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Sunday 29 April 2012

Great Global Grooves

Before we get to the business of the day, I should note that yesterday we reached 60,000 visitors. If I have worked it out right the 60,000th came from St. Louis. I thought about playing something special for them but then remembered I already had - Rough Shop, who were featured yesterday are from St. Louis. I wonder if it was them?

Anyway, I recently acquired this thingy that you plug into the PC and it transfers cassettes directly on to iTunes. It's modern-day magic. I don't have many cassettes any more apart from those that I have not been able to replace, like the early Cleaners From Venus albums available only by wandering round to Martin Newell's house in Wivenhoe.

Among those I have held onto is a compilation tape I put together twenty plus years ago which I rather grandly called "Great Global Grooves". I have been able to hunt down better quality versions of many of them in the interim, but there are half a dozen or so tracks on there that I have never found again. So it is good to be able to preserve them.

With apologies for the slightly ropey quality at points, here are some grooves from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Cameroon, Nigeria and (I think) Malawi to get your toes tapping on a damp Sunday morning.

"Watusi '65" - Ray Barretto

"La Hora Marina" - Los Karachi

"Farida's Assiko" - Princess Asta Djimbe

"Yere Africa" - Peter King

"Pennywhistler" - Sydney Banda

May I advise our readers in St. Louis against listening to these tracks while riding on the trolley, or you may find yourself seized with an irresistable urge to dance the hoochie koochie with your tootsie wootsie.

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