When independence came to West Africa in the late 1950's, the presidents of Mali and Guinea set up national systems of regional and national dance bands as a way of promoting a sense of nationhood. The hitch was that these bands could no longer just play Afro-Cuban dance music and American swing jazz. They had to incorporate local traditions in their music. The Manding people-the most populous ethnic group in this region-made an especially strong contribution to the new sound that developed. The flowing string melodies of the Manding kora (21-string harp) and balafon (wooden xylophone) fit naturally onto electric guitars, and the powerful songs of Manding "griot" praise singers easily blended with the lilt of popular Latin music. These strands came together in a spirit of invention and improvisation that is a hallmark of Malian music, and in the process a new genre, sometimes called "Manding swing," was born.

In Mali, this cultural movement was violently interrupted in 1968 when a military coup brought Moussa Traore-a corrupt and brutish dictator with none of his predecessor's feeling for culture-to power. "They broke everything Modibo [Keita] had made," recalls the Rail Band's lead guitarist, Djelimady Tounkara, "the national dance troupe, national band, national theater. Broken, broken, broken!"

In a creative response to the situation, directors of the Malian Railway Company sought to pick up the pieces by sponsoring a band that would play at the hotel next to the Bamako train station, the Buffet Hotel de la Gare. Djibril Diallo, the director of the Buffet, recruited a trumpet playing griot named Tidiani Kone to organize the band. In its first decade, two of West Africa's greatest singers-Salif Keita and Mory Kante-passed through the Rail Band's ranks. When Keita left the Rail Band in 1972 to form his own group, Les Ambassadeurs, the rivalry between these two bands became the talk of West Africa as they spurred each other on to new heights of creativity.

Mory Kante also left the Rail Band to pursue a solo career in 1979, but the band definitely had enough strength to survive the departures of its singing stars. First of all, the Rail Band's adaptations of Malian folklore, especially the music of the Manding griots, was superior. Secondly, there were always great singers like Makan Ganessy, Lafia Diabaté, and the present Rail Band vocalists Damory Kouyaté and Samba Sissoko, waiting for a chance at the microphone. And then there was Djelimady Tounkara, who became recognized as one of the greatest guitarists in Africa. His ability to turn the character and phrasing of traditional instruments like the kora and the balafon into searing electric guitar wizardry was an inspiration to a whole generation of guitarists.

The Super Rail Band remained popular throughout the region in the 1980s, but in this era of singing stars, many other great dance bands fell by the wayside. In the 1990s, times grew especially tough for the Rail Band, and their survival owes something to the dedication and faith of French producer and promoter Christian Mousset, who organized European concert tours and produced three Rail Band CDs since 1991, including the universally acclaimed Mansa (1995), and a new recording expected out late in 2001.

Meanwhile, under Tounkara's direction, the Super Rail Band has found a new audience back home. They've privatized, and left aside the Buffet Hotel de la Gare, a venue where few young people ever venture for fear they might run into their parents, aunts or uncles. At their new home base, the Djembe Club in Bamako's Lafiabougou neighborhood, the Rail Band plays to kids who weren't even born when Moussa Traoré took power. To reach them, Tounkara has revitalized the band's signature blend of Manding pop, reggae, Congolese rumba, salsa, blues, and rock 'n' roll. He's keeping the tempos up to drive the dance floor, and dazzling young listeners with hot new arrangements of Rail Band classics. In the spring and summer of 2001, the Super Rail Band is making its first U.S. tour. (They did play one concert in Seattle in 1991, but only a lucky few saw that.) The band is in superb form and high spirits, proving with each concert that they remain one of the most powerful dance bands in Africa.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre