King Sunny Ade Live on a Funky Friday
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Artist:
When I lived in Hollywood there was a guy at all the "right" gigs who always stood at the back, always by himself, always kept his silence, always wore Ray Ban Wayfarers and a green Army raincoat.
In 1982, King Sunny Ade of Nigeria's appearance at the Hollywood Palladium was the coolest gig in town and the only way I was getting in was through the generosity of a local scalper. Surprisingly, this guy was my saviour. He sold me the ticket at face value! And whenever I saw him after that and nodded hi, he kept his silence.
It was a unique night. The rhythms were complex, complicated and owed nothing to 4/4. It kept shifting all night long and every now and then you could hear it start to drift into a recognisable time signature, become a 4/4 or a 6/8 for a few minutes, and then drift away into something else. The guitar playing was spectacular, three rhythm guitars with capos at various points on the neck, each playing part of the overall riff. On top of this Ade laid a melodic tapestry that hid its George Benson influence very well. At regular intervals he would have to stop as Africans in the audience got on stage and papered his sweating face with money.
When he returned the following year the beat was locked to a 4/4, but the guitars were just as spectacular.
Ivylander has posted a track that sounds like the progenitor to Ade, and admitted that seeing Sunny Ade in the 80s is the single best concert he's been to. Maybe this video will revive that party atmosphere.
Comments (11)
John, I keep thinkin' today is Saturday. Holiday and all. Do you have fourth of July over there?
Yeah, like yer gonna fall for that.
DM, of course we have fourth of July; it's the day after the third. But we do the get-ratfaced-and-harm-ourselves-with-fireworks on the 5th of November. We celebrate a guy who tried to blow up the Houses Of Parliament.
Hey, I know of Guy Fawkes(?) day.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you lacked intelligence, erudition, and worldly knowledge. That is already evident.
Why thank you sir, I blush at your exaggeration.
King Sunny Adé got me interested in 'jùjú' music in the 70's and the reason why I bought myself a talking drum. I never understood how he could make money touring with the army of musicians that came along. BTW, he's called 'King' because he was born to a royal family in Nigeria and Sunny is a deformation of his first name: Sunday.
The video is great, expecially the second song. I wanted to hear the whole song but was rudely interrupted (by YouTube's time limit?). This is much better than my memory of his first U.S. LP, sometime in the 1980s. If you have another transcendental recording by him, lay it on us sometime.
Spike, if you want videos of Ade, there's about 8 pages on YouTube. If I can find a digitised version of the 12 inch remix of "Ja-Fun-Mi" I'll put that up in a second. It's very psychedelic. There's a downhill progression across his Island albums, but that would be (for me) because 'Synchro System' is so spectacular.
You just pressed my "Hunt & Gather" button.
Ah, a cool drink of Ade is always welcome, even on a decidedly unfunky Wednesday morning at 2 AM...