Having been unable to share one track from 4/10/92 and going cold on another from 11/10/92, it is with some relief that I’m finally able to include a track from the Wawali Bonane et Generation Soukouss Enzenze Vol. 1 album. Peel adored this album to such an extent that when he was asked for a list of his Top 20 albums for a Guardian feature in 1997, this album was included alongside some of his usual suspects like Trout Mask Replica and Ramones.
Peel bought the Generation Soukouss Enzenze album, in late September 1992 during a spree of impulse record purchasing with no prior knowledge of Bonane and as he confessed when first playing the track, Fatoumata on 4/10/92, “I picked up a CD and thought to meself ‘I like the look of that.’ The fellow on the front looked kind of reassuring and I thought, ‘Well I’ll try that.’ And I’m really glad that I did because it is stupendous!”
I agree with him in regards to Fatoumata, not so much in terms of Bayaya, but there’s enough there to merit inclusion here. Furthermore, given that Bayaya was the opening track on the album, it’s nice to imagine Peel being confronted by it as the first thing he heard when he played the record for the first time and the smile of happiness and warming of his soul spreading through him as Bonane and his collaborators including Beniko ‘Popolipo’ Zangilu worked their magic for him. Indeed, Peel resolved after playing this track to go out and find any record which had Popolipo playing on it. He was still keeping this up a decade later. On this programme, he would call Bayaya his favourite track on the album.
There is some unintentional hilarity at the end of the track as the brass section wait patiently for 5 minutes to start playing their part only to be faded out within 15 seconds. It brought to mind Bill Bailey’s observation about the tendency for TV theme tunes to be faded out before reaching their best bit with Exhibit A being the guitar break on the BBC snooker coverage. “I’m shouting at the television, ‘PLAY THE REST OF THE TRACK!’ I got thrown out of Dixons for doing that.”
Video courtesy of Scorpiopetey2
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