David Dalle
Thursday January 31st, 2019 with David Dalle
A retrospective of the other great Lion of Zimbabwe, Oliver Mtukudzi, who passed away last week, with music from 1978-2018. Music from Somalia with the Dur-Dur Band.

Another sad farewell on my show today, to the great Oliver Mtukudzi who died last Wednesday in Harare only 66 years old. In a career spanning 4 decades he, along with his older colleague Thomas Mapfumo, became the most recognizable voice from Zimbabwe. In 1977 he spent a year in the same band (the Wagon Wheels) with Mapfumo before striking out on his own in 1978 with his own band The Black Spirits and first album "Ndipeiwo Zano". He toured throughout Europe and North America many times including Ottawa and had a stellar career releasing over 60 albums. We will hear from a few of them spanning his entire recording career from his first album in 1978 to his final album from 2018. We will also hear from the recent reissue of the Dur-Dur Band from Somalia on Analog Africa. This superb band was formed in 1984 and featured four terrific lead vocalists, male and female: Sahra Dawo, Mukhtar Ramadan Idii, Shimaali Ahmed Shimaali, Abdulahi Sharif. They were led by band founder Isse Dahir Qassin who focused on mixing traditional Somali music with a wide range of Western music, particularly soul, funk, reggae, making irresistible music. Analog Africa is releasing their full albums, with Volume 1 and Volume 2 being the actual album names originally released in Somalia in 1986 and 1987. We will hear from the Volume 1 today and Volume 2 on a later show. Really, I am tempted to just pop the album in and let it play it is just so good!