A day in the life

It wasn’t to last, but for six years it seemed as if rock’n’roll was there to stay, as these two new sets prove. By David Hutcheon.

outliers in the 1960s, now they found an abundance of fellow travellers. With support from Fela Kuti, who had signed to EMI, the only label chasing the youth market, an “Afro Family” started picking up the pace, led by flare-wearing freaks such as OFO The Black Company (of Allah Wakbarr fame) and Ginger Baker. EMI sent scouts into Biafra, where it uncovered, among others, The Funkees. The packaging is curious: Now-Again has issued this as two books, each with a CD of superb music and a masterful essay by Uchenna Ikonne. But because these are two releases, the essay is chopped up to match the music. Thus the first 35 pages are identical, then go their separate ways, only to come back together and split again. Was a single box, with two discs and 150-page history, really seen as unmarketable? Such quibbles apart, this is a collection that is close to essential. Distance and culture meant none of the bands would be hampered by the labels that kept apart black and white sounds elsewhere: every band could be fronted by James Brown, singing in English, yet feature Eric Clapton and Eddie Hazel on guitar, Benny Benjamin and Ginger Baker on drums. But – and so began the end of Afro rock – none could be as cool as Kuti, Public Enemy No. 1, and so the beat changed yet again, to the more ‘traditional’ juju. As King Sunny Adé rose, rock fell into obscurity, just too early to register, as world music became a thing. Here are 34 reasons to praise the crate-diggers.