Alèmayèhu Eshèté, Ethiopiques 9, Buda Musique, CD 829832 (2001)
One of the great singers of the brief but glorious golden age of Ethiopian jazz, funk and soul of the early 1970s, Alèmayèhu Eshèté is outstanding as a prolific performer and songwriter, incorporating rock’n’roll and soul influences into his work. His epithets include The James Brown of Ethiopia and The Elvis Presley of Ethiopia, which may say as much about his stage presence and sense of showmanship as they do about his style of singing. His discography, according to the CD sleeve notes, includes over thirty 45″ singles. His rise to popularity in the early 1960s when he was in his early 20s is almost the stuff of dreams: he arrived in Addis Ababa from the provinces as a teenager to perform in nightclubs and was snatched up by the Police Orchestra, then one of a few institutional bands sanctioned by the Ethiopian government to play popular modern music, as a rival to the equally young and gifted singer Tlahoun Gessesse who was performing for the Imperial Body Guard (later just Body Guard) Band. Towards the end of the 1960s, with government restrictions easing on music production and performance, Eshèté left the Police Orchestra to join a new generation of independent bands such as the Alem-Girma Band (which he helped to found) and Soul Ekos.
This compilation of 22 songs gathers up 15 songs recorded from 1970 to 1974 with the All Star Band (1971 – 1972) and the Alem-Girma Band (1973 – 1974) and seven songs recorded in 1969. The bulk of the songs were composed by Eshèté himself with their arrangements by fellow Alem-Grima Band member Girma Beyene. Generally the music reflects Eshèté and his fellow band members’ interest in the contemporary Western rock, funk and soul that were arriving in Ethiopia in the early 1970s, though some of Eshete’s warbling vocals might derive from native Ethiopian folk music traditions. His singing is light and nimble, and on some songs he playfully and affectionately mimics his role model James Brown. He probably doesn’t quite match his great rival Tlahoun Gessesse in range and expression but what he does do with his voice – adopting influences from soul and funk (various songs) and rock’n’roll (“Mekeyershin salawq”), and whether he sings love songs (“Eruq yaleshew”) or encouraging social harmony (“Memar memeramer”) – he sings with gusto and enjoyment.
Most songs are very likeable though my preference is for songs that have very urgent rhythms and not-quite-sunny moods (early tracks “Addis Abeba bete” and “Qondjit”) or are very different from the majority of the tracks in pace, atmosphere and mood, like the almost psychedelic and hypnotic “Tedesteshal wey?” The tracks recorded in 1969 have quite poor sound compared to the others and can sound a little flat which is a pity as a few of them (“Gizew honeshenna”, “Heywete abatey new”, “Ya tara”) are very beguiling in their melodies and rhythms, and sound less Western than other tracks, and here Eshèté simply lets rip with the undulating voice on these pieces. I don’t care that much for the songs where Eshèté copies James Brown and other Western singers and I usually skip over these if I’m playing the album in its entirety.
On the whole, this is a very eclectic collection of songs that showcase a great singer with a great ability to sing in both Western and native Ethiopian contemporary styles.