December 14, 2008

Amara Touré

A man who has travelled quite a bit, this Amara Touré. Originally from Guinea, he was a member of the Tropical Jazz orchestra in Dakar in the early 1960s and was involved in the formation of the Star Band. Subsequently he was in the line-up of Dexter Johnson's Superstar de Dakar which can be heard on the magnificent Dakar Sound CD's DKS 016 and DKS 017. According to the liner notes he can be heard singing the lead vocal on St. Louis Sierra (DKS 017).

Apparently he ended up in Gabon in the 1970s. He teamed up with orchestre Massako "des F.T.N. du Gabon" (the army?) of Mackjoss (real name Mackaya Jean-Paul), one of the key figures in the Gabonese music scene from the 1960s on to the 1980s, and also a man with a taste for Afro-Cuban music (he is reported to have played with Sonora Matancera in Burkina Faso in the 1980s).

The result is this superb lp, on the Sonafric label. Amara Touré's singing is brilliant, but I also like the chorus and the superior horn section.

Sonafric SAF 50.107 (NEW LINK May 28, 2012)


I only have photocopies of the sleeve...

EDIT: I have replaced - thanks to zim - the photocopy of the front sleeve by a colour version...

14 comments:

symbolkid said...

seems to be great as usual. thank you very much.

only thing is that humyo storage is asking me to create an account and than i have troubles with creating it. could you upload it somewere else, please.

i have to say that most long living shares (to my experience) are on megaupload.com and badongo.com. rapidshare is good as for me too.

thank you once again.

WrldServ said...

I am getting very tired of these storage services and their intransparent conditions. Personally I am not a fan of rapidshare and the extremely long waiting. But humyo is off my list too, now they are putting up restrictions like this.
I will upload the files to another server as soon as I can.

zim said...

fantastic! another LP I have been dying to hear ever since I learned of its existence - thank you. do you by chance know if orchestre massako also backed toure on his sonafric singles?

trumpetaaa said...

wonderful record many thanks

Anonymous said...

Re. services, rapidshare is actually only a 15 minute wait between dl. I used to love Zshare and Badongo but they both seem to have somewhat died, in their services. Zshare when it changed servers and all old links no longer function, Badongo just slowing way down. Megaupload used to be unavailable in some countries in europe but have changed that. Mediafire still keepin' on. Sendspace always a pain here in central europe.

I feel lots of the smaller services that you've used work wonderfully the moment you post and provide a welcome respite from Rapidshare but won't stay the course and a month from now will not have the files available. In some sense for the long term Rapidshare probably still your best bet if you're trying to create an archive. The smaller unknowns fine for immediate dl by those of us who can't get enough of your material and check it every day, or every hour, or every minute or.... ; )

noreille said...

Thank you so much for this african music masterpiece you shared here! Enjoyable sound quality too... Another great record I'm adding to my too long list of records I'll have to find hazardously with some important luck factor in a french flea market... Fingers crossed!

Thank you sincerely and thanks to Zim who kindly drove me here! ;-)

avocado kid said...

thanks again! I personally recommend sharebee - gives you the choice of several mirror sites and you can see which one works best.

Anonymous said...

you are phenomenal!
Your knowledge of african music impresses me deeply
thanks for sharing these rare gems
Wuod K

Anonymous said...

This is a true masterpiece and one I have never haerd before. THANK YOU for the joy this album brings.
DavidN

Anonymous said...

Link is dead, please please please re-up! I'm dying to get my hands on this after the absolute killer "N'Niyo" on the African Boogaloo comp.

WrldServ said...

For some reason Megaupload removed the uploaded file.
I have uploaded the file to another server.

Thanks for letting me know, Anonymous!

AFROlover said...

Says this file is not available for public download. Been looking for this for years !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Please please re upload. Thanks in advance.

WrldServ said...

@AFROlover: Thanks for pointing this out to me!
I have replaced the link.

Anonymous said...

Wow I just discover the great artist Amara Toure and now I find his album on this blog. thank you very much for sharing! You made my day!!