Anthology 2

How to collect the music of Fela Kuti has long challenged record buyers. His original vinyl albums tended to contain just one or two long, sprawling tracks, making it extremely difficulty to present conventional ‘Best Of’ collections, although there have been one or two brave attempts. Finally, however, in the Anthology series we have the answer. The first volume traced the story of the evolution of his earlier music over two CDs and an accompanying DVD, and volume two follows a similar format to take the story on through the mid and late 70s with his Africa 70 band. The two CDs manage to cram in 11 of the key tracks – quite some achievement given that the shortest is ten and a half minutes and a couple of tracks clock in at 17 minutes plus. We get such incendiary Fela landmarks as ‘Expensive Shit, ‘Kalakuta Show, ‘Zombie, ‘Unknown Soldier’ and ‘Coffin for the Head of State.’ Over 30 years later, it’s hard to say anything particularly new about this music, although what strikes one perhaps more noticeably than before is just how closely he must have been listening to American rock music at the time. My son walked into the room while the 1975 track ‘He Miss Road’ was playing and asked if it was the Doors. That’s exactly what the organ jam at the end of the track sounds like. Then comes ‘Everything Scatter’ and its swampy, creole rhythms and female chorus might have come from Dr John’s first album. The DVD is great, too – a never-previously-released film of a concert in Berlin in 1978, featuring a dynamite version of ‘VIP (Vagabonds In Power)’ and three other elongated tracks that find Fela and band at the height of their wild, improv powers. A third volume is due later this year to conclude the journey.