1 - Mini All Stars - Sainte Cecile. - Pure Gold Vol 2 - Haiti - Mini Records - MRS 1126-2
2 - Conjunto Casino - Moliendo Café (1938) - Cuban Pearls Vol 2 - Cuba - Syllart - 6133123
3 - Ramón Cordero - Nuestros Lazos - Dominican Republic - Dominican Republic - Putumayo - PUTU 162-2
4 - Bill O Men - African Music (Slow Cadence) - African Music - Antilles - A-3 Productions - 43
5 - Rootsman - Parkway Rock - Soca Gold, Vol 5 - Trinidad - Hot Vinyl - HVCD 023
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When I was planning this show about six weeks ago, I had no idea that the show would go out on the weekend of the Notting Hill Carnival. Outside London, the coincidence doesn't mean much in any case, but it still feels good that it has happened to work out so neatly.
Looking backwards, I realise that my entry into the world’s music outside the US and UK was via the Caribbean, originally the English speaking islands of Jamaica and Trinidad but then, one by one, most of the others, some singing in Spanish, others in French Creole.
The Tabou Combo was the first Haitian group I encountered, followed by many others including the Mini All Stars, heard here revisiting a song by Jean-Baptise Nemours, Sainte Cecile.
Conjunto Casino
The compilation Cuban Pearls is from a parallel series to the fantastic African Pearls, and volume 2 revealed a fascinating discovery. Who would have suspected that the trademark piano lick in ‘Hit the Road, Jack’ (written by Percy Mayfield, a hit for Ray Charles), was nicked from an earlier source, namely a 1938 Cuban recording by Conjunto Casino? Too late now for anybody to go back to find out who heard what and how, as all the relevant parties have long since died.
Ramón Cordero
For many years the only widely known music from the Dominican Republic was the sophisticated big band style called Merengue. But in recent years, the country style known as Bachata has surfaced, most memorably and attractively in the songs by Ramón Cordero. This Dominican Republic compilation is surely one of the best ever released by the Putumayo label.
Bill Thomas of Bill-O-Men
A peculiar characteristic of the obsessive record collector is the ability to recall where and when each record was found, but I’m not entirely sure where I first ran across the album Bill-O-Men by a musician from the French Antilles called Bill Thomas. I think it was probably in Amsterdam, where in 1984 the Concerto record shop had a deep shelf full of music by unknown artists from the islands. I took a chance on a few whose sleeves seemed the most promising, and was rewarded by this slow, pulsing, horn-led tune which later reappeared in a shop somewhere else as a 45 single.
Rootsman
Rootsman was among several Trinidadian Soca singers whose vibrant records enlivened carnivals around the world each year during the 1980s, surfacing first in Trinidad itself before moving on to Brooklyn and Notting Hill. I think this hit was from 1984.
listen online for seven days: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p004185p