The Peace Train has reached American shores. From her beginnings in a Jewish enclave of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Sharon Katz has led a truly remarkable musical life, performing, recording, collaborating, counciling, and uplifting lives in South Africa, Israel, Ghana, the United States and elsewhere. Katz's early story bears some resemblance to that of Johnny Clegg, including apartheid-era tales of hiding in the back of a car to sneak into the townships to visit black friends. For Katz, though, music has always been about healing as much as entertaining, and in her travels, she has worked with handicapped African children, ghetto kids in Brooklyn, and citizens caught up in a war mentality in Israel and South Africa.

The Peace Train came about when Katz returned to South Africa after Nelson Mandela's prison release and organized a series of concerts culminating in a marathon musical extravaganza staged from a train. Katz's group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and a host of other performers made a two-week, rolling concert tour during the run-up to South Africa's historic, first multiracial election, and ever since, her group has been known as The Peace Train. Katz moved back to Philadelphia in 2000 to begin a second American chapter in her peripatetic life. This album includes twelve songs recorded in Ghana, South Africa, and the U.S.. Much of it features her band's current, slimmed down lineup, but there are guest appearances by Paul Simon collaborators like Bakithi Kumalo (bass), Steve Shehan (percussion), and Matt Cappy (trumpet), as well as other veterans, notably Tony Cedras, who plays accordion and keyboards.

The kickoff, "Crazy Life," finds Katz picking on her acoustic guitar township style, and singing about her wild personal journey over a pumping jive groove. Also in a South African pop mode, Katz sings Zulu-language encouragement to a child on "Sanalwami," decries malicious gossip on "Bayangasaba," and strives to put a hopeful face on the tragedy of AIDS in Africa on "Heartland Express." The music on "Heartland" is sunny and foreboding by turns, but always energized, with Simon Baba Serakeoeng's tasty electric guitar and Cedras's ambient accordion enriching the mix. This song's hint of darkness provides welcome balance given Katz's tenacious allegiance to positive themes and sounds. In the album's lengthy liner note biography, we learn that politically engaged, 1960s American folkies like Peter, Paul and Mary had a formative influence on Kazt. To an extent, her songcraft can be seen as an effort to reinvent that era's hopeful vision in an African context.

Katz's boldly positive vibe may prove a stretch for those raised on grittier fare. "Accra," Katz's cheerful Ghanaian travelogue combines pop-jazz chord changes and a hint of sweet highlife with Katz's delighted observations of life in the Ghanaian capital. The effect is a little precious, but Osei Korankye's 10-string seperewa part is a nice touch. Katz can certainly tap into deeper emotional spaces, and her non-African musical sources are mostly solid. Her ode to Mandela is a soul anthem; "Peace Train" rocks in classic 1970s style; "Why o Why" builds on an organ-driven reggae vamp; and the concluding "Sweet Rhythms" taps into Philly funk with sassy brass section fills, and a bouncy vocal hook that reveals convincing sensuality in Katz's naturally earnest voice.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre for www.afropop.org