesting interview with Francis Falceto, assistant compiler of ‘The Very Best of Ethiopiques’ and compiler of the original ‘Ethiopiques series’. In this interview, despite everyone’s common intention to promote Ethiopian Modern Music, nearly all the interviewees get side-tracked into the issue of ‘who has the right to promote’ Ethiopian music and the problems of representing a culture that is not your own.

As Francis Falceto states “If I like something I need to share it…” and with regards to his reason for publishing the ‘Ethiopiques series’, simply that “I could not see anybody taking care of it so I went ahead…”. Russ Gershon of the Either / Orchestra then equally harmlessly explains how he was listening to Ethiopian music, incorporated it into their set, got great success off even small town audiences, and ended up performing live in Ethiopia with some of the original artists.

But there is a strange taste that remains in the back of the mouth at the same time as the heart warms to such stories. Mulatu Astatqé sums this up perfectly as he is unable to avoid expressing his discontent that it has not been the Ethiopian government or Ethiopians themselves who have been responsible for the recent rise in popularity of modern Ethiopian music. Astatqé claims Ethiopians “don’t look up to their own cultural assets”, a curious occurrence considering moments earlier Falceto claims Ethiopians are “very proud and strongly nationalist”.

As a British citizen who spent nearly 10 years collecting Polish 60-70s R’n’B / Funk / Soul, whilst living in post-communist Poland, I can sympathise greatly with Francis Falceto here. Francis Falceto first heard Mahmoud Ahmed’s ‘Ere Mela Mela’ in 1984, 13 years before the release of the first record in the Ethiopiques series, and whilst the Ethiopian born Mulatu Astatqé is correct in all he says, he also has lived in both the UK and the US, gaining exposure to the mechanics of a western music marketing industry. While everyone would love an ‘Ethiopian’ to be in charge, the question of what should allow (or exclude) people from being able to represent Ethiopia remains beyond all.

When the Either /Orchestra played in Ethiopia, Francis Falceto tracked down Bahta Gèbrè-Heywèt, who then went on to sing in public for the first time in decades, and by all accounts had the most fantastic time. The Ethiopia in which this concert took place was not the isolated and restricted word that existed up until democracy arrived in 1991, but was a world where young Ethiopians wish to be part of world teen culture joining in with global youth fashion and eager to make music “of an equal quality to the rest of the world” (The Rough Guide to World Music 1994). When Mulatu Astatqé returned to Ethiopia in the 1960s, Ethiopia was equally a place joining in with world culture with numerous bands imitating UK and US pop acts.

Right at the very beginning of the podcast, Francis Falceto expresses how it is his belief that when it comes to music “It’s ridiculous to write about it” and people need only to listen as “that’s enough”. However, it is he who has written the incredibly extensive liner notes to the Ethiopiques series (and much more). This just goes to prove that it is one thing saying something and another actually making it happen in the real world, and while we can all talk about ideal situations, they somehow always remain just out of reach.

Francis Falceto finishes off the podcast by saying:
“If you do something you get problem (sic), if you do nothing you will be cool.”
Bringing a small smile to my face (as I hope to anyone who has ever tried to change anything through music) and causing a nod of acknowledgement to all the kindred souls out there, wherever they may live.

Timjim 2007

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