'If I didn't save this music no one else would'

July 29, 2001 6:39 AM

'If I didn't save this music no one else would' Fascinating story of one man's fight to preserve to music of an entire continent. Imagine if the American or British music of the 1940s and 1950s, so beloved by movie producers and commercial makers hadn't been available since then. 'Blue Velvet' stuck in a basement somewhere covered in dust. The only copy of 'Sixteen Candles' in a junk shop somewhere slowly warping in the sun. It really doesn't bare thinking about...
posted by feelinglistless (6 comments total)

Wow. I'm speechless. It's incredible what this guy went through, more so what the musicians went through. The album Afro-Rock Vol. 1 is available on Amazon UK (but not US yet).

It's not true that the music industry has vanished from Africa, an erroneous impression one might get from this article. That generation of artists seems to have been passed by and largely forgotten, but shows like Sean Barlow and Georges Collinet's Afropop Worldwide are keeping new African music in the public eye and keeping connections to the old music as possible, with much of the same aim as Brooker. Even though I'm no educated musical connoisseur, I love listening to that show on public radio (Friday nights here in Chicago); the music is inventive and daring in ways that established musical styles in the US simply don't go.
posted by dhartung at 1:01 PM on July 29, 2001

Well, think about how much American and British music has been lost, and how much more would have been if it hadn't been for the Alan Lomaxes and Cecil Sharps of the world. Thanks for the link; good read.
posted by transient at 1:02 PM on July 29, 2001

Sad and amazing story. Over and over it gets repeated: without the efforts of individual enthusiasts, treasures get lost. I'm reminded of Francis Densmore, a white woman anthropologist who recorded cylinders of Indian drums and singing for 50 years, beginning at the turn of the last century.

Thanks for the pointer.
posted by Twang at 2:14 PM on July 29, 2001

Love, love, love this story. When I was a boy, listening to shortwave, I used to listen to Georges Collinet on the Voice of America (and I could do a passable impression of his exuberant style, as well). My tastes since have all been tempered by the fact that, no matter what the current national trend in music, there have always been African albums in my collection. Great story.
posted by Mo Nickels at 3:25 PM on July 29, 2001

An argument for Napster or things like it. Music like this will be lost if music is subject to the economics of what can be sold in a record store in rich countries.
posted by brucec at 3:56 PM on July 29, 2001

Lost & Found Sound is also a good read and listen.
posted by JDC8 at 3:11 AM on July 31, 2001