Jimmy Masuluke - Sour Milk For Xmas
December 14, 2007
Here’s a bit of holiday nonsense, as promised, in the form of a goofy sax jive from South Africa, from sometime in the mid- to late 1960s. There’s not much else to say, except that it has a pretty solid chunka-chunka guitar riff going for it!
F.M. was yet another in a stable of South African independent labels in operation during the 60s (see the Trutone Dolls track on this site), which also included Tempo, Winner, Stokvel, and Tee-Vee among others. All were in competition against the majors, being Columbia, H.M.V., and the large South African independent, Gallotone (with it’s subsidiary, New Sound).
Jimmy Masuluke - Sour Milk For Xmas
Incidentally - Matsuli must have this record too, as he used the flip side, “Happy Happy Make It Snappy,” on a mix he made in 2006. The mix itself is no longer available, but you can check the tracklist here!
Trutone Dolls - Kudala Ngikutshela
July 29, 2007
I couldn’t resist heading back to Africa this week. And not only that, I’m taking a brief break from the really early material I’ve been posting and moving ahead to the 1960s for this release.
And why not? South Africa (as well as other countries, such as India) kept pressing 78s up until the late 60s, at least. There were a slew of local labels churning out hundreds of fantastic jive singles throughout that decade - labels like Troubadour, Tempo, Stokvel, Tee Vee, F.M., Gallo New Sound, and Winner, which is where this nice jive track comes from. The pressings were great, too. A mint copy sounds like a mint copy with little to no surface noise. For you folks who prefer the older stuff, give this a try!
I have no idea what happened to the Trutone Dolls, although I have another great record by the group on the Stokvel label. It’s titled “Jo Jo In School.” If any of you out there are familiar with the late-60s, South African jive compilation on Mercury Records titled “Ice Cream and Suckers,” you might remember that title track’s melody. The Dolls used that same backing track for their “Jo Jo” song. It was written by Strike Vilakazi and I guess he tended to reuse backing tracks for other artists as he saw fit!
Enjoy!
Trutone Dolls - Kudala Ngikutshela
