September 26, 2008

On Entre OK!

There seems to be a misunderstanding about one of Franco's masterpieces, "Na Lingaka Yo Yo Te". The misunderstanding being that the track is only ten minutes long (or should I say 'short'?).
Sonodisc was never very respectful in their handling of their artists. Misspelling of titles and a general lack of information was quite common. But they have also shortened a few tracks. And not just "Na Lingaka Yo Yo Te". Josky's classic "Bimansha" was cut by over three minutes, as was Franco's ode to tailor "Fabrice". And there are more (but I'll save those for another post).

Of "Na Lingaka Yo Yo Te" only half of the original track survived the transition to CD. On the original album (FRAN009) the track goes on for a blissful 21 minutes; on CD8489 the track stops after just under 11 minutes.
The track, recorded in 1980, is in every aspect unique, because it is the only track of Franco without the (Tout Puissant) O.K. Jazz. Franco played almost all the instruments in this recording. Almost, because performing on bottle and synthesizer were two friends who later became influential politicians.

Edit May 28, 2014: the link to the song has been updated.

7 comments:

bolingo69 said...

Hi Stefan,

This is the best news I have heard in ages! I really welcome this and wish you all the best. Tell me if I can help in any way, glad to see that you are linking to my discographies at bolingo.org (they are truly in need of updating and I have lots of accumulate material laying around on my discs that needs to be edited in there)

Wishing you all well!

bolingo69

Anonymous said...

Whenever I hear the theme Fode from Kasse Mady Diabate, as I hear they cut the song when is beginning to heat up.

Not too will have a full version with the theme, right?

Many thanks,for na lingaka....

WrldServ said...

Do you mean the track recorded in Europe, or the track by Kassemady with Badema National?

Anonymous said...

I refer to the first track (Fodé) of the Kassemady Diabaté:Fodé Stern's STCD 1025, 1989 CD.
I don´t know any other version whith Badema.

WrldServ said...

Ah. I am not posting what is readily available on CD. But I will post the Badema version later this weekend or next week.

david said...

Amazing, I had no idea that the version widely circulating was the edited cut, and i've always loved this track. Also i checked the stern's franco comp. and sure enough they used the edited version. Needless to say thrilled to hear this in it's entirety and indebted to you, as always. Had no idea franco was doing just about everything here either. Thanks for sharing the music and your amazing knowledge of the music with us.

Unknown said...

could this be the longest song by Franco (TPOK jazz, if it is not, which one is. your efforts at finding, preserving, sharing of these gems and putting the information in perspective is greatly appreciated