KING SUNNY ADE & HIS AFRICAN BEATS
BABA MO TUNDE (IndigeDisc 2147)

It's been a decade since King Sunny Adé's last album and when he came through town recently I seriously thought about going to his show, but then remembered how hard it is to park on Divisadero Street in San Francisco at night & how I was too worn-out to stand in a sweating crowd half the night. So I guess that shows I am officially past it as a clubber. Had I heard this album though, I would have been there with my dancing pumps on. Nigeria is back in the news with the fiftieth anniversary of their independence from Britain; it's not my top destination, much as I love Igbo highlife and the market literature that used to appear in Onitsha. I met their most famous author Chinua Achebe in 1988 and told him his books had inspired me to go to Africa. And how did you like Lagos? he asked. Well, to tell you the truth, I admitted, your books rather put me off going there, so I went to Zaire instead! Bethatasitmay, we all respond with a smile to the Juju beat as the talking drums drive up the pulse and then that sweet sauna-dripping electric steel guitar slides in followed by the mellow voice of King Sunny. Ever since 1982 when Adé signed to Island Records he has brought joy to the world, starting with "Ja fun mi." I remember I first heard him on John Peel's BBC radio show and, hearing Peelie's droll Liverpudlian namecheck after the song, I wrote "Sunnier Days" on the tape, thinking that was the band's name. To me the music always signals brightness. The music tends to get lost in its expansiveness, so it's nice that this is a two-disc set as it can stretch forever (like a cassette tape on auto-reverse, though not so literally). It doesn't break substantial new ground from 1983's classicSynchro System (which came out in a wonderful expanded remastered set from IndigeDisc in 2003). The lyrics are traditional Yoruban folklore; the music gets grooving and stays that way. Adé not only has a sweet voice, he is a fine guitarist. A synth and organ have been overdubbed: they add lots of atmosphere, especially to the last cut on disc one, "Baba l'oun S'ohun Gbogbo."