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...
at

14 comments:

  1. symbolkid14 December 2008 at 13:28

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  2. WrldServ14 December 2008 at 13:44

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  3. zim14 December 2008 at 18:10

    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?

    ReplyDelete
  4. trumpetaaa14 December 2008 at 21:42

    wonderful record many thanks

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous15 December 2008 at 00:52

    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.... ; )

    ReplyDelete
  6. noreille15 December 2008 at 14:07

    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! ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. avocado kid15 December 2008 at 14:56

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

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous21 December 2008 at 15:21

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

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous25 February 2009 at 19:39

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

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous21 June 2011 at 09:02

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  11. WrldServ21 June 2011 at 12:10

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

    Thanks for letting me know, Anonymous!

    ReplyDelete
  12. AFROlover27 May 2012 at 21:00

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


    Please please re upload. Thanks in advance.

    ReplyDelete
  13. WrldServ28 May 2012 at 03:04

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

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous16 October 2015 at 13:14

    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!!

    ReplyDelete