KONI COUMARE/FOLKLORE BAMBARA
F. DIABATE guitar player
Fiesta, 1960, 360.059
Koni Coumare (according to the spelling of the time) was a fantastic singer from Mali and supposed to be the first singer to record an album in the 1950s. Here she was recorded by the French label Fiesta which was a sub-label of Fonior founded in 1947. Its goal was primarily to specialize in North African artists and then added some artists from Sub-Saharan French colonies and Belgian Congo.
The ''guitar player'' was her husband Fotigui Diabaté who played the n'goni. At that time everything that was a lute-like instrument was systematically called ''guitar''. He plays on all tracks except for 2 of them. On tracks A5 and A6 Coumare is backed by anonymous female singers and some drumming.
All the songs may be extracts I think for each track lasts between 2'30 and 3'.
I would say that in order to listen to this LP as it should be it would be better to know a bit about traditional Malian music and especially singing with very tense voices which can sound too piercing to some ears... To the connoisseurs I would say enjoy !
Thank you very much for this album, really a pleasure to be able to listen to Koni Coumare with a still young voice, in the authentic Bamana style, you are right we connoisseurs are going to enjoy a lot.
ReplyDeleteAs an introduction, for new listeners, it may be interesting to listen to the instrumental version of the first two songs on the album, which Djeli Fotigui Diabaté performs in this video. https://youtu.be/ON4EFej_1d8
Hi ngoni, I'm glad you enjoyed this LP. I've changed the link to the files from mediafire to mega.nz; It should be alright now for listening and downloading. Thanks for your concern about new listeners.
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