Poor Man No Get Brother: Assembly & Revolution 1965-1975

If anything good came of Fela's death, one thing was the attention focused not only on the music of the man, but of his country. As aficionados of Afro-beat have known for a long time, there were other bands and sounds that erupted from Lagos during the '70s. Bucknor was a contemporary of Fela, and hugely popular in the country. Of course, a lot of this sounds like the man himself -- it would be asking a lot not to be influenced by that sound. But the progression of the songs here is more rhythmic and more circular -- not a march toward the abyss, but a march around your head. The first and most important thing Bucknor wants to do is to make you dance. The lyrics are strong and mostly political, but the groove is the thing here. These tunes are drenched in sweat, played with the hard-edged precision of men who could and often did play for hours. Fans of the sound will love this. Anyone who's fond of funky music or who loves the sound of Memphis and Muscle Shoals and Detroit but hates the time limitations of the 7" groove will dig this severely. This is another great moment from a scene that is only now reaching Western ears. Stay tuned.