This collection establishes the baseline for the Addis sound when it was still largely derivative from US models, notably James Brown, Elvis and Fats Domino.  Just 7 of 21 tracks here are from after 1972, and most come from the late 60s, so the rhythms and tonalities are mostly familiar to Western ears.  Bustling boogie woogie, cowbell-driven romps, fuzztone guitars, and delightfully exaggerated vocal mannerisms suggest 1960s American pop viewed through a funhouse mirror.  For all the kicks in this set, the best material is yet to come, but the seven tracks by Alèmeyèhu Eshèté—including his memorable James Brown scream on  “Tchero Adari Nègn”—surpass the material on the volume devoted exclusively to his work (Volume 9). 

In the late `60s, Addis Ababa could boast a great nightclub scene. Emperor Haille Selassie was still in power. Coups, civil war and famines lay ahead, but for the moment, the town was swinging to music that made an adventurous fusion of tripping local rhythms and fluttering vocal melodies with the brash stylings of soul, mambo, boogie-woogie and rock `n' roll.

These twenty-one short tracks offer one odd delight after another. Singer Mahmoud Ahmed might sing in Amharic laden with lightning quick vocal ornamentations, but there's no mistaking the fact that he's a soul man.

The James Brown borrowings are still more blatant on "Tchero adari nègn," a 1970 track by Alèmeyèhu Eshèté, who contributes six tunes to this collection.

Lèmma Dèmissèw hews closer to Elvis on "Astawesalèhu," which features baritone sax, honky-tonk piano and Dèmissèw's lovely east African croon.

With swooning horn sections, swaggering vocalists and energized, quirky arrangements, singles like these may be the greatest cultural artifacts of the Selassie regime. The brutal ideologues who succeeded the emperor in 1974 closed down Ethiopia's promising pop music industry virtually overnight, driving talent either abroad or underground. In low fidelity but high spirits, this the latest volume in an excellent series on Ethiopian music, testifies mightily to what might have been had the country's pop culture been allowed to flourish.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre
Originally published in: Boston Phoenix