If it were not for the mightier marketing muscle of Island Records promoting Sunny Ade, this bopping album may have introduced juju music to the world. Released in the UK by Stern's in 1983 and a year later in the U$, by Rounder,
Adewale Play For Me is full of tremendous percussion, great harmonic singing, and sweet slide guitar.
Segun Adewale began his career in I.K. Dairo's band, before moving on to work in a succession of bands and ultimately forming his own successful
Superstars International. A short biography can be found
here. One of the earlier recordings of the band, this record is an upbeat drop to counter the darkness that fills the news.
5 comments:
Fantastic blog, thanks a lot for the great music! Came here for a Franco record, but found a ton of great other stuff. Much appreciated! Greetings from The Netherlands
Wow what a great lp! I've been listening to King Sunny, E. Obey & IK Dairo since the 80s but had never heard of this Segun Adewale. But it certainly belongs right up there with the best of 'em. Thanks for sharing. -john
My wife and I were just remembering a great concert we went to when living in Edinburgh in 1985 given by Segun Adewele and I thought I would try to find the record to listen to again. No luck until I came across your great website. Fantastic to listen to it again. I remember the night we went to listen to them live as a great evening. It was in the Queens hall in Edinburgh- a rather staid venue but the whole place was rocking and dancing all night. They did a lot of fooling around demonstrating the talking drums and doing a lot of improvisation.
Terrific website doing a great job to preserve this type of music
Thanks for all the nice comments. I'm still listening to this one frequently. I'd love to have been there, in Edinburgh, back in the day!
You're right about those sweet guitar licks, and the way all the parts fit together so well. This is great fun, and the kind of thing that even today could be a hit if given sufficient radio promotion in many US cities I'm aware of.
But promotion costs...so I'm just grateful you've made it available. Thank you.
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