Lost Tracks: Franco - "Francophonic: A Retrospective, Vol. 1: 1953-1980"
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FRANCOPHONIC:
A RETROSPECTIVE,
Vol. 1: 1953-1980
Franco
Franco Luambo Makiadi, billed simply as Franco onstage and on record, toured the United States just once during his lifetime, despite his status as the biggest pop star in sub-Saharan Africa from the late '50s until his death, at the age of 51, in 1989. As a guitarist, bandleader, singer and composer, his rhythmic innovations are comparable to those of James Brown.
This elegant two-CD set includes 28 tracks, nearly 2 1/2 hours of irrepressible grooves spanning the first four decades of the Congo native's career. The 1957 hit "On Entre O.K., On Sort K.O.," which translates as "You enter okay, you leave knocked out," is a prime example of the Congolese rumba that Franco and his band, OK Jazz, helped to define. The recording isn't a rumba per se, but rather a hot blend of Afro-Cuban accents and rhythms akin to those plucked out on traditional African thumb-piano.
Similarly, "Tcha Tcha Tcha de Mir Amor" doesn't just update the elegant cha-cha beat invoked in its title. Galvanized by gritty, rumbling guitar lines, the record, its lyrics a mix of Spanish, French and Lingala, smacks of something closer to Bo Diddley's Latin-inflected R&B. "Azda," a 1973 hit made with a large, brassy installment of OK Jazz, is even more pressing, while the heavy undertow of "Mambu Ma Miondo" suggests African American funk. Stylistic evolutions aside, the one constant here is the magic that Franco's forefinger and thumb coax from the strings of his guitar, a fluid, ringing sound that seems sui generis.
-- Bill Friskics-Warren
DOWNLOAD THESE: "On Entre O.K., On Sort K.O.," "Azda," "Mambu Ma Miondo"
